How Do We Get Out of Here?

Many of you may wonder what is going on in America, in culture and politics.  Many may be dismayed, and many may be celebratory.  Here is a thought that might give context.  

What is going on is a religious conflict between the forces of Good and evil.  All great conflicts in history have been.  Good and evil are the only two forces on earth, and they lead humans to live and die for them.  Good and evil are most fervently held in religious practice.  Popular culture and politics cannot call humans to their best but only to their base selves.  We, all, everyone, must find help to not only be good but to know what good is.  This is we, all, everyone's problem.  How to be good.  Many give up, quit, and go their own way, inventing a life they can live and doing whatever THEY want, regardless.  Some see goodness, feel it, try to do it, but forever, by trial and error, never succeed.  And then some realize the impossibility of being good, meaning good all the time, and then begin to look for a plausible way to goodness.  All of this is because we, all, everyone, are looking for a successful way out of here.      

 

The Demand for ANIMATED Gratefulness

Living in nature does one thing; it produces in me the need for gratefulness for all the beauty present there.  No one can stand often among the sky, earth, and water and not feel the dilemma of who or what to thank. It is too much goodness to just shrug and walk away with a “hmm?”  Hmm, to express that feeling of gratefulness is like saying kissing is nice or I felt bad when my dad died.  

I live in a constant state of enormous debt of gratitude, but it is a pleasing state.  It calls me to an ever greater imagination, and a living state of animated being, both Spiritually and physically.  It calls me to a being that I cannot accomplish on my own, that I know I am unable to accomplish by my own self.  It requires, yea, demands a clinging to a Savior to save me from the utter inadequacy of myself to be as grateful and to express and live out that gratefulness, as my experiences demand.  

 

Fair Haven pushes me to acknowledge my complete
inadequacy for animated gratefulness. 

Looking and Seeing Are Two Different Things

We are color seers.  It's part of our worship and devotion to our Lord.  His exuberance for color and sharing are two of His kindest attributes.  We look, and then we tell Him what a wonderful job He is doing.  Fall, above all else, is a time my lover and I set aside to worship outdoors, seeing colors, the infinite number of colors He creates for us to see.  This is the point of this tale.  We go to see Jesus, and His colors never disappoint.  Seeing and looking are two different things.  Eyes that see are eyes that were once blind but now see.  That is another gift He gives: sight to the blind.  Now you know why we are color seers.    

Boat hiking with my lover to 
"See" color.

Normal: Good, Moving Toward Great

A disclaimer.  We do not have television.  I voted on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday as usual: a cup of good coffee in a beautiful handmade oxblood-red cup, the Ancient Text with the Ancient of Days, and a long view of the earth, yard, river, mountains, rain falling from the sky, my normal.  Later I saw in my mail a text from a Christian Podcast I follow, with the mail title, "Catastrophic Wipeout for Republicans.”  I smiled.  I had not experienced a catastrophic loss since my mom died in March, and even that wasn’t really catastrophic, more like a goodbye for now.  I turned off my mail, picked up a good book, and kept drinking my coffee as I watched a glorious rain move over the mountains west of me and work its way across the river to the land I live on.  A wonderful, NORMAL start to my Wednesday. 

PS: Just received word that this was the second anniversary morning of our family's adoption of our little Inca Treasure boy, Joshua, the happiest grandchild we have.  Life is normal; good, moving toward great.   

Our Joshua on his adoption morning, one of 
the most blessed days of our family's history.  

 

Pay Attention to Your Senses

In the very darkest hours, or days, or months, or even years, there is always the overwhelming joy of Jesus.  But I must avail myself of Him, seek Him, make time for Him, “ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, DELIGHT IN HIM.”  He will not burst into my sorrow uninvited or if I choose to go it alone.  In the midst of it, the great mental and emotional strain of it, I must “come to my senses” and remember Him, and return to Him, with all the confidence of his child.  The sorrow will not be removed, but I will be reminded that Someone Greater than the cause of and the resulting sorrow of my situation is waiting on the porch looking for me…filled with compassion for me, to wrap his arms around me, to put his shoes on my feet and his robe around my body and his ring on my finger.  I am home with HIM.  

Exercising is another great way to come to Him.
This is our trail at Swan Pond that we bike every morning.

 

Time

Clocks all over the world have been turned back.  Meanwhile; 

“Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above.  

Join with all nature in manifold witness 

to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.”  

And You and they never change!!!  

 

Sacred Work Left To Do

At retirement, one can feel overwhelmed by everything to do because the list, “when I get time” is long. However, after a few years, the long list is completed, and there is still plenty of time left. It is then that one must have meaningful work to do, work that seems purposeful and needful to be done because there is no real incentive to work or labor. When one was employed, work was mandatory even if one didn't quite like it or think it had value. Now all incentives have been removed. One must find meaning in and by the quality of the work. I mean this in the highest form of the word. That is why I have changed the word quality for sacred. Sacred work calls forth not only our greatest efforts but our prolonged and diligent ones as well. Sacred work is that which combines the will of the Divine with your abilities that you love to do, those tasks you do because “you find God’s pleasure”* when you do them. Discovery is one of the greatest gifts to remaining competent, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically, and sacred work is the greatest gift of discovery.

*Eric Lydell’s statement on how he felt when he ran.

One of our Sacred Tasks is to build our family graveyard atop Brown Mountain.  We are now
gathering stone to build the wall around it and gathering moss
to seed it.