Tag: joy

It’s Who you know

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Photo: hollyhocks

Christ Jesus said:

You pore over the scriptures for you imagine that you will find eternal life in them. And all the time they give their testimony to me! But you are not willing to come to me to have real life! (John 5:39)

While you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and there is nothing that I need’, you have no eyes to see that you are wretched, pitiable, poverty-stricken, blind and naked. My advice to you is to buy from me that gold which is purified in the furnace so that you may be rich, and white garments to wear so that you may hide the shame of your nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes to make you see. All those whom I love I correct and discipline. Therefore, shake off your complacency and repent.

See, I stand knocking at the door. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will go into his house, and dine with him, and he with me. (Revelations 3:17-20)

An hour away

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, MountainsLeave a comment

Photo: looking north

(Click on photo for larger version)

The far mountains in this photo are about an hour away.

We tend to measure distance in terms of time in this vast country. It will take an hour to drive to the village at the base of those farthest mountains. In one hour the time will be here and the place will be now –and the details will be much clearer.

We live in the present but have an awareness of the future lying just one step further ahead on this journey. God is present-future. When he forgives our past, it is forgiven.  He sees who we will become as clearly as if it were today. He knows the plans he has for us and calls us by our future name. He desires us to see ourselves from his viewpoint so we will have the courage to walk in our new identity.

He remembers the future. He shows it to us by his words and allows us to say, “This is a picture of me when I was older.”

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2)

So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.

Knowledge vs. wisdom via tomatoes

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Photo: tomatoes from my garden

Knowledge means knowing a tomato is a fruit;

Wisdom means not putting it in a fruit salad;

But joy means eating the first vine-ripened

tomato of the season like an apple,

with the sun-warmed juice

running down your chin.

The three note symphony

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized10 Comments

Photo: The sun breaks through the rain

Open the Floodgates of Heaven
Open the Floodgates of Heaven

 

Dream:

I’m in a television studio watching the recording of a talk show. The hostess is a youngish woman whose usual topics I consider to be, well, a bit shallow. The person she is interviewing this time is a composer and conductor. I don’t recognize him, but she seems a bit out of her depth.

She starts the interview by admitting she knows very little about music, but always wished she had some talent in that area, especially that she could sing.

The composer tells her anyone can have a part in making great music. He demonstrates three simple notes for her to sing (do, so, mi) and gets her to sing along with him …do, so, mi…do, so,mi…do,so,mi…

He tells her not to stop, then picks up a clarinet and starts weaving a tune around her three notes as she concentrates on singing.

A classical guitar joins them. The music I hear in my dream is soft and gentle and quite pretty.

Gradually more instruments join in –a cello playing continuo, a violin, a French horn, each adding to the melody making it more complex but still very lovely.

As I listen I close my eyes and the sounds become ribbons of colours winding around each other to weave a three-dimensional  tapestry. The tension and drama in the music rise to a crescendo that blasts a trombone fanfare of thunder. Staccato flutes and harps and pizzicato violins ping like raindrops gathering into rivulets, streams and a mighty river.  I see waves of sound surging through the valleys like floods in the desert. I see trees on the hillsides growing and producing ripe fruit as soon as the blossoms and leaves emerge. I see fields of ripe wheat waving in rhythm and sunlight piercing through dark blue-grey bruised banks of cloud. I fly over the earth like I am riding on the wings of an eagle.

I am carried away by the sound of the most marvellously beautiful symphonic music I have ever heard. In the dream it seems to last for hours. I ride on the wings of song played by a thousand instruments. I’m sailing over mountains and coastlands, forests and oceans, gliding through waterfalls and mists over mossy green islands.

Gradually the instruments drop out one at a time, like the droplets in a heavy downpour diminuendo from summer downpour, to shower, to sprinkles. I have been so immersed in the music, trying so hard to remember the themes that I have completely forgotten about the woman in the TV studio. As the music simplifies I hear the violin fade out, the guitar stop and I am again in the studio. The composer is left performing a duet with the woman who has her eyes shut in concentration. Her mouth is still open. She is still singing the three notes, catching up to composer’s rhythm after taking a deep breath every once in a while.

The entire symphony was composed and played around her three notes.

He ends the song gently, quietly, sweetly, and she opens her eyes in amazement.

He smiles.

The woman and I both gasp. We recognize him. It is the Master Composer. The great conductor. The Creator of all things. He turns and looks at me kindly. He disappears.

I wake up.

I rush for a pencil and manuscript paper but when I sit at the piano to write the music down, it disappears like a vapour of memory.

For hours I want only to go back to sleep so I can enter the dream again, but both sleep and the dream elude me. I pace around my house in frustration.

Later I call my friend and tell her about it.

“Do you think the woman represented me? If that was me what are my three notes?”

I no longer have the voice I once had. I know the great arias, I sing them in my head, but when I open my mouth the sound I expect to hear is not there anymore. I used to be a coloratura soprano. Nothing was too high or too ornate. I had great reviews, ovations, attention, “so much potential.” I thought my voice was my ticket to earning a place of respect in this world; it made me feel strong; it made me feel like there was some little piece of beauty in an otherwise plain person from a poor family. I studied for years –then my health failed, and my voice failed with it. Now…it’s better after people prayed for me, but, it’s just not the same. It hurts to think about singing in public, or even in private sometimes. Letting go of my identity as a singer took years of mourning.

I said to her, “Tell me, if I have only small range left what do  you think my three notes are?”

She didn’t hesitate. “He has shown you, O woman, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” ( a paraphrase of Micah 6:8)

I know she is right.

Jesus Christ is the great composer. He takes what we can give and multiplies it into something way beyond our imagination.

In a land of deep shadows -sunbursts of light!

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Photo: Laughing at the darkness

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light.

For those who lived in a land of deep shadows—

light! sunbursts of light!

You repopulated the nation,

you expanded its joy.

Oh, they’re so glad in your presence!

Festival joy!

The joy of a great celebration,

sharing rich gifts and warm greetings.

The abuse of oppressors and cruelty of tyrants—

all their whips and cudgels and curses—

Is gone, done away with, a deliverance

as surprising and sudden as Gideon’s old victory over Midian.

The boots of all those invading troops,

along with their shirts soaked with innocent blood,

Will be piled in a heap and burned,

a fire that will burn for days!

For a child has been born—for us!

the gift of a son—for us!

He’ll take over

the running of the world.

His names will be: Amazing Counselor,

Strong God,

Eternal Father,

Prince of Wholeness.

His ruling authority will grow,

and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.

He’ll rule from the historic David throne

over that promised kingdom.

He’ll put that kingdom on a firm footing

and keep it going

With fair dealing and right living,

beginning now and lasting always.

The zeal of God-of-the-Angel-Armies

will do all this.

(Isaiah 9:2-7 The Message)

The angel of the Lord encamps

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Uncategorized, Water3 Comments

Photo: Campground

I’ve driven right past this campground for years and never noticed it was there until I was so drowsy one day I pulled off the road to take a nap. It was hidden in plain sight. I took this photo from an empty camping spot. There was no one else in the park but maintenance people that day. I love this place. The smells are wonderful and the mountains feel like giant guardian angels keeping out the riff-raff. Apparently angels like camping too 😉

I sought the Lord, and he answered me
    and delivered me from all my fears.
 Those who look to him are radiant,
    and their faces shall never be ashamed.
  This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
    and saved him out of all his troubles.
  The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them.

(Psalm 34:4-7)

This is also a prayer and declaration for friends on the other side of the world who face severe persecution this very night. He hears you.

It just gets better

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized8 Comments

new growth

 

Peggy Lee’s song from the 60’s, “Is that all there is?” came to mind this week when I saw many of my young friends post pictures of graduation and the prom on Facebook. A former grad admitted to me that the whole thing was a little disappointing. After looking forward to it her entire school career as a magical night of glamour and celebration (and possible romance) in the end it was the same old people standing around in expensive, uncomfortable clothes saying and doing the same dorky things they said and did last week –and the week before, and the year before.

Dare we admit that some of the moments we were told would be the highlights of our lives were not all that brilliant? I came away from my high school grad party thinking like Peggy, “Is that all there is?” (Mom worked so hard to put together the perfect evening, but I was not permitted to go to the prom dance and since my dress was a gift, I never got to choose it. The guy I had just broken up with turned up with his fiancée and the last minute substitute escort was called home by his mother because she needed help getting his drunk uncle out of the bath tub.) Even if everything had turned out as planned I think I would have been disappointed.

The problem: I have an imagination.

Sometimes I feel like asking people not to give rave reviews to a movie or book or performance –or even a cleaning product that sounds like heaven by way of a sparkling shower door. I almost wish people hadn’t told me how wonderful life experiences like a wedding or childbirth and breastfeeding or a vacation in Mexico or a standing ovation after a performance were because although there were wonderful moments in all of them, secretly my imagination took liberties went a step further than reality. As great as many experiences have been there was usually a bit of “Is that all there is?” when they were over.

Solomon said it first in the book of Ecclesiastes, the book that epitomizes is-that-all-there-is disappointment and the limits of human’s wisdom and logic. He wrote, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” and “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” (He ends the book of his experiences with this: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”)

Peggy’s song repeats Solomon’s observation of vanity:

If that’s all there is my friend, then let’s keep dancing.

Let’s break out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.

Peggy’s song also dared to address fear of the final disappointment:

I know what you must be saying to yourselves.

If that’s the way she feels about it why doesn’t she just end it all?

Oh, no. Not me. I’m in no hurry for that final disappointment.

For I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you,

when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath, I’ll be saying to myself,

Is that all there is?

Perhaps disappointment is our greatest fear. Perhaps this is what motivates so many sermons and pop theology books. They are less about hope and faith than the pragmatic guarding of our hearts against the possibility of disappointment.  Like King Saul before his first battle we take things into our own hands when it looks like God may not show up in time to make our party a success.

I think the best moments in my life have been surprises:

-coming around a corner on a logging road to see an entire hidden valley of golden tamarack aglow in low evening sun,

-my wee little grandson this week, bringing me a grocery store flyer and pointing to a photo of watermelon to show me what he wanted when he is too young to have the words (Yes, I gave him some.)

-my “barren” daughter announcing her pregnancy

-my precious son, held prisoner in a dark basement of depression, coming up the stairs into the light saying he wanted to be baptized

-my four-year old grandson telling me he had a dream of sitting on Jesus’  lap and being hugged and hugged and hugged

-my husband covering my desk with Lindt chocolates on our fortieth Valentines Day together

-hearing a voice say “Run!” when I was up in the woods praying, then discovering that when I dared to attempt it the asthma and arthritis that had crippled me for so long were gone

-my mother with a broad smile and look of recognition on her face toward someone we could not see as she stepped into eternity from her hospital bed

-and so many more.

I believe this is not all there is. I believe God gives us promises that will not be disappointments. I believe that my imagination will not spoil the surprises he has for me because I am not capable of going a step beyond the greater reality. My imagination is no match for his.

“Is that all there is?”

No! Not by a long shot!

Now to him who by his power within us is able to do far more than we ever dare to ask or imagine—to him be glory in the Church through Jesus Christ for ever and ever, amen! (Ephesians 3:21, 22)

Oh, dear children of mine (forgive the affection of an old man!), have you realised it? Here and now we are God’s children. We don’t know what we shall become in the future. We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect his likeness, for we should see him as he really is! (1 John 1:3)

Dappled things

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Photo: Lungwort and bee

Being a bit of a dappled thing myself, I have long appreciated this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Pied Beauty

 

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.