Kiln Sitting Quiet Times

One of the troubling issues of our day is the inability of believers to find joy in our salvation, which actually means the inability to find joy in The Author of our salvation.  In Him, all things have meaning, not just religious things.  That is the great joy of life and freedom; in all things, we are given the opportunity to be in a personal relationship with God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth (all things).  This relationship has only one result—and ongoing and perpetual sense of gratitude.  We can find joy in our work, in our achievements, successes, loves and even in our religious activities but if we do not first and foremost find joy in our Savior all other things become substitutes for that; even good Christian work. 

The Moon Answered Yesterday's Prayer

I awoke in the night to sparkling moonlight on the river like God’s whisper of reassurance that all is well; He has this, rest quietly.  The peace of the great lights, one that governs our day and one now governing my night are gifts from Him for whom light is a personal attribute.  He is light as He is love and so we have a natural tendency to be comforted by the earthly (moonly) manifestation of Him. 

Prayer to Be The Gentle

There is a steady rain on.  I am sitting by a fire working on my computer, something meaningful about the reality of one and the transient of the other. —There is a flood on, raining steadily now as it has for several days.  Drove the length of Tennessee yesterday and river after river was spilled away from their banks painting field and forest with dark ochre watercolor.  I am sitting heart conscious of the Great Tennessee now as she lays calm and serene in front of me, a warm fire supports my coffee cup and my lover and least child sleeps soundly.  Our dark studio gently lit by the fire and sweet hum of rain on the roof allows me the peace of warm and dry as I tell God how kind He is to make rain, even lots of rain, gentle.  I am trying to turn my prayers toward all of those whose lives have turned hard—difficult and cold wet from this incessant rain—asking God to spread His presences across the wet earth into the hearts, spirits, and souls of man and beast for whom this rain is anything but gentle, and Be The Gentle that His rain is not.  Only God can—as my fire and safely sleeping loved ones testify!  There is a steady rain on.    

    

Key To Our Being Us

It is never the “what we want to do” that counts but, how we do, what we have to do.  It is the daily grind of being where we are, doing what has been assigned to us that makes of us, either a man after God’s own heart or a man busy.  

I think the key is making our greatest priority being with God more than working for God.

  

Sitting with God beside the kiln

Sitting by your kiln in the dark of morning, a slight on full moon, the kiln set in such reduction the flame whips out the top like a stallion’s mane in the hope of pulling Ox Blood out of Heaven to gallop around your pots—is a way of being with God. 

011001010010110100 = UnYou

One of the great gifts of God and the sculptor is that our creations are actually present in time and space. Still, God ups the ante. His creation’s, humans, are not only present in time and space, they are actually aware of their presence.  However, a great contemporary amnesia has taken hold of us and more and more of our time is spent unaware of our presence.  We are virtually present in the spaces our devices create allowing the great mystery and magic of daily life to go unnoticed and unlived.  The experience of living begins by being aware of the marvelous miracle of being alive in a body completed attune to living in concert with the created world producing a symphony like life whose tune is joy and lyrics are praise.  The excellent living of life is a direct result of being present in the space God has created for us, not in the virtual space produced by 011001010010110100.

A  long-ago hike in the Alps with Union students.