Go, Go, Go

The first book in the Dick and Jane books is entitled Go, Go, Go.  Humans are meant to go.  We have a body made specifically to move forward and we live in a cosmos that bids us come explore.  It is also deeply theological in we are asked to come and then go both a beckoning to Go, Go, Go from where we find our self.  Our God, our earth and our bodies all bid us go, go forth and explore and begin our most sacred text, “fill the earth”.  We seem to have lost some of our drive to Go, Go, Go, and instead we stay, stay, stay…which is actually a trick we teach an animal.  I wonder why?

Weeping Celebrating

A year ago this afternoon our family would embark upon its greatest challenge, one of our own was by that evening precariously close to—as Betty and I raced across the state to be with her.  That night we all slept in the same hospital room wrapped in blankets and sitting in chairs along with all manner of whirring and beeping medical devices monitoring a life in a way that underscored how frail it was.  All our lives had become singularly focused on her life and the herculean effort to keep it going.  There is no greater meaning to living than the beseeching of God to let living continue—it is living in the gap between terror and ecstasy and clinging to The God who can only truly be known by faith. Faith and death is a difficult pair to place on the scales of one of your own. 

Even now that life and that faith are celebrated by weeping.  

 

Gracefull Farming

I was thinking today about sowing seeds and of the parable of the farmer sowing along the path, the rocks, the briar patch and the good soil.  Often as I walk by my fields I see kids with such potential sitting on the path, playing in the rocks and tangled in the briar patch.  I seem drawn to throw an extra handful of seed their way hoping it will take root in their soul and they will find a way to the field where their lives can bring about a good return.  The parable of my life is that the Good Sower found me there as well and gracefully—cast His seed my way.

Finding my Meaning

I went to the Mississippi River Friday.  It is mightily swollen from rain and filled with the earth from half of our country.  Her coldness chilled all the air and her surface was pocked with debris.  I find meaning of "me" standing beside this great thing, this noble body of water, one of the supreme features of our planet.  A barge burdened with stones swept by caught up in the force massing toward the ocean.  I stood in worship!  I will never stand atop Everest Mountain but I have often stoop beside her equal and once again I did this day and all of me found great pleasure in both their maker—my God. 

If you look closely you can see the barge in the middle.  

teaching Art

Most humans live lives of digital distress—the disinterestedness of the omni-interested.  Attention now is given in bytes and Nano seconds are discovered to measure it.  Oh where have my compatriots gone who could spend hours on the mountaintop and coming down find life in the valley below?  There is a smell and feel to earth, a sound to life and a taste to seeing that is new around every bend of the forest creek—a trail now lost.  Oh to prick one cell of their soul with the Divinity of the earth’s tale of The Ancient of Days—and at last I would sigh successfully that I had taught Art to those I am charged with.