resolve.

Concentration breaks under frivolous weight. If the right words exist, may they find our lips. Let’s stay the course and let the tension make us new. I don’t know if it’s virtue, I don’t know if it’s just dumb luck. Would it matter if it was? What if we welcomed change in or opened up just enough to let it begin?

{Sleeping At Last}

seventh

sabbath

 

what is it about [the act of] [expression of] [announcement of] [the decision to] LOVE? so complex and intense; so stripped down and simple. it makes me think “mmm. now this. this is good.” perhaps [maybe] i imagine God, in being the passionate artist|creative scientist that he must be, stepping back after conducting the amplified symphony called creation|existence, having a hush fall over everything. With a void of nothing loudly becoming something, then like a pause in between one song track to the next a quiet humming escapes, “mmm. now this. this is good.” God must have felt love on that 7th “day”.

STARS

You should see the stars tonight. How they shimmer, shine so bright against the black; they look so white, comin’ down from such a height to reach me now, reach me now. You should see the moon in the flight, cuttin’ across the misty night, softly dancin’ in sunshine. Reflections of this light reach me now; you reach me now.

And how could such a thing, shine its light on me and make everything beautiful again?

And you should feel the sun in spring comin’ out after a rain. Suddenly all is green. Sunshine on everything; i can feel it now, i feel you now.

And how could such a thing, shine its light on me and make everything beautiful?

And you should hear the angels sing, all gathered round their king. More beautiful than you could dream. i’ve been quietly listening; can hear ‘em now, can hear ‘em now. And how could such a king shine his light on me and make everything beautiful? And i wanna shine, i wanna be light. i wanna tell you it’ll be alright. And i wanna shine and i wanna fly just to tell you now it’ll be alright. It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright

‘Coz i got nothing of my own to give to you but this light, that shines on me shines on you and makes everything beautiful again. It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright.

~David Crowder

life is terrifying & strangely enough, still beautiful. with nothing to boast, i’m amazed by GIFT. (/still)

caughtINbetween

 

RELEVANT devo

The Art of Lament

By Winn Collier

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
 Psalm 13:1 TNIV

 

THE PSALMS ARE heart-saturated, deeply personal expressions of the inner life of the psalmist, most often David. They are the journal of a man pouring out his love for his God. And often, I find, it is brutal, gut-wrenching, violent. David is dark. He is despairing. He is desperate. He is in love.

Biblical writers talk much of the spiritual discipline of lament. It is the act of taking the time and emotional sweat to recognize the deepest brokenness of our souls, and then mustering the courage to embrace it before God.

Lament is an act of love. It recognizes that in order to truly love, one must be truly honest. David knows that if he wants his love affair with God to be true, he must be honest about his anger with God, his accusations of God, his confusion with the perplexing way God sometimes goes silent.

Lament is a way of honoring God, of taking Him seriously. It is, as Eugene Peterson says, a way of “making the most of our loss without getting bogged down in it—[it] is a primary way of staying in the story. God is telling the story,  remember … He doesn’t look kindly on our editorial deletions.”

up.

 

For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. While there is much we may have earned — our degree, our salary, our home and garden, a Miller Lite, and a good night’s sleep — all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift. “If we but turn to God,” said St. Augustine, “that itself is a gift of God.” My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.  

Brennan Manning (p 25) The RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL

Α & Ω

sun.days

order

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, ”It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

REVELATION 21:1-6