Photo: Taken on a walk with wonderful companions on my friend’s ranch this morning
(Click for larger version)
How blessed I am to have friends who love the Lord and love each other
-and don’t try to put each others doctrinal ducks in a row.
Category: Mountains
Radiant Hope
Photos: Sunflowers on Eager Hill
May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in your faith, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, your whole life and outlook may be radiant with hope. Romans 15:13
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Rise up!
Photos: Balsamorhiza saitatta (Click on photos for larger images)
In the mountains spring is a vertical event.
As the snow melts the flowers suddenly appear on the hillsides climbing higher every day.
I wait all winter for the sunflowers to appear on Eager Hill. I’ve been out of town helping to care for a grandchild who had surgery last week (he’s fine, thank you) and I was afraid I had missed it. Last evening I was able to grab my camera and hike up the hill. The sunflowers had waited for me. Spring is rising!
Sometimes we wait in the dark and cold and pray and pray –then suddenly God answers. It’s a season of suddenlies.
Thank you Lord! You are so good!
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Isaiah 60:1
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Greening
Photo: Elk Valley
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.
Psalm 65
Sometimes the best way through the valley is through the valley. That’s where the feast is kept.
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An organized person having a disorganized experience
Photo: log rail fence in the Kootenays
“I’m never going to be organized.”
Lie.
Well, I asked the Lord to show me the lies I have believed and the first one cropped up whilst going through a file of my recent photos which included this one. (Huh. So that’s where I filed it.) I can give you a lot of historic evidence upon which I have based this lie, most of it embarrassing, but the truth is that by assuming this statement to be correct I have placed a fence around my future, based, not on faith, but on disappointment with the past.
A friend challenged me to examine my words this past weekend. Profound in a simple way -the really profound stuff usually is.
Can you imagine a child telling herself, “Tried walking. Didn’t like it. Fell down -more than once. I obviously do not have the gift of walking. I’ll just have to bum scoot my way through life. Someone else will have to do the walking. My gift is laughing hysterically when somebody blurbles my belly. I know how to bring cheer to the YouTube masses with my charming blurble-induced guffaws. I’ll just stick with that?”
Just an example. Blurble my belly and you’re a dead… I mean you will not be blessed – at least not by me – although I have been known to laugh hysterically with the kind of snorting laugh that is funnier than the original joke. I’m not a delicate giggler. Decorum is not us.
Oh dear. Is that a lie too? This brings other lies to mind. I’m not a runner or a dancer or a carpenter. I have no entrepreneurial skills. I am just your average starving artist (metaphorically speaking -in real life- -huge effort at being positive now- I’m a yet-to-be-discovered, pleasingly plump, deliciously dimpled lateral thinker).
Note to self: The thing is that when a you are convinced you are not a runner, or capable of earning more than survival wages you tend to stop trying. In fact you will go so far as to sabotage any budding talent in that direction. You’re building limits on your God-given potential like thick log fences around your future.
Renewing the mind. OK. I am not a disorganized person. I am an organized person having a disorganized experience. Write that down and stick it on the fridge, Charis.
Now where did I put my pen?
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The lifter of my head
Morning lightHope in God for I shall yet praise Him, my glory, and the lifter of my head.
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Here and now
Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us.
-Romans 5
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Where were you?
Mourning
I cry, Oh God! Oh Christ! Oh Jesus!
Where are you when the ones who say
they speak for you –those who squeeze us,
press in on every side, demand
that we respect authority,
obey their rules, come (cash in hand)
to hear their words, as only they
have got the regulations straight at last?
Where are you when the weak are hurt,
aggrieved and stumbled in your name?
Don’t you see what they have passed?
I sit entangled with the chords
of bitterness around my feet.
A plant blows over on the boards
that fence me off from outside world.
The petals scatter on the grass
and now the gust of wind that swirled
their frail wings in electric air
becomes a greater blast of rage
that showers ashes in my hair.
Flash tears the sky –breath rent apart,
and splits the veil of one who mourns,
with lightning striking to the heart.
Deep groaning rolls across the vale
from craggy peak to worn down ridge
and rains pours down –beats down in hail.
The sun withdraws beneath a cloud.
and saplings hang their weeping heads
as thunder rails against the proud,
who dare to claim the earth their own,
–and in the woods from hill to hill
creation echoes back the moan.
My tears obscure the sky from view.
Oh God! I cry. God! Where are you?
My child, I hear. I weep with you.
(written during the struggle)
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Letting Go
And Forgive Us our Debts
Nothing left to give.
Look into my empty sack,
my empty jar.
See my cold black torch.
How am I to live?
I cannot pay back what I owe
‘til I get payback for my lack.
And they took it.
They squandered it.
They spent my joy on riots.
They spent my innocence on games.
They threw my peace on the bonfire
and danced around it.
Let go
I’ve squeezed my eyes until they bled,
I’ve held my breath
until my heart pounded on death’s door —
still I cannot disappear
into the disheveled dirt bed
And here you are
–and you want more.
How dare you?
How dare you, God?
How dare you?
How dare you shove
your saber hand into my chest
and divide spent spirit from sullied soul
to reach the hissing python.
Let go
I can’t let go!
It’s only anger —
it’s only hate
that coiled around my crooked spine
enables me to stand up straight
and curse them!
Let go
Aren’t you gentle Jesus
meek and mild?
Go take your love to some purer child.
And stop that!
You’re hurting me!
Let go
They poached my song!
They caught my rhyme!
They raped my soul!
They took my time!
They grabbed my mind
and jammed it on a fearsome pike –as a warning.
They took my gates forever.
I’ve damned the light
and sealed the sash
with dark green plastic meant for trash.
What good are thickened walls of stone
when the door’s been burned to ash.
Let go
The bill’s right here;
I have kept track.
My hands will tighten ‘round their necks.
My hands are strong —
they’ll not be slack
‘til I get everything I lack.
Give it back!
Give it back!
Give it back!
Let go
You let go!
I’m offended by this “loving hand”
that feels more like a gunshot wound.
Let go
I can’t let go!
I won’t let go!
I don’t want to let go!
They owe me!
Let go
Help me.
Let go
You know if I let go it will kill me.
I know
It’s hard.
I can’t fill your hands until you empty them.
Who is going to help me?
I am.
(This poem was written about one of the toughest steps in healing from chronic depression –forgiveness. To me forgiveness is about letting go of legitimate debts owed me and allowing God to supply my needs.)
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Hamartia
Hamartia
The snake asleep lay cold and hard,
Deposit of forgotten age
My path crossed its eroded rest,
determined by sequestered rage
How long it takes to bear without
the pain that wears so deep within
I stood atop the withered bluff
and nudged the heart of willful sin
I cannot curse you, man of dust,
for pain that keeps the truth from view,
for all alone on bitter hills
I have killed Him, too
Charis: Subject to Change 