Wandering in Wantonness, Yearning for Freedom

Why is it that the more I desire freedom, the less of it I have? 

Am I too irresponsible with the freedom I do have? Do I hold so tightly to my freedom that I crush it, like a child might crush a flower in their hand in their effort to protect it? I know that love can be bruised, and even extinguished, if held too tightly—I have been the constrictor and constricted at different points in my life. Love cannot flourish without freedom. 

So too, freedom cannot be true freedom without boundaries, else it becomes anarchy or licentiousness: "[Freedom] requires efforts, it presupposes mental and moral qualities of a high order to be generally diffused in the society where it exists" said John C Calhoun. Freedom must be tempered with morality, or the free-will of one may suffocate or imprison the will of another. Self-determination can easily become selfishness. When I rejoice in my deliverance rather than my Deliverer, I have made an idol out of a gift. 

My history tutor succeeded in teaching me at least one thing in my eight weeks of Oxford learning: Rights entail responsibilities. According to the Declaration of Independence, freedom is a God-given right. Life is a right. Private ownership of things [not people] is a right. With these rights then, come responsibilities. A right is a moral duty, a rule of conduct; it is a just claim and a privilege. When we want a right without assuming the responsibility it entails, it will crumble. Thus, when I want freedom on my terms, I find what I have called freedom is hollow, crumpled in my grasping hand. When I buck the parameters given because they feel confining, am I asserting freedom of will or willful selfishness? 

I want the bit in my teeth so I can have my head. I want to come and go as I please at work, but I need to be subject to the hours of operation, to be available to my co-workers. All the other hours of the week are my own. If I squander my mornings with sleep, having stayed up too late, is that the fault of my work for being too early, or my own, for being undisciplined? And if I feel stifled at work by having to remain indoors on a lovely day, haven't I chosen a job that is predominantly indoors? I have chosen to be subject to that parameter by choosing this job over another. Have I stifled my freedom to go hiking or to sit on my porch to read or write? By no means. There are certain hours of the day when I have chosen not to pursue those things, but they are still mine to pursue on off days and off hours. Further, I couldn't afford car insurance or gasoline, housing or food if I didn't have a job, so I would be less free to live in a mountainous state to hike in if I didn't have my job. 

Freedom has its framework, keeping it from becoming an amorphous, languid, insipid dissipation. I am only free to communicate in writing if I obey the rules of grammar. I am only free to hike if I have strengthened my muscles; taken care to feed my body the right proteins, fruits, and vegetables; looked up a route and driven to it. I can't hike in Buena Vista if I don't get in my car and drive two hours away in the right direction. Because I live in this place, I necessarily do not live in any other place. Is that somehow not free?

I now come back to love not being true love without freedom. When you feel like you have to love someone back because they care so much about you, is that really love or obligation? By very definition, the word obligation means binding. And while freedom involves duty and staying within morality—like a thought is only free to be expressed and understood when it is bound by proper punctuation—it is not binding, or non-freedom. A thing cannot be itself and its opposite. This is why God gave humans freedom of will. Yes, taken out of its parameters it is turned into anarchy, self-indulgence, and licence—these broken forms being the heartbreak and death of millions and millions throughout history. 

Yet what a difference it is to freely give love, without feeling we have to! If we were obligated to love God because He loves us, rather than being allowed to choose to love Him, that would not be love. It would be duty, it would be bindingly obligatory, it would be dull and colourless. I have tried to cause my heart to love warmly because I was loved and felt I must love in return. I have tried to be friends with people who were so needy for love that they grasped at friendship and affection. These relationships do not work. They frustrate and wound both people. When the Bible says we love because God first loved us, it does not mean that we feel we are expected to love God because He loved us. It means we are overwhelmed, awed by His love for us. We are humbled by His love and we want to return it, we want Him to be loved, too! This real love appears similar to loving out of duty, but the difference is in the heart. We gladly lay down our lives, give of our time and heart with no trace of resentment or drudgery.

Freedom is not unrestrained frolic and revelry, as our culture often thinks. That is the definition of wantonness. In fact, wantonness is said to be, "resistant to control, willful; a discordant sound." I shuddered at this definition, because it so accurately describes my heart. I resist control in my heart and in my words. I am willful and selfish. The older I get, the more I find how self-absorbed I am. That makes for a discordant strain in God's harmony. Like Melchor in The Silmarillion, or the little farandolae in A Wind in the Door, I sing my own song, thinking that it is better to be myself than to be part of the mighty chorus, the rooted, life-giving farandola. I want to do my own thing rather than being confined by doing what others want. And in some ways, that is good. I shouldn't go along with the crowd of our culture. But I am a member of the Body of Christ, not an individual. It is freedom to live with, to serve with, to give myself for Jesus—and He says I do that by being part of His body. I don't lose myself by being part of Him. I do not make music by singing my own song, I make discord. When I sing with the host of heaven and the saints, we shake the universe with the song of Illúvitar, the mighty chorus vibrating life and creativity and joy into every atom and galaxy.

All this time I have been grasping at wantonness, lack of restraint. I have not been yearning for freedom after all, I have been craving self indulgence: 

"Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom's instruction" (Prov 29:18 NIV).  

Or as the ESV says, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law."  

Prophetic vision and the instruction of wisdom are our parameters; they are the complete thought bound in a sentence, the melody of the symphony. The head of the Body is Christ—the Head has the eyes, and through the brain, the eyes communicate to the rest of the body what it should do. The wisdom and the vision come from Christ through His prophets, apostles, and teachers. I have rarely found these people leading a church, but I have shared many a meal with them around a table, exchanged letters and calls with them, read their books, and lived and worked alongside them. 

Freedom is not unrestraint—that is wantonness. Yet it is not a binding cord, either. Freedom is not a chain, it is a channel. A river that overflows its banks is out of control, damaging property, sometimes killing people. People who cast off restraint are said to run wild, often doing much more harm than a surging river or stampeding [uncontrolled] herd. "That which we restrain we keep within limits; that which we restrict we keep within certain definite limits; that which we repress we try to put out of existence" (Century Dictionary, 1902). When I try to cast off restraint, I am not pursuing freedom. When I seek God's wisdom, it represses sin in me, crucifying my flesh so that I might be fully alive to Christ in my spirit. When I seek God's vision, when I heed wisdom's instruction, then—and only then—am I free. 

Unexpected Gifts from Saint Nicholas

ONCE upon a time, in a village across the sea, there lived a boy called Johann. He ran through the back alleys with several other urchins, stirring up trouble like dust. When there was enough food for his mother to make dinner, Johann would invariably arrive at that meal with dirt wiped across his face and holes ripped in his threadbare trousers. Very rarely was he in school, because he often got into fights there. So, perhaps it is not surprising that on Christmas morning, Johann did not find bundles of presents in his thin stocking. 

There were two hard lumps in the grey rag Johann had hung by the fire the night before. Saint Nicholas had left him something, at least! Plunging his hand down the sock, Johann's fingers enclosed upon a hard object. He pulled out a block of wood with no special markings, or purpose, it seemed. Disappointed, Johann felt carefully in the toe of his stocking and pulled out a hard, dusty stump of coal. Nothing else dropped out of the shabby sock when he turned it upside down, though a tear dropped out of the corner of his eye. He had not been good enough for Saint Nicholas to give him any gifts. Blocks of wood and chunks of coal were hardly gifts after all. Nevertheless, Johann put the items in his capacious pockets and ran out to play.

After wandering streets filled with puddles and deep ruts, Johann's stomach gave a grunt, then a rumble. He sighed, having nothing to put in that hollow place. Longingly, he eyed the various workmen eating their midday meals. The blacksmith, the candlemaker, the shoemaker, and the carpenter were all supping, at the very least, on bread and cheese. Without realising it, Johann had shuffled closer to these men, if only to fill his nose with the smell of the pottage the carpenter was drinking slowly from his earthen mug.  The man noticed the waif-like boy edging closer and called out in a gruff voice, "Boy! What are ye doing 'round here?"

Johann looked at his feet, not knowing what to say. The rough hand of the woodworker came down, none-too-gently, on his collar; a grey-grizzled face appeared before his downcast eyes. "I asked ye a question; I expect an answer." Johann shifted from one filthy foot to the other and mumbled, "Nothin'," hoping to be let go. "Not sufficient, mischief-maker," the carpenter hissed. "Here!" The big man thrust a broom into Johann's hand and pointed to a pile of shavings and dust. "Sweep that floor until every curl of wood is gone and I'll give ye your own bowl of stew." Johann started at this offer. Cautiously he looked at the bearded man to see if he was serious. The old man looked hard at him, then glanced at the wood chips. Johann began to sweep with more goodwill than he had ever had before. In a quarter of an hour the floor was swept smooth and clean. In a few minutes more, Johann's legs were dangling from a tall bench and he hungrily swallowed the bowl of promised stew.

"How would ye like to sweep my floor every evening after work?" the carpenter asked. Johann thought a moment. "Would I get a cup of soup every night?" The shadow of a smile brushed the woodworker's face. "Well, no. I can't promise tha'. But if I've a bit o' cheese, or bread, mayhap I could give ye that as wage." Johann needed no further convincing. "I'll come," he said. So, every evening before dark, Johann swept clean the carpenter's floor. He liked watching the man's big arms shave long curls of wood off of sleigh runners, cabinets, chairs, and tables. He became curious to know how the corners of cupboards were fitted so exactly together, or how a piece of wood could transform into the arm of a chair, with grooves and scroll work. But the magic Johann liked best of all was when the woodworker took a block of wood and turned it into a ladle, or a candle stick, or a figure of some sort. The animals and men spun from a single chunk of wood held captive Johann's thoughts before he drifted to sleep. He wanted to learn how to make such things, dreamed often that he had the tools and talents to do so.

One day, Johann screwed up his courage and asked the woodcarver, "Could you teach me to find the figure in the wood?" He hadn't meant to ask quite that way, but the very wording made the carver sit back and look at the boy. Yes, he would do. That scruffy, ragged boy knew that the figure was already inside the thick slices of pine and maple and ash. The wood had to speak to one's fingers about what lay inside; the carver couldn't just make the wood turn into a horse, or a man, or a bear. The bearded face slowly moved up and down in a nod. "I will loan ye my tools and answer your questions, but ye must find what lies inside the wood." Johann was delighted—and eager to begin. From his pocket he pulled out a chunk of wood, much-fingered and a bit rounded at the corners. "I have this block of maple that Saint Nicholas gave me at Christmas. Should I use that?" The carpenter nodded thoughtfully, and work began that very day.

In the weeks that followed, whenever Johann wasn't working around the shop—for he now helped the woodworker most of the day by handing him tools, sweeping, oiling tabletops, and polishing finished goods—he watched the woodcarver with rapt attention, or worked on his carving. The block had taken the rough shape of a four-footed animal with a big patch of wood still obscuring the head. Johann felt the edges of the wood and followed the contour of the knots. After much honing and careful whittling, a rough elk or reindeer could be discerned. It was carefully shaved and shaped by Johann's hand, by the strokes taught by the master carver, and by the words used to direct the boy. Near the autumn of the year, Johann sanded his reindeer, rounding off all the sharp, hard edges. Hours and days and weeks'-worth of work had been poured into the small figure. The woodworker nodded his approval, saying little when Johann showed him the finished piece.  

"Do ye have anything else ye can bring to life like tha'?" the older man queried. The boy thought a moment and pulled out his piece of coal, still in one of his enormous pockets. "This?" he offered. "No, tha' will not do. But I will tell ye what you can do with that..." He showed Johann how to gather the right sorts of scraps to make soap, then they broke the coal into smaller pieces and made a little fire. Over that small fire swung the kettle and soap ingredients, needing to be boiled before it could fully become soap. When it was completed, Johann sold the soap to earn a few pence for a Christmas dinner for his family. It was not much money, but he could buy bread, cheese, and a bit of fruit to share. One would have thought Johann had provided a kingly feast the way his family exclaimed and enjoyed that meal.

Before bed, Johann pulled out his treasured reindeer. He knew what he wanted to do with it. Saint Nicholas always gave gifts, but he never seemed to receive any. Carefully, Johann put the deer near his stocking with a crudely lettered tag: For Saint Nicholas. He crawled into bed feeling glad and tired from his day's work and celebrating. 

Early in the morning, Johann slipped out of bed and hurried to his stocking. It lay on the floor, filled with chocolate bits, a coin or two, a pear, some sweet rolls, and a block of wood. A neatly lettered note sat in the place of the reindeer: Dear Johann, it said, thank you for the gift you left me, it is beautiful. I see that you used my gifts from last year very well. If you will continue to work with your hands, use your gifts wisely, and share out of your small profits, you will prosper. Johann carefully stored the chocolate and coins, shared his sweet rolls with his two brothers, and saved the pear for his woodcarving friend. He fingered the block of wood, wondering what lived inside this one. Soon he would know. He set off for the workshop, eager to watch the carpenter work, to smell the fresh wood shavings, and to put his hands and head to the tasks before him. So, Johann grew and prospered, all because Saint Nicholas had given him a block of wood and a lump of coal.

—The End.

Being Italian for a Day

Today I stepped back in time and took life at a slower pace. For nearly seven hours I was given the gift of being Italian. 

It all began about a year ago when our (then) new accountant kept telling those of us in the office about "tomato day". She and her husband would go to the fields and pick bushels of tomatoes. They would save them for a week to make sure they were really ripe. Then began the process of turning those tomatoes into a year's worth of pasta sauce. Many a time I have sampled minestrone, Italian vegetable soup, and so forth imbued in the goodness of this homemade sauce. Today I was given the opportunity to join in the labour of the fruits.

Three of us from the village arrived at Sue and Blake's house around nine in the morning. We petted the dog, washed our hands, met some family, and jumped in to the fray. Soon we were slicing onions in great big quarter chunks and learning how to peel garlic by shaking it inside two metal bowls (this actually works, you should try it). I also encountered a wooden spoon longer than my leg, which is impressive, because my legs are the longest part of me. When all was said, sliced, and done, we had four bushels of tomatoes, six onions, two bulbs of garlic, and two large containers of basil simmering over the camp stove in a collective eighty quarts. If you have never seen a twenty quart pot, you may not realise how massive it is compared to whatever normal persons use for cooking. However, the twenty quart pot was significantly dwarfed by the sixty quart pot and the spoon the size of Reepicheep's coracle paddle. Perhaps a photo will help illustrate my point:

See, doesn't the twenty quart pot look like your everyday sort of soup pot? Unless you normally feed an army, however, that pot was by no means everyday-ish. 

We stirred and squashed tomatoes for a few hours. We ate lunch. We petted Verona some more. Finally, the tomatoes began to boil into a rich red, aromatic fervour. We washed our hands, set up the press, gathered pots and buckets, and formed an assembly-line. Blake said "go!" and we began. Amanda poured the boiling hot tomato mixture into the wide funnel, I pressed it down with the plunger, and Sue cleared the skins and debris as they filled the flat "catcher". Those skins and onions and basil leaves went back into the press's funnel—we wanted all that flavour! Then they were removed to the rubbish. Various splatterings and eruptions left us with orangey splotches on our arms, feet, jeans, and shirts. Blake kept bringing pots and pans to catch the juices and thick sauce. We filled four different containers with that crimson, delicious-smelling sauce. Then back into those huge pots it went for an hour to boil out any bacteria. 

We stirred continuously to prevent burning the sauce. We set up the table with jar after jar—over sixty of them. Blake boiled the lids to ensure a good seal. Sue took soundings with the thermometer—we had to hit 180º. We let the sauce "percolate" there for about half an hour. Out came the silver funnel for filling small mouth jars. Out came ladles and glass measuring cups with pour spouts. Next came the empty boxes to put the finished jars in for safe-keeping. Over came the neighbour girl to help wipe around the jar tops to make sure they sealed well. All was set... Then Blake said, "Go!" and we were in full swing. Clear jar after clear jar was filled with hot, pungent, tomato sauce. Red jar after red jar was passed to me to put in the empty boxes. In a matter of minutes sixty-two empty jars were full and sitting in their cardboard casings on the counter.

The dishes were washed and drip-drying; the delightful "pop!" of the seals was beginning; and four tired persons were grinning at the success of the day. We had made legitimate Sicilian tomato sauce with a recipe and process passed down from Blake's grandparents. We had been swashed in hot red juices and remained standing. We had picked up nearly all the parts and pieces... And it wasn't even four o'clock yet.

It felt good to stir hot sauce on a cool Autumn day. It was rewarding to slow down and make the year's supply of sauce, rather than buying that processed stuff from the grocery. I was reminded of all those times growing up when my mother, sisters, and I cut, cooked, mashed,  pressed, and strained apples for applesauce. I remember crisp days, sweet smells, and very tired arms from hand cranking that machine. But the satisfaction at the end of the day in making one's own food with one's own produce and labours was just the same. There is something to be said for making things rather than buying them.

There is a sweet satisfaction a a job well-done. There is camaraderie, fellowship, and working together in the process. You get to know stories you might never have heard were you not using an oar to paddle red sauce over open flames. You learn more about your friends and family, your skills and others', by working together. And you have to take life slowly when you're watching a sixty quart pot of tomatoes boiling. I'm glad I was allowed to be Italian for the day.

~ Johanna

Real Work

Vivid memories are stored for numerous reasons, from shock or surprise, to excitement or pain. One such memory of mine is of a friend picking me up for a weekend adventure. Five minutes into our drive, she asked the question that made my hackles rise, "How long do you see yourself working in your current position?" 

Even now my heart rate increases and my blood pressure rises. I hear her underlying question, "When are you going to get a real job?" I could have retorted, in good Madeleine L'Engle fashion, "'What is real?' Is it that which our hands close around, which our eyes see? No! The things which are most real are unseen, according to St Paul. We 'know' not by sight, but by what something actually is. So what is a real job by your own definition?" I did not respond with a single inquiry, however.  It is difficult for me to articulate my position instantly, putting the question-asker on the defensive when they have clearly offended me. It is probably healthier for my friendships that I am slow on my feet when it comes to replies.

Though my answer that day did not cause my friend to question her assumptions, I have questioned them many times since then. Her query not only wounded my heart about my work, it revealed a sore misunderstanding of both reality and work. A 'real job' in my friend's mind boiled down to tangible ends: healthcare, pay checks, and a retirement plan. I am sickened to realise that most persons in our culture (and the civilised world at large) would agree*. Horror! 

Let us recall to mind St Paul's assertion that, "the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (II Cor 4.18b) Thus, the most 'real' things are intangible things like honesty, graciousness, patience, compassion, hope, and so forth. But I do not want to dwell upon reality so much as 'work'. What is work, and what is work for?

Often the word 'work' elicits a groan. Many persons think work is synonymous with 'unenjoyable misery' it seems. However, the Online Etymological Dictionary defines work thus: "physical labour, toil; skilled trade, craft..." And Dorothy L Sayers brilliantly and succinctly calls us to see work in this way:

I asked that [work] should be looked upon, not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfil itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself; and that man, made in God’s image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.

 ~ Dorothy L Sayers, Why Work

Some jobs are not worth doing. Many items do not fit a need and are not worth making*. A work should be undertaken because it is good in itself, or because it benefits others. Perhaps this is why many persons dread Mondays – they are not doing something that breathes life into their own or others' souls. Even more painfully, because what they are doing is not worth doing.

Another reason for frustration in work is that the goal of the work is good, but the way it is gone about is not structurally sound, so those good ends are never attained. I once worked helping children learn and grow, a most worthy calling in itself. Yet, I could not bear to be around my co-workers. They came in every day to earn a pay check and benefits, for recognition and renown. I saw children chastised and held back because my co-workers did not try to understand their little oddities or help lead them out of ignorance. For the brief time that I was there I sought to love on those children the most. In the end, I could not remain in my position because the whole structure was misdirected and fragmented, there was no redeeming it from the inside. 

Finally, what is work for? Ideally, our work should fulfil a need, bring order or healing, or serve and enrich others, while bringing us joy. Certainly things like street sweepers, rubbish collectors, waste management, and other unpleasant jobs must be done. We live in a world with rubbish and decay. But even those jobs seek to keep persons well and make towns aesthetically pleasing; they are simply different ways of being a doctor or an artist, who also keep persons healthy and make things that are pleasing to the eye. And when we bring order to a place, person, or situation there is a sense of satisfaction.

We are called to various forms of labour, as varied as the personalities we possess. And often we are called to a conglomerate of labours, each worthy in its own place – lifting this or that, writing, cooking meals to share, asking good questions to spur thoughtful conversation, saving lives, cleaning up sickness for a friend, making music, bearing and raising children... It is hard to birth an essay, as it is hard to lift fifty large boxes, or to raise children day in and day out. But just because a thing is difficult does not mean it is not a joy. And just because something gives life to our souls does not mean that it is not real work. And just because we do not earn a pay check for much of our work does not mean it is less important. When we enjoy the work of our hands, finding it pleasurable, then we may rejoice in the kindness of God. For He made us to take joy in creating, cultivating, and caring in multi-fold ways.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul. 

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait. 

~ A Psalm of Life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Stanzas two and nine)

Just as labour comes in many forms, so the payment of labour does, too. It may mean insurance or a pay check, or it may be satisfaction in the work, or it could be that someone goes home well, or that order and beauty have been made. My hope is that my life shows my friend, and those who share her mindset, that living life well, working hard, enjoying beauty, and loving others all go hand in hand. In the end I want to love others well through the work that I do. Let us then be up and doing, with a heart to labour and to love.

~ Johanna

*While it is good to work hard in order to afford travel, own nice things, etc., nothing in our world is certain. Not jobs, banks, health, retirement funds, or anything else. Only God is unfailing. 

*On this topic of work being a good in itself, see C S Lewis' essay Good Work and Good Works

Our Work is Our Play

Drudgery is not what our work is meant to be.
Our work should be our play.

~ Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water (pg 199, Waterbrook Press)

Monday mornings seem to have a connotation of displeasure. The weekend is over and it is 'back to the grind'. Or is it? The etymology of the word grind is to 'destroy by crushing,' the very opposite of create which means to 'beget or bring forth, to grow.' What do you do at work each day? Do you destroy things, or birth new ideas and items? 

Now think, what do you do in your 'play' or down time? Often our time spent in recreation (literally re-creation) is very focused. Perhaps you like to trail run or rock climb, both take training, eating well, and dedication. Or maybe you, like me, enjoy cooking. I find it a delightful challenge taking various elements and combining them into something entirely different. There is ingenuity and creativity in bringing forth new recipes. And so it goes -- reading orders one's mind. Writing requires discipline and effort. Sports demand physical stamina, sweat, and work. Playing an instrument requires continual practice.

Not all play is re-creative, however. There are plenty of things one can do in their down time that is really a grind. Things like oversleeping, getting drunk, and 'vegging out' in front of the television or computer can wear down a person's mental acuity and physical initiative. If you feel drained and mentally numb after your day off has it really been profitable?

"Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace." 

~ Marmee in Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (page 184)

Indeed, work is a blesséd solace, it is our play, even. For our work and our play should both be a creative, birthing process. We may receive financial compensation for our daily work, perhaps even for our re-creation (writing, crafts, concerts, and so forth done outside of our daily work). Both work and play should leave us feeling tired -- not with an empty, dull ache -- but because something has been accomplished. 

God created (a work in itself!) work for Adam and Eve. He gave them responsibilities and work the very day they were brought into being. Work was not a retribution for the fall, it is not a curse. Vain toil, resistance to the order we are trying to bring are a part of the curse, but work itself is not.

Have you ever noticed that the weeks you have the most work are also your most productive at home? Work helps us to order our time, to make the most of our freedom. I find that the weeks I have the most hours in the mailroom are also the weeks I write the most blogs, letters, and e-mails; the weeks I spend time with my friends; the weeks I am more dedicated to cleaning my home, or cooking more exotic meals. Our free time becomes more valuable when we have less of it, so we are more apt to choose to employ it, rather than squander it in lacklustre choices. 

Tomorrow is Monday, a chance to see our work as our play. Tomorrow is a chance to revel in bringing forth new things, or helping others to birth ideas and products. Today we can choose to waste our time in vain pursuits. Or we can learn to re-create, that we might approach tomorrow with a refreshed body, mind, and heart. 

~ Johanna