We all fall down in many and various ways. Is Mercury in the retro-what? Is it a full moon? Or is it just me? It's just me.

But the good news is that I'm not dying of gangrene in a Civil War army hospital, I'm not fighting off zombies with a pocket knife, I'm not facing starvation because the potato bucket is running low for me and my seven kids (I have three kids) so, when I think about it, things are still going pretty great. No Zika virus, no gas leak, no sneaky strangers hanging out in the park offering my elementary school-aged children drugs that look like candy. Again, that makes life look real good.

But I can't deny I've really succeeded in letting people down the people I love the most and I'm sitting with that feeling and thinking about it. But humility doesn't come from self-loathing, that's a prideful practice just like everything else I do. Humility comes from contemplating the greatness of God and His love that covers all things.

At times like this, when I'm feeling real low, I prefer to sit in an empty room and feel the emptiness. But my kids are leading chapel today at school, there's a Bible Study group that meets on Wednesday mornings that I'm supposed to attend. Those feel like chores, but on a day like this they are a way out. I need a way out.

So today is a day for brushing myself, picking up my pack and continuing on. We seem to only imagine that image when it's us that are getting knocked down, but the offenders have to practice it just the same. Penance might feel good (by feeling bad) but it doesn't do anything that lasts. Practicing redemption requires movement out of where we've been and into a new day where we start over and see if we can be better, be gentler, be redeemed. We all fall down. Now let's all get up.