Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Give, and it shall be given to you. Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they pour into the fold of your garment. For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.   Luke 6

My window is open this morning and I smell spring. The birds are talking in the shrubs along the fence. When I read the above line, I smiled. A few minutes earlier I’d heard sirens wailing and overtaking the sounds of the neighborhood, and then they faded and went away and I hear spring.

“Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they pour into the fold of your garment.” That’s what it feels like this morning. I will measure out my today in a way that remembers this joy, right now.  

It’s never easy to remember the quiet joy when experiences suddenly toss us a garbage bag full of surprises. Hey! What’s that! we want to say. That’s not mine! What are you doing??? instead of simply throwing the bag in the nearby garbage can and letting go of it. If it’s not ours, we sure don’t need to keep it. None of us deserve bad treatment, but if we make the choice to measure out peace today, perhaps the transfer from catching the garbage to depositing the garbage will be shorter.

Have a simple day today. Consider how you measure out life and what is measured back.