don't waste it!

"Regret and worry are two incredible wastes of your imagination."
~ Paraphrase of Mrs. B's wisdom (from a Dutch saying?!)

Of course, there are also Biblical commands not to worry and to leave things to the Lord.
All the same, I found this quotation striking. Our imagination and brainpower are drained by fruitless regret over things that we can't change and worry over things that are yet to come.

Needless to say, we need to live careful, thoughtful, reflective lives, but most often the worry and regret distract from the present; too often they invite opportunity for doubt, self-pity, anxiety, etc.

So how are you using your imagination these days (especially you teacher-folk starting school again!)

Summer

TIME and ownership

Last one from C.S. Lewis. Hopefully you've either gleaned enough to be challenged or are motivated to put The Screwtape Letters on your reading list! :)

Time.
We know it is limited.
And not our own.
Do we use it that way?
I found this passage totally convicting!

You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own.' Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours....The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defence. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels (112).

The "advice" from the senior devil was to make the human angry whenever something "interrupted" his plan for how he would use his time. Angry that someone stopped him for guidance. Angry that there was an unexpected visitor.

When we remember that time is not our own, and that this life is so fleeting, it surely puts time in a whole different light!

the need for change

Continuing to share from this brilliant piece of work by Lewis (The Screwtape Letters), below is a section referring to the desire for incessant change. The "devils" are discussing how they think they can exploit this idea to cause dissatisfaction and to draw people away from asking if things are righteous, prudent, possible, necessary....

Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or unrhythmical, change kept up. This demand is valuable in various ways.

In the first place it diminishes pleasure while increasing desire. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns.

And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both.

And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids (137, emphasis mine).

Variety is good and, of course, not in itself sinful. Our Lord has created such a bountiful Earth with such incredible, imaginative sources of diversity and creativity. But when pure novelty and change is sought for its own pleasure, we should stop and think.