I hope at some time you can read J. R. R. Tolkien's brilliant short story called "Leaf by Niggle," because I can think of no better description of the continuity of this life in the New Heavens and the New Earth.)

even Jesus was resurrected with his wounds." I like that: we, too, are raised to a vocation with the wounds of our past intact, visible, and a witness to what God can do.

Second, there is a clear eschatological focus in the word "blessed."9 If a focus of the Old Testament was on present-life blessings for Torah observance, there is another dimension that deconstructs injustice and sets the tone for Israel's hope: the future blessing of God in the kingdom when all things will be put right; no text in the Old Testament fits more here than Isaiah 61.10 This second dimension shapes the Beatitudes because Jesus' focus is on future blessing.

we need to think about that future more often. I confess I don't. My mind is tied too much to the here and now and not enough to God's future kingdom.

It is important to know the blessings and to rely on God's promises. Please don't misunderstand my point. But the blessings and promises of God in the Bible emerge from a real life's story that also knows that we live in a broken world and some days are tough. The stories of real lives in the Bible know that we are surrounded by hurting people for whom Psalm 22:1 echoes their normal day.

I'm a good man with a good heart had a tough time, got a rough start But I finally learned to let it go.

he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while.

Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination.

Honest to God, Bill, the way things are going, all I can think of is that I'm a character in a book by somebody who wants to write about somebody who suffers all the time.

We are so strangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is the memories that break our hearts that abide.

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here—but it don't kill.  There's plenty of suffering here, but it don't last.  You see, happiness ain't a thing in itself—it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.  That's all it is.  There ain't a thing you can mention that is happiness in its own self—it's only so by contrast with the other thing.  And