Daily 5 - Day 299

Today's Daily 5:

1. Two helpful advising meetings as I ponder things coming next
2. Coffee with a long-time friend who also happens to be the Pentecostal chaplain at the university here (who I've known since I was a student at said university).  It was great to talk with him about where my journey has taken me and where he and his family are at.  And it was fun to talk about some of the more "spirit-filled" things that I don't get to talk about a lot with people in Calgary.
3. My former roommate phoned from the UK today.  We spent an hour catching up on each others lives and plans for the next several months.  And we laughed, and talked about how God was working.  It was so good to chat with her.  I really miss her.
4. Got a call about a potential job interview - another one of those clarifying questions before they decide who they're interviewing sort of things, but this one might actually fit well with some of what I'm dreaming about.
5. Managed to get all the information I need to make some decisions, and mostly made the decisions - now I'm going to sleep on it for a night and finalize things tomorrow.
6. Really enjoying reading some fiction again lately after about a 1.5 year hiatus for a variety of reasons.
7. Had a natural health treatment tonight that confirmed that my body is actually significantly less stressed since I am no longer working at my previous employer.
8. thankful for the advice of family as I navigate some interesting waters
9. leftovers, but good food for several meals today
10. hot apple cider while I met with my chaplain friend - haven't had that in ages, and this stuff was tasty!

How am I Choosing Joy?

These thoughts from Richard Rohr appeared in my inbox the other day.  If you've hung around this blog long, you'll see why they made me laugh, and reel, and take a few days to absorb them.  Choosing joy has been sort of a theme for me.  A major theme and goal, really.  Someday I'll write about just how impacting it was to me to discover that there was something of a choice in that...

But for now, I thought I'd share Richard Rohr's thoughts with you, and invite you to join me in "collapsing into joy."

Question of the Day: How am I choosing joy? Joy is both a decision and a surrender.  Eventually we stop being preoccupied with creating a fault-free environment that will ensure our own happiness, and we discover that joy is much more like falling into an objective Presence, a Larger Body, Love itself, a unified field, that many of us would call God.  You do not create love, you “fall” into it. You do not attain God, you fall into Him or Her.  You do not manufacture joy, you collapse into it when you give up trying to make it happen. What freedom when we no longer have to wait for ourselves to be happy!  There is no waiting, only receiving. This feast of the Body of Christ is also a promise of joy, and quite daringly—in a quite physical encounter of union, table fellowship, and close intimacy.  “I am telling you this so that my own joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 9