Amazing Grace

+

What if the base version of holiness

you've been metering out to My world

and My version of Holiness

are completely at odds?

What if your filthy rag definition of "Righteousness"

is utterly revolting to My Ocean of Mercy Heart?

Your pasteurized version of purity

creates a chasm between Myself and those I came to Save,

Those I came to Love

Have you lost your sense of wonder at the fuzzy math of My Favor

and on whom My Favor rests?

Have you lost your gratitude for the fact that that Fuzzy-Math-Favor

very much works in your favor?

When did your forgiven heart become so full

of careful cold-hearted calculations,

When was my "Whosoever will" provision

replaced by your selective system of "salvation"

you measure out to My beloved world

You have been miserly with the Gospel of Grace entrusted to you

My precious Precious Child....

You've meant well

even as you've doled out My Heart in this Heart-breaking manner

But Now,

Return

Let the Phoenix of my Mercy
Rise triumphant from the ashes of your judgement

Return to Tenderness

Be Amazed again by Grace

Remember First Love

There is Only Love

Be Still,

Know your God

and reflect me rightly

to the world

I So Love.

+

"For God so loved the world"

John 3:16

Right to Left...

+

Life read from right to left today

As I held my hot coffee

and looked out the picture window

A hummingbird came into the frame from stage right

Green chested and hungry

it lighted on a few flowers,

One,

then two,

then three...

...and in this space of a moment,

into which was squeezed 
a million heartbeats 
and as many beats of his wings

he paused

to flash his emerald breastplate my way,

as if taking a bow,

before exiting stage left...

....We are but a breath

and then we are gone......

Make the Moment Count

+

Tether

+

Tether

Between Terra Firma

and Terra Incognita

Fine as a silken spider web

And as Invisible...

This Thread that Holds me

When all others fail

The ones that seemed

so strong

so steadfast

so substantial...

...the ersatz ephemeral toeholds

this world has to offer

the trinkets

and tenuous affections of man

No, it is not in these that I trust

But rather in the load bearing

seemingly insubstantial

Solid Ground of Spirit

Sacred Segue from Deep to Deep

in Which my flesh finds safe passage

and sure footing

in Which when I feel so utterly lost

I am Finally Found

In God Alone am I Grounded

He alone holds sway over my soul

lays claim to my heart

and affords me

Firm Foundation

Thus Anchored into the Almighty

and His fear-leveling Love for me

Thus held and harnessed in Heaven's Hands

I carry on

and Hold

to the only

True

Tether

+

"God Himself has said, I will Not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support.  I will not, I will not, I Will Not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let you down nor relax my hold on you!  Assuredly Not!"

-Hebrews 13:5 (Amplified Version)

Home

+

And One Day

You look back

and See

That the seeming Madness

Was always Method

That the Path

Was always going according

to Plan

(Even at its most painful)

By It

You Became

All you needed to Be

For the world

in which you walk,

For the Ones

Who are Longing

For Someone

to

Walk them 

Home

+

"...as He is, so are we in this world..."

1 John 4:17

See

+

You are my eyes to See

Those starved to be Seen,

- not seen and judged

as a hireling who knew not the Heart would do,

but Seen with the sight of the holy ones

who stare down these accusers,

who make them drop their stones,

who see and summon the lovely unlikely holiness in others,

as they themselves have been Seen

whose hearts nearly break

under the weight

of the Lover's Love

for His Beloved -

You see through me

those in hiding

too long waiting

for the healing gaze of Grace

to find them,

to fall on them,

as it fell on me...

Thus Seen in this Light,

They

see

Light,

and in turn
are given

Eyes to See

+

"In Your Light, we see Light."

-Psalm 36:9

Benediction

+

Words

When Spoken

Blessings

Which reach back

and blanket

even the past...

Covering

Protecting

Painting red their night sky

Laying down with them in the dark

Whispering Comfort

Keeping Vigil

Resuscitating

When they're sure they've breathed their last...

Invocation sung softly

Succor for their solitary hour,

in which

as it happens,

they were never

really

alone...

+

"I Am with you always"

-Matthew 28:20

Fall II

+

I wonder how many times

the Wright Brothers

fell out of the sky

before

they

finally

Flew

+

Haiku - Choice

+

Awake or Asleep

Costly choices both of these

Awake.......Choose Awake......

+

Free Fall

+

I am Flame

Intangibly tethered to my wick

Lending lovely Light

Yet Straining,

Reaching,

Longing to be Let Go

To free-fall Up

and Re-join

The Rest

of

Heaven's

Fiery

Stars

+

"Who is this coming up from the Wilderness,

Leaning on her Beloved?"

-Song of Solomon 8:5

Held

+

Putting down,

for tonight,

all the

"Which way is up"

curling up in the bottom of my boat

staying dry as best I can

to drift through another moonless night

bereft of bearings

only a scattering of seemingly disjointed stars...

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep...

Tucking torn and tattered wings in tight

I close my eyes against this night

and feel,

underneath me,

the swell and the sway,

the rocking,

of The Everlasting Arms...

+

"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom

Lead Thou me on

The night is dark and I am far from Home

Lead Thou me on"

~John Henry Newman 1833

Good God

"Out beyond our ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field;

I'll meet you there."

~Rumi

+

Interesting our ideas of right and wrong...

our two dimensional dogmatic "morality"

which, drowning in Love's ocean that covers multitudinous missteps,

goes down measuring misdeeds

in jots, tittles, and teaspoons...

ignorant of the Metadata, the Matrix,

and worse, of the Great Mathematician Himself...

How lonely is this Wisdom

this True Morality

with which Jesus faced down the Pharisees

and got a hooker off the hook

How much we miss

having made our mountains out of minutiae

having traded the God of the Good Book

for the tedium of bookkeeping

having missed entirely the Forest for our idolized little trees

Our Eyes to See fail for blindly staring

at short-sighted subtractions and additions

our carefully made columns

and sticky gold stars...

...When all the while

A Heaven full of stars Waits

For us to Look Up from our flimsy lists and ledgers

To See instead with sextant hearts

Just-Because Beauty,

 Mercy for Miles,

and the sin-swallowing Grace of God

Whose Love has everything to do with His Goodness,

and nothing

 whatsoever

to do

with ours.

+

"I pray that you may apprehend and grasp the experience of the Love of God, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of it; that you may really come to know, practically, through experience for yourselves, the Love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience; that you may be filled through all your being with the fullness of God, that you may have the richest measure of The Divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself."

-Ephesians 3:18-19, Amplified Version

Rush

"Be a lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder; walk out of your house like a shepherd,

help someone's soul heal."

~Rumi

+

Then saviors will come

To all who are thirsty

Like the tide too long gone

From arid

yearning Shores

And will fill the empty shells

Scattered there in the sand

Seemingly abandoned...

...Seemingly...

The Ocean's ebb thus ended

As beauty is given for ashes

Birthrights bestowed for bowls of soup

Soaking the beloved in The Beloved,

Where there was no King

The Kingdom Rushes In...

+

"Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion

To judge the mountains of Esau,

And the kingdom shall be the LORD's."

-Obadiah 21

Watermark

+

The Eternal Moment

In the Upper Room

Which followed

The Crucifixion

That Excruciating Pause

Before Faith

Becomes Sight

Unbearable Stillness and Confinement

The Suspended Animation

Of All Space and Time

Bated Breath of a Thousand Years

Hope held in abeyance

Under the Crushing Weight

Of The Wait --

-- And just on the other side

Of this sliver between seconds

The thinnest veil obscuring their View

The Tide Is Returning

Bearing Down Mighty on their Good Friday Shore

Their dashed dreams

Their Broken Bewildered Hearts

Rushing in

to Watermark them

in 

Unimaginable

Resurrection

+

"It will be said in that day, 'Behold our God upon Whom we have waited and hoped;

We will be exceedingly glad in His Salvation."

-Isaiah 25:9

Ashes?

+

Ashes Seem So Final.

Barns burned down

Bodies laid to rest

Dust to dust

Death's denoument...

But crucifixions are conduits,

Calling cards only

 of Impending Resurrection

Imminent Rebirth...

The Ocean's Ebb is not its end

The Tide returns

Again

and

Again...

After the Interlude...

Ashes,

Sorrows Sown

Do not have the last word

What has been burned down

lays lovely ground,

and will,
in the end

Be Bartered

for

Beauty

+

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for He has anointed Me,

to give Beauty for Ashes..."

-Isaiah 61:3

no trespassing?

+

Today, on a run, I saw a sign in front of a chuch that said, 

"No Trespassing, parishioners only".....

Really?

Really??

Keeping this blog g-rated prevents me from using the language I'd like to use right now, but it's something along the lines of "Brood of vipers", 

as Jesus more gently put it.......

I was utterly horrified......Jesus would be rolling over in His grave if He were still in it.......

The Big Business of church has drowned out the still small voice that said, "Come, all who are weary" ... "Come all who are thirsty, and you all, who have no money, come, buy and eat, buy wine and milk without money and without price..." 

I find it sadly amusing (pardon the oxymoron), that we would be taken aback to hear, if Jesus came back today and walked through our churches, the crack of the whip and the turning over of tables and pews; we would be shaken at the rage as He delivered the same 2000 year old rebuke, 

"How dare you turn My Father's house into a den of thieves!"

How dare we indeed.....How dare we pick and choose who can join our little country club we slap His name on and call "church".  How dare we treat anyone as a trespasser, we the lot of us, who, but for the Mercy and Love of God, are all trespassers into Amazing Grace........

God help us on judgement day, we who purportedly represent Providence, we "Parishioners".  

We may be very surprised to find God's Heaven filled with all the "Trespassers" the church turned away.

+

"My Name is blasphemed among the people because of you."

-Romans 2:24

Middle

+

Middles are Messy.

In any Great Work of Art,

Michaelangelo's David,

My God, the dust, the pounding, the breaking...

A Butterfly in the making,

Nothing but a cocoon full of goo...

Creation Itself,

On Day Three, probably looked more like Madness than Method...

We short circuit our Beginnings,

We get stuck in the uncomfortable 'In-Betweens'

of what's been "Authored" and what will be "Finished",

the Work Begun and the Work Completed...

Our Belief stalls out on Day Three,

Stopping short of the Rest awaiting us on Day Seven,

We draw conclusions before all the data is in,

While there are still Three Days to go...

The Execution of a Great Plan

- One for Peace, and not Evil,

For Hope and a Future -

Sometimes takes more than five minutes,

More than our minute attention spans allow for,

And we abort our Beginnings

Before they have a chance to Begin...

So Breathe

Breathe through this Middle

Keep Walking

God is the Alpha and the Omega

The Beginning and the End...

Let Him also be Lord

in the

Middle.

+

"Trust Me; I know the Plans I have for you: Plans for Peace and not Evil, Plans to Prosper you, and not to harm you, Plans to give you Hope and a Future."

-Jeremiah 29:11

Communion

+

Anchored

Here,

In the Deepest Place

Axis of the wheel

Ancient Mooring

Abiding

in You

Here

We touch,

Here

We speak

Face to Face

Mouth to Mouth

We Breathe...

...and the Well is tapped...

Your Kingdom Comes

You Come,

Rushing upward

Soaking me

Saturating me

Gushing out of me

Like water from the Rock,

Drenching every Desert Heart

Slaking every thirsty soul

Bathing Your Beloved

in

Communion

+

"Blessed is he who is in You; he passes through the valley of weeping

and makes it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools..."

~Psalm 84:5-6

Letting Go

+

We treat our lives, at times, like an all-terrain vehicle

And our walk with God less like walking

and more like off-roading...

Clinging so tightly

White-Knuckling the steering wheel

In an attempt to avoid catastrophe...

Yesterday, I went through a car wash...

I pulled up to the opening, 

Lined up my tires with the track,

Rolled down my window at the attendant's behest

At which point he told me,

"Put it in Neutral and Let Go of the steering wheel"

The track took hold of my car,

Pulled me along, 

Peacefully,

Smoothly, 

Methodically...

And everything was cleaned that needed to be cleaned...

Everything was done that needed to be done...
I made it through to the other side...

Without any hyper-vigilance on my part

Without anything on my part......

Just the Letting Go.........

+

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

Lean not on your own understanding,

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

He will make your path straight."

-Proverbs 3:5-6

Born II

+

Shimmering

This Morning

Elegant movement in the Stillness

The Silence,

Sublime,

and Soaked in the Only Sound

The Still Small Voice

Which Spoke,

"Let There Be",

Which still Speaks

and steeps me,

Quietly,

in

Creation

+

"Let There Be..."

Genesis 1:3

three wishes....

+

We consider it,

in our fairy tales,

a very generous thing

to be offered

not one,

not two,

but three wishes....

...We may not have

a Genie in a Lamp,

But we do have

a God in Heaven,

who offers us,

not wishes,

but Promises...

....and it has been counted,

that throughout the whole of the bible

we are offered,

not one,

not two,

but Three Thousand Five Hundred And Seventy Three Promises...

Maybe time to trade the Fairytale,

for the Faithfulness

of God

+

"We have been given exceedingly great and precious promises"

2 Peter 1:4

twinkle twinkle...

+

True

We are

but "little stars"

Which twinkle for awhile

Then are gone...

...But oh how our Shining

Arrests Man's Gaze

Draws his focus

And causes him

To Look Up

To 

Heaven

+

"Arise, Shine, for your light is come, and the Glory of the Lord is Risen upon you."

-Isaiah 60:1

Parted

+

We tend, too often, to fixate and focus

on external obstacles

and affronts to our Freedom,

Seemingly impassable Seas

Which stand between

Ourselves

and 

Promised Land...

While all along,

Only and Ever,

It is the Red Sea Within

Which needs to be

Parted.

+

"Be Strong and Very Courageous."

-Joshua 1:6

Lift II

+

...And the tell-tale glow

Saturates the Sky

An infusion of Day Dawning

Light Returning

Life Coming Back

Flooding Golden and Rose

The Heavens I look into

Lift into...

Beloved Wings

Which have borne me,

Bear me still,

Become me,

Live, Move, and have Their Being in me

Beautifully

Thus We fly

Indistinguishable

In unutterable sacred union

Headed into this horizon

With healing on Our Wings

For Such A Time As This

For Whosoever Will

For All who would know

The Incomparable Gift,

I Become

Flight...

+

"As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, 

spreading out its wings, taking them up,

carrying them on its wings, so the LORD alone led him."

-Deuteronomy 32:11

Redeemed.

+

We've domesticated the idea of Redemption,

Reduced the Lion of Judah into a whimpering puppy,

Done an unconscionable disservice to our charge, The Beloved,

The "Whosoever will",

dying for what Jesus died for,

The Domino Effect set off by the Cross,

The curse-crushing line that was drawn

in that Bloodied sand...

How dare we, who hold Truth, temper it,

We, who claim to speak for the King,

Corralling their Freedom,

Conditionally ladling out (if we even do that) this Tsunami of Salvation

with pithy talks on Sunday mornings

and impotent platitudes

which we've found more palatable, more plausible,

and preferred to

the Power of the Spirit

The Cross was not just for pretty.

Either It Is Finished,

or it is not.

Redemption is not just a feel-good thought,

It Is The Provision of Providence,

It is The Panacea we wield like a play-thing,

instead of the Living, Powerful, Double-Edged Sword that It Is.

Redemption is the Crux embodied in the Crucifixion,

as an oak tree in an acorn

as an atomic blast in a steel shell

It is the Apex of Creation

Redemption does not merely placate us

in the face of regrets and fall-out from our "best-laid-plans"

It does what our "filthy rags" could never do...

It Covers us

Triumphs over the wreckage

Transmutes trials

Trades us Beauty for Ashes

Is the Conduit which Carries us

Beyond the heart-rending, leveling losses...

Redemption Rebuilds, Restores, Reboots....

Redemption tangibly transforms our endings into Beginnings

Redemption rewrites the story,

Palpably,

Powerfully,

Redemption Changes Everything.

+

"I Got This."

-Jesus

"I AM The Resurrection and The Life."

-John 11:25

Born

"There is a Time to be Born"

-Ecclesiastes 3:2

+

To Make Do

Curled up in the corner

of this broken open cocoon

is No Longer For You

These Wings are not just for pretty

But to Fly

To Brave Many Worlds

To Bring The Beauty...

Not to sit in the stale air

of this once useful womb

But to Soar on Wind-of-the-Spirit

Trusting Deity's Masterful Design

To Expand now

Into All He Intended

Into More than this flimsy frame of reference

Allows you to Fathom

To Burst these barren boundaries

To See the walls blown off the Horizon

To Be Born into this Wide-Open

Come-What-May Sky,

And into Every Beloved Life

Longing

For

Rebirth

+

"Here am I, Send me"

"Go then, in this might of yours."

Isaiah 6:8, Judges 6:14

Lent

+

The Bated Breath

Between

Ashes

and

Beauty,

The Road

From

Razed

to Resurrection...

An exquisite Stillness belies

The Movement

Beneath the surface,

Behind the Scenes,

The Readying for Birth

Submerged, Momentarily,

In this baptismal

'In-Between',

I feel myself,

not free-floating,

but tenderly Held,

Embraced in His Arms,

Every muscle therein tensed

Tremulous,

Ready to Lift me

From Lent,

To Life

+

"I Am the Resurrection and the Life."

-John 11:25