A Gentle Thing.........

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Come

Quiet

your Martha heart

dashing about

fixing

fussing

frantic

no need

no need...

all that needs done

is done

Come

Sit

Be Still

Be Small

I AM Big Enough

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"Cease Striving.

Know that I AM God."

-Psalm 46:10

Rise

John 11:1-44

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Dead.

He was Dead.

Past the Point-Of-No-Return

Beyond Hope of Healing

A poster child of unanswered prayer

Underscoring God's Silence

Against this macabre backdrop

Mary and Martha mourned

the Loss of their Beloved Lazerus

Soaked in the Almighty's Silence

And the Loudness of Anticlimax

Friends, in response,

Surrounded the sisters

with flimsy songs of the Sweet By-and-By

While Jesus came on the scene

to deliver a Powerful Here-and-Now

The world's thirst has grown too great 

to be slaked with Sunday morning sentimental slush,

Man's Very Real Need

for The Bread of Life

can no longer be placated 

with potlucks, pithy pulpits, and polished prose

When the Rubber meets the Road

and men need Miracles,

The Beloved of God better Know their God

and be ready to offer

Resurrection

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"...my speech and preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the Power of God."

-1 Corinthians 2:4-5

New

"The Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces, 

But the LORD was not in the wind; 

and after the wind an earthquake, 

But the LORD was not in the earthquake; 

and after the earthquake, a fire, 

But the LORD was not in the fire; 

After the fire came a sound of Delicate Stillness, 

A Still, Small Voice, 

A Gentle Whisper."

-1 Kings 19:11-12

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Rosh Hashanah , the Jewish new year 5776, begins tonight, at Sundown.

It is also called The Feast of Trumpets, or, in Hebrew, Yom Teruah, 

which means literally, "day of shouting/raising a noise"

May God give you, in this new year, joy befitting the blast of trumpets, shouts and raising a noise...

But may it also be for you

a year of Peace that passes understanding

Stilling of the storm

Beauty for ashes

May He make this for you,

The Year of 

The Gentle Whisper.

Shalom, my friends,

Shanah Tovah,

Happy New Year

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"You crown the year with Your goodness"

Psalm 65:11

9/11 Remembered

I wrote this five years ago, a tribute to the day we all remember, and to the ephemeral unity this destruction paradoxically brought to our country, its leaders, and their constituents, when, for an all too brief and beautiful moment, congress stood together on the steps of the white house, actually holding hands, and there was a fleeting forgetfulness of differences and division, a trading of the self-serving status quo for one of self-transcendence, a laying down of the vitriol that too often trademarks our government, and a taking up of the standard,

 - may it be said of us again -

"United We Stand"

Two towers fell today ten years ago

Two lives torn apart and ten million more

Two parties came together and cried out to One God

Dual towers downed ending duality on our sod

But oh what ephemeral unity

Was born of death that day

That Tower fell so swiftly

So silently gave way

To ambivalence and bickering

To answers we could not find

To forgetfulness of heroes

To the novocaine of time

The best of human nature

Could not stand the test

But sadly deferred

Humbly bowed

And laid itself to rest.

 

-E.A.A. "Hindsfeet" 9/11/10

~ ~ ~

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity...For there the LORD commands the blessing"
-Psalm133:1,3

Of Dogma and Deity

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You cling so tightly to your dogma

Instead of to Deity

Let the flimsy boat

of your 'do and don't' doctrine

break up

The one that insulates you from falling

into the Living Breathing Beautiful Fearsome

Ocean of Him

Jesus was rightly called

"The Stone of Stumbling"

"The Rock of Offense"

The Scandalon

He never missed an opportunity

to scandalize their ersatz "faith"

when it was in anything other than God

To knock the legs out from under

whatever they were leaning on

if it kept them from leaning on Him...

To expose the base "get out of hell free" cards

we so blithely dole out to a world starving for God

"don't drink" "do drink" "don't heal on the Sabbath"

"don't wear that" "do wear this" "be rich" "be poor"...

All of these counterfeit pursuits,

base alternatives to knowing The Almighty

Nothing more than chasing foxes...

And He doesn't want us chasing foxes...

He wants us

Chasing

Him.

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"Jesus said, 'I AM the Way' " 

Period.