Today time has gone by, a minute or an hour, and in that span of time the world has changed. Give things the moment of an inhalation, and by the time you let it out, whole new friendships have been formed just down the street you live on. Already you are exhaling carbon dioxide cast aside by your blood, and the air that was beforehand whirling around you is now coursing bright through your fingertips. By the time you restart this for the thousandth time in the day, whole families will have been torn apart by the chaos of living in a difficult land. By nightfall a baby is born on your block.

Patience, in its brilliant complexity, is the initial posture in such a reeling place. In a culture full of awful quick fixes, we need to slow down and learn the landscape. Real honest conflict comes into focus. Beauty is discovered right beneath our feet. And then we move. We begin to tie what is good over what is hurting. It works. The hurting subsides, and slowly the gap is filled with life and stability. Work makes a difference in this world.

Over six billion people and countless ecosystems within our biosphere need that kind of attention.

We cannot do this alone. Our culture's little gods of economic growth and scientific innovation simply fail year after year to vanquish selfishness, poverty, racism, loneliness, pollution, and the rest of our earth's broken condition. Who can we follow whose life will steep us in patience and love, and send us working in the right directions? Jesus, the image of the invisible God: way, truth and light. This diary is a catalog of awakening to that reality.