The Great Abruption

I am in a hotel room far from Fair Haven but in old familiar haunts.  I am getting old, slept fitfully, am up way too early, an ice pack on my back, sitting drinking coffee and stumbling through The Word looking for feeling better.  My body getting old is sorrowful and aggravating, my mind aging is scary.  Your mind thinks about your body getting old and feels sorry for it and you.  Your mind getting old has nothing to think about its plight, it is it, it's thinking it’s old and it knows it.  Unsettling.  I am here for the funeral of a young man.  These two experiences seem to be similarly weighing on me, their death has unsettled me.

Death is an abruption, a sudden breaking away from the mass of us, the living.  There is no preparation for it even when we know it is coming.  It is the most difficult separation because it is so permanent.  But we do not lose hope.  It is only as permanent as the earth, the sky, mountains, and the stars, all of which hold for us a certain sense of the infinite.  But they, like everything on earth, are not permanent.  They too will abruptly end.  And then our hope happens, we, and the dead bodies left here, will be made new again, in bodies too glorious to imagine.  The abruption here will not really be a breaking away from a mass here but a rejoining a mass there, a permanent, infinite, heavenly glorious mass of joy and delight.  And we, being made new, will be joined once more, with You Three, forever and evermore, in completeness, a brand new, without blemish, wholeness…in a twinkling, the greatest abruption of all no time. 

I sit in a hotel room and write this to myself. 

Eight years ago our daughter came home from the 
the hospital still deeply involved in the 
the greatest struggle of our family's fight with the abruption.

 

Adoration Serenade

This is an image of a single cell.  The image is exquisite, an art beyond mortal wit.  I am listening to Penthouse Serenade by Nat King Cole…and wondering why all of humanity is not falling at Christ’s feet in Adoration Serenade.  Oh, the joy of knowing God and seeing and hearing His yearning call.  

Sitting in a hotel room far from Fair Haven.

 

Where Are We Going?

My lover and I rarely start to leave home that we don’t have to go back in the house at least once to get something we forgot.  After going back two times yesterday, I told her there would come a time when we would just keep going back and forth until we were sitting in our truck thinking we had just arrived home and go back in and stay.  I am glad Someone is keeping track of where we will eventually go.  

Years ago, biking in Aspen, when we at least
thought we knew where we were and where we 
were going.  

 

The Exuberant Silly Side of God*

You are so wonderful in how You ordain to come to us, in clouds, fire, a staff, golden boxes, and now a donkey.  It seems You have such a joy of being, an exuberance that bursts forth in power, glory, and sometimes, silliness.  This story reminds me of the coin in the fish’s mouth You had Peter catch to pay the temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27), or the mud You spread on the blind man's eyes to make him see (John 9:1-12) or the heads on fire of Pentecost.  Like Father, like Son!  There is a little bit of the theatrical in You Three, a touch of the comedian.  This adds to Your Glory and my admiration and enjoyment of our relationship.  There is nothing You can’t do.  I should remember this.  Your Word reminds me of it.  You control the wind, water, rocks, the future, sky, fire, fish, and donkeys. And You ask me to believe in You, and You will be this in my life.  This is all part of the deal of being Your child, I get to be a part of Your story, its holiness and glory, and its fun and silliness.  Exuberance is one of Your greatest characteristics, and because of this, it becomes a part of my praise and worship.   When I have a ringside seat to the greatest show on earth put on by the Three Greatest Gods on Earth, I should act, live, and have happy, joyful, joyous, delighted, gleeful, excited, exhilarated, animated, jubilant, exultant, ecstatic, blissful, enraptured, rapturous, rhapsodic, in rhapsodies, intoxicated, transported, on cloud nine, in heaven, in paradise, in seventh heaven; informal on top of the world, over the moon, on a high, buoyancy, cheerfulness, sunniness, breeziness, jauntiness, light-heartedness, high spirits, exhilaration, excitement, elation, exultation, euphoria, joy, joyfulness, cheeriness, gaiety, jubilation, sparkle, effervescence, vivacity, enthusiasm, irrepressibility, energy, animation, life, liveliness, vigor, zest, bubble, bounce, pep, zing, chirpiness, peartness, gladsomeness, blitheness, blithesomeness, good cheer**; responses toward You for allowing me to see them.  

* On reading Balaam's donkey story in Numbers  **All the substitute words for exuberance in the Thesaurus.    

Sissy's dog Odie at our home.  Oh if 
dogs could talk.  Well, they can if Someone wants 
them to.

                                                                                                                         

 

True Grit Truth*

Grit is what makes a male a man.  One doesn’t become a man, he chooses to be one, a constant choice of becoming.  I have known men who were 12 and boys who were 41.  The biggest obstacle to manhood is obedience.  Obedience is very difficult.  It takes real courage, strength, and a character willing to constantly deny himself and be different than his base instinct urges him to be.  All males continually plead with themselves to be lesser than they can be, that voice calling them to the path well trodden.  Men “enslave their bodies” to do what is right, just, and honorable in absolute obedience.  But obedience to Who.  To Him who Himself had to suffer under obedience even unto death.  The most worthy example for males seeking to be men.  He is the True Grit Truth.       

*Still reading the grumbling boys of Numbers.

This is not him.

   

The Ever After is the Point

*I am not what you would call a flag-waving patriot, “That ain’t me.”  But I will say this, I love America.  In its God-given state, I have been given the freedom to be what I desire.  The greatest freedom is the freedom to restrain my freedom by a set moral code that lies outside myself.  To demand of myself a moral living that takes into account God, and my fellow man.  America does not give me this freedom as my founding fathers knew, they are endowed by my Creator.  It is by accepting this, this Creator, that I must seek to not only know Him but to ensure I follow Him so that I am the man and American I must be.  This freedom leads to all other freedoms.  This is easily understood by driving on the interstate, all of us acting in the best interest of all the others and, in so doing, acting in my best interest, not to mention the lesser freedom of being able to drive anywhere I want to go.  In America, I am totally free, which must mean I restrain this freedom because of my Creator and for the benefit of all my fellow Americans.  Only in this can we all live happily ever after!  The ever after is the point.  It’s the Creator and me together at last. 

*On reading Number’s account of the children denying this most basic freedom.    

I glanced up and saw this golden line that is an image 
here but a great reality to me.

 

  

 

The Promised Land*

I live in a Magic Kingdom.  Love, gravity, sunlight, hearing, electricity, fixed stars, oxygen, plants, apple trees, cars, kissing, rain, seeing, lift, vibration, wind, yeast, watermelons, conception, roads, grain, touch, movies, Siri, water, fire, consciousness, sugar, life, satellites, dirt, and Krispy Kreme to name a fraction.  Who in all of history would not leap at the chance to live in my world?  I exist in a time and place where my safety, security, abundance, convenience, and access have never been greater.  

*On reading Numbers and the people's grumbling outside the Promised Land.  

  

 

An Assurance of a Command

My daughter lives 45 minutes east of me.  She calls me every morning around 7:15 on her way to work.  This morning she said, “I’m looking at the sunrise.”  It was dark at my home.  I felt a shared ecstasy of holiness, a twinkling, fleeting, sliver of hope, an omniscience.  Someone was assuring me His command to light was still being enforced.  

 

As Plain as the Nose on My Face*

I read today about a God who smells “a sweet aroma” and speaks, “The LORD said…”  This is a wonderful solidarity we share with Him.  His senses are mirrored in us, we share the same traits of smelling, speaking, and hearing. Sharing the same senses offers me a feeling of sameness with Him, a sameness of image and shared ways in which we derive meaning, create relationships, share information, and come to know and be known.  This being known by God is so important to me, and to be known in many of the same ways as I come to know.  It is how we know Him when we smell a newborn baby or a rose and are moved to praise Him.  We are coming to know Him in that He conceives and makes things to have an aroma and us to have a nose to know it (pun not intended).  I apply what I smell to my list of reasons why I should praise Him, acknowledge Him, and delight in Him.  It is this sharing of senses and sense data that we have in common that gives us both ways in which to know and be known by each other.  He is not God somewhere out there but God with me, for me, able to be known and able to know.  Such a wonderful gift, my God can be known by me. He makes a way, which means, above all else, He wants to know me and me to know Him.  It’s as plain as the nose on my face.

*On reading Leviticus 

As plain as three noses on three faces.  On a short hike in the smokies.

 

*LORD or Luny

Lord.  What does this word mean?  It can be the start of a dismaying sentence, an exclamation of despair, a proclamation of surprise.  It can be a king, an overseer, or our title.  I just read about someone who said it was his name.  He was pretty definitive, repeating it several times.  If someone walked up to me on the street and said, “I AM LORD!” I would think them quite luny.  I would consider myself rather lunyer if I felt it myself. However, I never got this feeling from the one I read about this morning.  I rather think HE IS.  This means I am right about the luny part. 

*On reading Leviticus

The big orange full moon confirmed
His title this morning even if my 
camera couldn't capture its definitive declaration. 

 

Reparation*

Reparation means to make amends for the wrong someone has done.  I often hear the word today.  Hearing it is part of this story.  We might make amends, but we can’t do away with the wrong.  That’s what’s needed.  We need to erase the wrong, to make it as if it never was, to so right the wrong that the wronged receive a cleansing so complete as to never feel wronged at all, as turning black to white or dark to light.  A better word might be atonement which even its very sound (hearing) seems to open doors to vistas of glory…as turning crimson stains as white as snow.

*On reading Leviticus  

Betty standing in the Rio Grand, who, herself,
has received Atonement. 

 

Sunday Morning Coming Gray

Gray is the color of hinting, of just maybe, of what if?  It is wrapping paper over glory, the veil, the cleft, the open sesame.  This morning, my river and sky are gray, divided only by the mountains beyond and this short thought.    

Getting Old

Getting old is giving myself enough time to feel good enough to get up and get going.  This process will continue until there is not enough time to get to feeling good enough to get up and get going.  Then I’ll go to heaven.  

 

You Better Settle Out of Court

Laws.  It is the organizing and administering of every human to be a good human being.  A human is a being, a constant act of loving kindness, honor, responsibility, justice, and fairness.  It is an agreement we make with every other human.  It begins in marriage, spreads through family, and is foundational to culture, communities, and countries.  However, and it is the greatest however, ever, there must be a foundation of law resting outside of every human being.  Law cannot be founded in me.  How do I know this?  Because I know myself and my pertinacity toward lawlessness.  I don’t mean murder or mayhem but just an overwhelming desire for selfness over otherness, to be lord of all.  We are all destined to make this decision, but most of us will put it off until it is too late.  Who will be the lord of law?  Me, are Someone perfectly and ultimately loving, kind, honorable, responsible, just, and fair?  It reminds me of Paul Harvey’s old saying, “You better settle out of court!”

The Oasis of Roiling Water

I feel like I have a great secret of God and Christ, of living and art, of meaning and purpose, of wisdom and understanding, and I have no way and no one to share it with.  It reminds me of those who once said, “Did our hearts not burn within us,” and “Then in my heart, it becomes like a burning fire Shut up in my bones.”  It is like water, so alive, it's roiling to burst forth from me.  Such is the personal relationship with The Ancient of Days, The Almighty, The Daystar, The Rose of Sharon, and The Lily of the Valley.

My piece, The Oasis, made
about this.

Your Cheatin' Heart

*Do I have a hard heart?  It is a state of uncaring concern for anything but my own way, my own absolute freedom; to live out one action, to increase my pleasure and decrease my pain.  It reminds me of a Bible verse that has deeply moved me to another action for many years.  Christ has been asked by his disciples what would be the signs for the end of time and Christ begins to tell them.  In the middle of His answer Jesus declares, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”  Back in the early nineties, we got cable TV and cable news.  I began to watch the news and soon realized I was mad all the time and really disliked many people on the news.  I knew I was losing something I had been given, something more valuable than I had ever acknowledged; I was actually losing love, and my heart was becoming hard.  I stopped watching the news and haven’t watched it since.  It is a sobering reality to realize I can actually lose love.  This reminds me of another truth I heard from Dr. Phil Jett when he spoke on the end times.  He said, “I don’t know if these are the end times but they are certainly my end times.”  This reminds me of one last saying by the smartest person to ever live, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

*Thoughts of reading Moses meets Pharaoh.