"Ahoy, there!......................."

“It seems to me that every time I get to where a “thin place” might develop between the Spirit and me, the Spirit has either changed again or is changing again. So have I, for that matter, sometimes even for the better. Therefore I have to be on the lookout for the Spirit to be different from the last time I dealt with Him (Her, whatever subjective form the Spirit’s personality took the last time we were close). As a child, I became terribly disappointed when I would get on my knees and imagine an old white man hiding lightening bolts while I asked him for a new bike. Later, as I grew comfortable walking in a cool place with Jesus and sharing with Him, He sometimes didn’t show up in the cool place for a walk with me. Now I realize He was somewhere else waiting on me to show up. There’s no doubt the Creator is still present, or that Redeemer is right with Him, or that Spirit surrounds and permeates me. I can not hold on to any of them, just as Mary could not hold on to Jesus. They are, all of them, always morphing into the next versions, based on our individual experiences with them.”….Jim Sturges

The above was written nearly a decade ago by a retired Navy pilot working towards his being accepted into ministry with his church. I somehow crossed paths with him via blogging, enjoying his own practice of simply sharing his thoughts on daily passages of Scripture that came to him in his studies; and then, suddenly, he just folded up shop on the internet and we lost contact. Sitting in my recliner early yesterday morning, looking through a book wherein are inscribed everything found in my literary pursuits, celebrity authored or otherwise, I encountered Jim’s wisdom again and was touched by the way it agrees with my own journey. The Holy Ghost remains the same in all that He is, my own perception of Him just awakened and revised, His anchor-line leading as we go. A Google search located an old site maintained by his younger son and I just discovered in my e-mail a reply to my probe. Good to re-connect. Good to have another “old salt” back on board to face the horizon with me……