Shanghai, Shang low...

Let me take you to China. June 16. Shanghai. This is from my new handmade leather journal I bought there. See if you can follow it.:

"There is something about the smell of new leather. The freshness of the aroma. It makes life seem simpler. Tame. Bittersweet. We think of prairie days in the West as a life of simplicity and bliss. Rather, it was a daily struggle to provide and survive. Fear. Death was common and sometimes sudden. A simple cold takes a child's life. A husband gets bucked off a horse. Accidents happen. Tragedy breaks. What is interesting--no matter the age or time, people adapt. What we are called to is not always the best, but it is simply this: to pursue the will of God in whatever bliss or horror we face, and through what we encounter to make the very best of it. Good can be found. There is something about the smell of new leather. The freshness of the aroma. It makes life seem simpler."
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Same day...quote from Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island
"This discovery of Christ is never genuine if it is nothing but a flight from ourselves. On the contrary, it cannot be an escape. It must be a fulfillment. I cannot discover God in myself and myself in Him unless I have the courage to face myself exactly as I am, with all my limitations, and to accept others as they are with all their limitations. The religious answer is not religious if it is not fully real. Evasion is the answer of superstition."
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Now, onto June 17...Shanghai, China

"People live in fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of loss. Pain. What is hope if it is only an attempt to replace or temporarily displace fear? Can it stand? What is hope if the thing you hope for is in something that you, the powerless, fearful self, have created? Can something birthed in fear cast out fear? When we feel powerless against the odds of rejection, loss, pain, etc., is there anything within our power we can do to correct this situation? Perhaps that is a contradiction...
Rather, I argue we are powerless being only endowed with the power allowed us by the Great Power, being God. Thus, fear cannot be prevented by our own means, but only by relying on something completely out of our control and power. Someone trustworthy. In acknowledgin how little control we have, we gain some control--at least of ourselves and our fears (which sometimes have no grounds). People live in fear. Thankfully, there is One we can cast our fears upon who has our best in plan (Jeremiah 29:11)."