I keep a single notebook.

It’s where I write down random snippets of things I read or thoughts circling in my brain with no good place to land. When the notebook is full, it goes on the shelf, and I will look at it occasionally. This process sometimes sparks an idea or brings back a memory and I find this helpful.

There are times I wish I’d started doing this when my children were small. These notebooks would have been much more entertaining. Kids do say the darnedest things, as the old television show postulates. Now my notebook is just disparate snippets from various sources.

But I do occassionally fail to source my notes. Which is a problem, because I know a lot of this stuff didn’t originate with me - and I like to give credit where credit is due.

After another week of political chaos, mass shootings, and defrocked clergy - violence in Haiti, Venezuela, Guatemala, India, Yemen, and more - I needed this reminder. Wherever this sentence came from, whoever wrote the original words, it’s what I needed today.

This same notebook also has other random notes from past days. I don’t understand what they mean. In some cases, I can’t read my own handwriting. There’s something about someone named “Barry Jones.” I don’t know a Barry Jones. Underneath there are the words “3rd Millennium Curriculum.” I also don’t know what that means or why it’s significant. Sounds like it could have been important at the moment. Obviously, its importance for me was fleeting.

But there were more unattributed words under the quote about knowing that God is good. And while Barry Jones and 3rd Millennium Curriculum were recorded for no clear reason, this next sentence coupled with the one above are significant.

At least significant today.

In the current fleeting moment.

He is good.
He is a part.
He knows.
He loves.

Today my little notebook of random obscurity was oddly helpful.