"Infinity........................."

Easter Sunday morning. Sitting here at my computer desk with the blinds on the window to my right opened to reveal the sun as it rises over the hills to the east. It used to be that I wouldn’t miss the early service scheduled for this celebration. It must be later this year, though, for I can remember getting up one time at five-thirty to go; but perhaps that was the occasion when our clocks all “sprang forward” on the same date. No matter. The churches will all be packed this morning, my wife and my niece opting to stay home and avoid the squeeze. This old man will be going, nonetheless, my understanding of the ritual observed no doubt a little different than most. Prayer, before coming in here to witness daybreak, took my mind to a dream encountered several decades ago, one I believe given from God, a view of Calvary and His subsequent walk into hell, all seen somehow as through His eyes. It gave me better definition of what it meant to “take my place”. The enigma is yet there. The mystery will always be beyond us and, for most, the mystery is enough. When I read in John 3:13, however, Jesus revealing to Nicodemus how “no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven”, it speaks to me in terms of eternity, in either direction, having no hold on the Savior. He was, indeed, one with the Father and, therefore, “once He was, He always was”. Born in a manger, He partook of me, becoming “me” when the Spirit, if but for a brief moment, withdrew as He hung on the Cross. He died; then went down into the depths of the earth to lead captivity captive; and, even if nature failed me today, overcast skies denying full witness of the cosmic resurrection, there is within me, even so, a rejoicing that the stone being rolled away yet points to an empty tomb…..

"Peace................................"

“Wherever there is life, there is twist and mess.”…”Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

Annie Dillard’s writing may not be “inspired” in the same sense that we apply that term to the Bible, but reading her mental observations often takes me to a place where I and the Holy Ghost connect in thought. In the above mentioned book, she opines in one chapter that not only did the creator create everything, but he is apt to create anything! So many forms! Off on one tangent after another (or millions simultaneously) with an exuberance suggesting He loves pizazz!” She applies no capitalization in any reference to Him, her acknowledgement of His existence still in question. She can see the demand for divinity, there being too much evidence of design in such a puzzle as exists around her. Religion, robed in all our humanity, however, makes no sense to her; and, rather than simply surrendering to His reality, taking the leap and allowing the Mystery to explain Himself, she pours herself into books that feed me in my journey… The teacher over our Elementary Special-Ed unit is twenty-eight, married, no children thus far, and deeply rooted in his Catholicism. Our conversation, almost every day, turns to faith in those rare moments when the room is calm, kids either elsewhere in something like an art class or occupied on a computer. We speak openly, me of Pentecost, he of his own bunch, both of us giving insight to the other’s beliefs. There is no attempt to convert anyone. What I hear in him is “water coming up out of the well”, a love for Christ discovered in an encounter and maintained through a relationship. I hope it’s the same with this old man. If our terminology differs to the point of needing clarification at times, if our experience has been nurtured in different environments, yet we converge with Him at that point where He abides! Indeed, it seems to me that, while there may well be a lot of “twist and mess” in this, much of it is no more than what we, ourselves, create……

"Harmony........................"

The fellow who teaches our Wednesday evening class stepped into Christ about twelve years ago and, other than having been shaped by his experience with us, is also well read far beyond all this television theology filling our book shelves nowadays. He shares the “pulpit” in this study on an every other week basis with a friend invited to do so, this guy raised in Baptist theology, married into our denominational flavor, and actually merging into our ranks a few decades ago when the Charismatic wind blew through everything. I highly respect both men. I obviously often disagree with them, our thinking in this having been forged out of different journeys thus far. Mostly, the teacher and I merely dance around the claim of Biblical infallibility, the two of us as one in so far as it being “inspired”, he not willing to remove it, in any form or fashion, from the pedestal our group has given it. The second guy seems to see the Holy Ghost in terms of the indwelling being “fused” with him in such a way that the gift of prophesy is a news flash waiting to happen. I take him with “a grain of salt”. In truth (or at least the way I see it), God is in each of us, shaping us as we go, warts and all. While Judgment Day is a given, the “finals” will be more about our heart and the thirst we had to know Him in our walk, not a percentage score on how correct we were in our interpretation of the Book. What we “have” is Christ; and surely, if He has us, we are able to love each other, encourage each other, in a way that promotes the Kingdom, not tear it down….

"Celebration...................."

Some people tell me I plow too deep. That might be; but I want more than just faith in “faith”. It is not enough for this old man for you to simply quote chapter and verse. I want to know it works in my life. The Bible is truth because He inhabits it, not because we claim to possess an interpretation thereof that is better than all others. Tomorrow marks my forty-first birthday in Christ. As is often the case, my mind, on the drive to school this morning, was tossing around over four decades in this, on this occasion pondering once again the mystery of God’s reality. In my opinion, humanity has always been humanity, flawed in its spiritual make-up, prone to err in feeding its flesh and following its own thinking. Indeed, the only difference between me and previous generations is knowledge gained. The addition doesn’t necessarily make me any smarter; but it does give reason to pause. The world is not flat. While the universe may not yet be fully defined, what we have discovered leaves us with many questions. What lies beyond? Is death merely a step into another dimension? Exactly “who” and “what” is this Creator that spoke all this into existence? It blows my brain into oblivion; and yet we are told “in Him we live, and move, and have our own being.” We read that He “is” love and that He “is” light. In Him “is” no darkness at all. This is what I found in my living room four decades ago when such truth captured me in my living room, flooding my soul and cleansing me from the inside out, an initial restoration, but also an experience left available unto me in the journey yet to come. In the beginning “was” the Word. All these years later, He “is” still the Word. In Him I trust. He holds me by His anchor-line and yea, though I walk through whatever valley, I fear no evil. This goes deeper than my head……

"Tangibility..........."

”For if, while we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”…Romans 5:10

My pastor preached a good sermon this morning, but, even so, left me with little more than a fresh glimpse of the familiar Easter narrative. My failure to get on board, though, just might be explained by Annie Dillard having already captured my thoughts earlier. She deals with the subject of “light” in “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and, while discussing how the sun’s rays can sometimes open up the world around us, giving brief revelation of the spectacular, she also declares that seeing her shadow but gives evidence of there being nothing between her and the source of such luminosity. If the latter is enough to stir up this old man’s passion, the idea of a “veil being rent”, whereby we, if but for a moment, can spiritually connect with Him, makes me want to rejoice. Such possibility of encounter is what drives me, whether it comes in such form as an all-encompassing submersion into His presence, an expansion in my understanding of faith, or a Fatherly Holy Ghost kick in the rear to adjust my stubbornness. Annie speaks of it in terms of nature suddenly giving her vision to see what was right in front of her in the first place. I find it better phrased as the reality of God manifesting Himself in my life! It isn’t a normal everyday occurrence; but neither is it beyond hope of happening anywhere along the way. After all, we aren’t following One who resurrected from the grave and then left us to our own devises. He conquered death that we might know life in Him; and the writer of Hebrews puts it like this: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”……

"Vision....................."

”The world spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, indeed, trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness. You raise your sights. You look along it mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance.”….Annie Dillard, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

The author ends her above thoughts by suggesting if we would “launch into the deep”, we just might see. I was reminded of what Jesus said to Peter, he and his shipmates washing their nets after toiling all night and catching nothing; but she, being a naturalist, speaks of snaring something quite different than a physical meal. She points to visible realities that escape us on a daily basis. My own mind turns that into spiritual revelations, God not necessarily talking to us in an audible voice, but connecting with us, nonetheless, in a number of ways, opening our eyes to know Him in a deeper relationship. For that to happen, however, it all comes down to the same thing I told the kids at the Center Sunday, the men at the mission Wednesday evening. While the Bible says that those who come to God “must believe that He is”, it yet remains, from that point, we all tend to go many directions. The place to start, therefore, and the place to remain as well, is in recognizing our need of Him. Much too often, it seems to me, we form His image out of our own thinking, chapter and verse part of it or not, then set it in concrete and go our own way. Just like the guy who can’t see the forest for the trees, our reasoning hears only what it wants to hear, our will refuses light, adamantly determined it already has everything all figured out. I love a chorus Clint Brown sings that simply goes “Where would I be? You only know. I’m glad You see through eyes of love. A hopeless case. An empty Space. If not for grace.”……

"Heritage......."

Cody, my oldest grandson turned twenty-one today. He has been holding down a regular part-time job at Fed-Ex since graduating from high-school, and attending classes at Gateway, a local community college, shooting for a degree that will eventually give him a career working with computers. I watched him and his brother play basketball last night in the church men’s league. They make me proud. My own twenty-first birthday was celebrated somewhere in the Med, the exact location depending on what port the Admiral’s flagship was anchored at the time. By then the Navy had already flown me to San Diego for boot-camp, taught me Morse code just across the bay a stone’s throw from Mexico, and stuffed my brain with the equivalent of a four-year course in Serbo-Croatian. Two years sea duty aboard that guided-missile cruiser was like being on extended liberty, home-ported in Nice, France and continually visiting places like Monaco, Barcelona, Lisbon, Naples, Athens, and Istanbul. I had three square meals a day, a space to lay my head down at night, and the security of a paycheck twice a month for entertainment. Life was a game, my only responsibility and the only authority known being my employer. My dog tags were stamped denoting my religion as “N O N E”. I was thirty, with a wife and three kids before something called “reality” knocked on my door. Am I glad my girls and grandchildren were raised to experience a tangible God, One to whom we can turn, One in whom we can rest, His promise never far from us in all things? Our theology may differ slightly; but when we stop to pray, we drink from the same well. We are “hooked”, not just to each other, but to He who keeps us as we go……