Something About The Joy

  So more on why I'm pursuing an eternally real Heartland instead of indulging in fantasies that are only temporary.   A REASON:   My satisfaction.   If you ask anyone what their most important goal in life is they will say it is to be happy. We were created for happiness.   Real happiness.   And we long for it above everything else. So my next reason for paying attention to that niggling feeling and resisting the temptation to immerse myself in a temporary distraction from my real world is simply that the distraction does not make me happy.   It does not satisfy.   Temporary distractions do not keep some vague promise they make of happiness.   Escaping into an imaginary world can become a street drug that only immobilizes me and drags me down. In the end, indulging in it will only make me more miserable.   Any pursuit of any addiction is nothing more than the heart's restless search for it's ultimate Heartland in all the wrong places. Human beings were created

I started a new journal today. It's kind of like a new beginning--a clean page in front of me.   What will I do with it?   As I hinted in yesterday's post, I've been feeling a tad uncomfortable with how comfortable I've been feeling in the fictional world of Heartland .*  My thoughts have been more with Ty and Amy lately than with my own friends and family.   It's been a great escape. But I know I can't stay in that unreal, ideal world. I need to live in the real, broken world that God has put me in.     * That's a palindrome, did you notice?     I read Jesus' words this morning, in Matthew 24 and 25, about the end of the world as we know it. He gave His disciples a parable to illustrate how they should live until He returns to gather His children home to His heartland.   Ten young woman are waiting to celebrate the wedding of their friend, the bride, and her bridegroom. They know the bridegroom will be coming any time to meet the bride and carry

  I think I am heart-hungry for  Heartland . I'm blaming my compulsive enjoyment of that TV series on COVID. That's convenient. But I'm trying to analyze why I'm so addicted to the series and I think it's a couple of things (aside from COVID).   Or maybe three.   First, the simple, uncomplicated moral innocence of the show is a comfort to me. I long for a time when virtues like integrity, fidelity and honesty are again considered general virtues that society expects of people.   They once were. I remember those days, when you could count on an agreement that was sealed with only a handshake.   Moral behavior was expected and people in that time rose to that expectation. In Heartland , when one of the characters stumbles or falls--when a character breaks the moral rules and lies, or is unfaithful in love--the lapse is recognized as a stumble or a fall, and there are disastrous consequences.   These COVID days have brought out the b