Notes on Wendel Berry's ​ Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World . She is a creature who knows her place and how to live.  She goes about the unfinished task of staying alive (p. 60), taking - hour by hour - the opportunity to live (p. 56).  To that end, she does her work in the only world she knows, the only world she has to live in: her acre. But our little lives are still lived in a wide world and there are storms in this world.  And these storms can move us and change our circumstances.  They can lead us into strange places; challenging places. How does she take these storms?  By simply staying alive where she is. She went on a trip - unwillingly via the storm - into the wide world - far from her familiar acre - and at certain points on the way, she was actually quite unaware of what all was going on in world.  For she ate and slept, which was her nature as she continued to live in the littleness of the world immediately around her....

The Lord's Prayer is a pattern prayer for all our praying, but it is also a lesson for us in forgiveness: we must forgive.  In Matthew 6, the petition, "and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us" is the one petition that the Lord emphasizes above all others.  It's almost as if Jesus is saying that this is the main reason for giving us the prayer in the first place!  He no more says "Amen" and then he says, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." This makes perfectly good sense.  It's a matter of justice, isn't it.  It's not fair for us to ask God to forgive us our enormous offenses against him, if we will not forgive the offenses people have committed against us.  That doesn't make it easy, but it is the fair thing. And think of it this way: How can God ...