Thursday, February 19, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Thoughts matter
Moses said to the people,
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then!
Heed his voice, hold fast to him,
for that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live.”
In North Carolina, where I am spending some time this week with great friends and family, the weather got crazy a few days ago, inches of snow, ice, freezing temperatures … my friend Bob looked for a snow shovel but the few Durham stores had in stock were long gone. Amazon came to his rescue a couple days ago, just in time for the next storm. This week everything has melted and today the air was gentle and warm. A little humid, but sweet to breathe. My body rests in air like this.
But what about my mind? Mostly I am prey to monkey mind. A whole flock of thoughts rush through my head, like grackles in an ancient Austin live oak swinging from limb to limb, cackling and cringing and calling my name in every language. “Come, follow me.”
Moses, speaking for our Father, seems to be giving the people a choice. “Choose life, then!” But this “choice” requires tools of mindfulness, discernment, and decision.
How does my physical, emotional and mental maturity serve my spirit? In the morning I choose life. But often by afternoon I reconsider and am on the fence, a painful place to sit for long. And I don’t want to fall off in the evening on the side of death.
In her two books Thoughts Matter and Tools Matter, Mary Margaret Funk grapples with her own movable mind. She reads the primary sources and points out that Origen in the third century used the term “active life” to refer to the work of controlling my own thoughts.
What are these thoughts? In the fourth century John Cassian sorted them into eight categories: thoughts about food, sex, things, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory and pride. Getting some control over one makes it more likely I’ll get control over the next.
By the sixth century these “thoughts” had been boiled down to seven “deadly sins.” Because behaviors are easier to see, the thoughts behind them tended to be ignored.
No wonder Freud and Jung seemed to be breaking important ground. Those thoughts are important! But often I’m not aware of them, and when I do think about my thoughts, I can quickly get more tangled up than ever.
In Meg Funk’s words, I am trapped in “exhortations to be virtuous with no training of the mind.” In our history as humans, she says, “Distractions at prayer were a primary concern, but there were no practical suggestions about how to deal with them.” What to do, so that we can choose life?
It’s good to start simple and be patient. About food for example, Meg writes, “After a few years of conscious discernment the body begins to establish a preference for well-ordered patterns of eating.” A few years! Well, for now I have been learning to put my fork down between every bite. Every bite. Every day. Start simple.
There is joy in this daily grind. She writes about herself, “A solitary cup of morning coffee takes on sacramental dimensions in the dawn. First light is a precious time.”
And the great news about instruction from the Holy Spirit is that the choosing, though difficult, is infused with grace. No matter about the last one, the next choice can be for Life.
Lord, as my thoughts leave by the back door of my mind, I hear You knocking at the front. Please, come in. I am choosing life. I am choosing you.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
(Deuteronomy 30, Psalm 1, Matthew 4, Luke 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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