Looking Up From Our Knees

A guest post from our daughter today...


It struck me as I was on my picking raspberries. 
Who knew that on one’s knees was the best way to pick that luscious red fruit? And isn’t all of life like this?

Because only when I knelt down in the grass could I see all the berries. It was like a whole different angle—a whole different lens. All the berries hang under the leaves, and who sees the berries unless they kneel? And maybe it isn’t just a different or a better lens, maybe it’s the only right one. 


Because from above only the very obvious berries are seen, but from below they all are. Situations seem unfair, or perilous, or barren, or hopeless, till we kneel. That’s when the hope is seen. 


Because only from the Giver of all hope can we hope to see light, to see change. So when we kneel, all those barren branches are seen to be heavy with fruit, to be weighted down with the glory. Only as we give thanks and speak with God, come into His presence, plead before the throne, can we see the grace all around us. 

Everlasting Pillars

Twenty-four years ago, just under a year married, we explored these wild roads and trails of Vancouver Island.  Twenty-four years of living and forgiving,  growing and slowing, learning and returning; but up on the island, the 800-year-old trees don’t notice much about that breath of time, they just keep on reaching toward the heavens.  Now three more eternal souls surround us as we walk in awe among –aptly named—Cathedral Forest.  Some of these giants were 300 years old when Columbus landed on North American shores.  Some of them came down in a 1997 storm, still lying where they fell, monuments decaying.


Will we lie where and when we fall to the earth, gone when we return to dust?  Not our souls, certainly—they rise to Light (or descend to eternal darkness if we are not found in Christ).  But the monument that lives on is that which upholds the corners of our generations; it does not need to lie fallow and quickly forgotten.  Will our generations that bear our name remember a godly, righteous walk—the parents, grandparents, great-grandparents- that led them along Lighted paths to the foot of the Cross?

“What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.”  John 13:7

"We have only a partial view here of God’s dealings, His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity!  Go, in the reign of Israel’s greatest king, to the heights of Lebanon.  See that noble cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with northern blasts!  Summer loves to smile upon it, night spangles its feathery foliage with dewdrops, the birds nestle on its branches, the weary pilgrim or wandering shepherd reposes under its shadows from the midday heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall; the aged denizen of the forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman’s stroke!

As we see the axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk, then the noble limbs stripped of their branches, and at last the “Tree of God”, as was its distinctive epithet, coming with a crash to the ground, we exclaim against the wanton destruction, the demolition of this proud pillar in the temple of nature.  We are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem—invoking inanimate things to resent the affront—“Howl, fir tree; for the cedar has fallen!” (Zechariah 11:2)

But wait a little.  Follow that gigantic tree as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountainside; thence conveyed in rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean; and last of all behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God.  As you see its destination, placed in the very Holy of Holies, in the diadem of the Great King—say, can you grudge that “the crown of Lebanon” was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have s noble a setting?

That cedar stood as a stately prop in nature’s sanctuary, but “the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former!”

How many of our souls are like these cedars of old!  God’s axes of trial have stripped and bared them.  We see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious, but He has a noble end and object in view; to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His Heavenly Zion; to make them a “crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.”  --Macduff

A Passion for the Wonders of His Hands

I wonder how much we are robbing from our children of the knowledge of God, by not having them outside more—by not being outside with them—and experiencing the awe and wonders of His creation.

We probably saw a hundred of these

Have we ever wondered what God likes?  What thrills Him?  What He finds beautiful?  What He loves to look upon?  Are these things that should delight our soul also, therefore? Aside from His created peoples, and those who belong to Him that He sings over with delight, nature is the book that reveals to us His mind, His creative touch, His best (at least this side of heaven).  Sure, to take it all in we’d need to travel from the plains of Africa to the steppes of Nepal to the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean; but there is plenty in our backyard.

We travelled north along the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, to the end of the road.  Then we got on a boat and went another 70 or so miles north into the wilderness: snow-fielded mountain peaks, emerald waters and fjords, 200 foot waterfalls.  Can you imagine the thrill our 14 year old had in taking the implicit dare to kayak behind a 150 foot waterfall—not actually knowing if it could be done?  “Well, it was there to do, and there was only one way to find out!”  A few moments of panic from everyone including the guide, and then out he came on the other side, having assessed victory correctly. 

Of course, then we all had to do it – water pounding down so hard on our heads that all we could do was blindly strike out with all our force on the paddles and stay away from the rock wall on the other side.  Only one word suffices – Exhilarating!  Nothing like it in the world!

The guides told us all about how the (now called) First Nation peoples could read the plants, read the sea life, read the skies and the birds and the trees, knew the seaweeds.  This was good for food; when this emerged, then this time was come and when that season came, they knew.  

Collecting oysters that we later had for dinner; the seaweed can be broken open for a healing ointment, consistency similar to aloe vera

This mushroom, that looked like a fungus on the tree, could cure tuberculosis and many other ills.  Carved and decorated and sent to Europe, the English thought it was wood for many years.  Captain Vancouver came to this place of uncommon beauty and verdant wildlife and foraging but named it Desolation Sound, saying it was void of charm and provision.  Must have been an overcast day. But common grace sustained these tribes under harsh conditions in some seasons.

ancient red ochre Indian markings on rock overhang

Easy to dismiss this as just their thing – they had to know, to survive.  But my mind is perennially piqued by God’s answer to Job from the whirlwind, essentially this:  “I’m not going to tell you why all this has happened to you and you don’t need to know.  The next hundreds of generations, they’ll know.  But you?  You need to read nature; learn to understand something about me through what happens around you in the order and beauty of the winds, the animals, the seas.  Wonders abound!”

And we let them sit inside and play video games.  (Confession:  we are a video-game free family.)   The guides have worked for years with children and teens, introducing them to the wonders of nature around them and changing their perspective and their world in the process.  We who love the Creator, do we instill a love for His creation in our own children?  A passion for the wonder of what His hands have made, that changes their lives and their perspective?  Surely this is a powerful accompaniment to adorn the gospel, knowing these things about the God we serve—in a small part, maybe, but nonetheless more of who He is and what thoughts He has had.

We met a science teacher from Toronto on another kayaking trip, through beds of twirling sea kelp and rainbows of sea stars, and then later boating by both humpback and gray whales.  He loves what he does, but has a hard time interesting a generation that simply hasn't been outdoors climbing trees and finding frogs.  He tries to take them camping, when there is enough interest.  How much is our own fear of inconvenience contributing to our decisions not to enjoy God's playfields?  After all, I spent the entire fishing trip terribly seasick; yes, we got sunburned; the car is rather a mess and the sea-washed clothes are piled high now.  And how willing are we to let them jump into the lake with all their clothes on after a sweaty, hot hike and then get in on the leather seats, beach towel notwithstanding?  How willing are we to let them jump 30 feet off the cliff into the ultramarine lime quarry waters, when my heart was in my throat and I had to force myself to shut up and not dissuade them.  "Please just make sure you jump out far enough!!"

  

yes, that's the back of a gray whale just feet away from us

completely showing off!! (the sea lion)

first catch and the biggest!

It's an amazing world out there.  And God saw that it was very good.

Dark Mines Looking for Jewels

Our 14 year old son came in this morning while I was finishing my makeup and showed me this passage to read in Tozer’s excellent book The Radical Cross, then he just decided he’d read it aloud:

“As long as we remain in the body we shall be subject to a certain amount of that common suffering which we must share with all the sons of men—loss, bereavement, nameless heartaches, disappointments, partings, betrayals, and griefs of a thousand sorts.  This is the less profitable kind of suffering, but even this can be made to serve the followers of Christ. There is such a thing as consecrated griefs, sorrows that may be common to everyone but which take on a special character for the Christian when accepted intelligently and offered to God in loving submission.  We should be watchful lest we lose any blessing which such suffering might bring.

But there is another kind of suffering, known only to the Christian: it is voluntary suffering deliberately and knowingly incurred for the sake of Christ.  Such is a luxury, a treasure of fabulous value, a source of riches beyond the power of the mind to conceive.  And it is rare as well as precious, for there are few in this decadent age who will of their own choice go down into this dark mine looking for jewels.  But of our own choice it must be, for there is no other way to get down.  God will not force us into this kind of suffering; He will not lay His cross upon us nor embarrass us with riches we do not want.  Such riches are reserved for those who apply to serve in the legion unto the death, who volunteer to suffer for Christ’s sake and who follow up their application with lives that challenge the devil and invite the fury of hell.  Such as these have said goodbye to the world’s toys; they have chosen to suffer affliction with the people of God; they have accepted toil and suffering as their earthly portion.  The marks of the cross are upon them and they are known in heaven and hell.

But where are they?  Has this breed of Christian died out of the earth?  Have the saints of God joined the mad scramble for security?  Has the cross become no more than a symbol, a bloodless and sterile relic of nobler times?  Are we now afraid to suffer and unwilling to die?  I hope not, but I wonder.  And only God has the answer.”

Tozer didn’t mention it, but along with saying goodbye to the world’s toys is saying goodbye to a life of self with all its destructive appendages and chains; goodbye to a life of regrets piling one on another as the decades descend heavily on one’s aspirations; goodbye to a last flailing attempt to recreate life at 18 before so many things (and people) were wrecked on the shoals of self-interest and pursuit of counterfeit “jewels”.  I’d just spent some time among some of our unbelieving peers, the defining characteristic of which appeared to be a desire to turn back the clock a couple of decades and  live several hours again of being 20—before the shipwrecks, before the consequences of decisions came pounding.

And I realized anew, looking around me, how precious is our set-apart life in Christ.  The riches of such a life, the life of self-abandonment, is ironic, for in it comes the truest satisfaction, fulfillment, liberty.

"I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places..." Isaiah 45:3

British Columbia, Canada

Wait, Patiently Wait!

"It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land" 
(1 Kings 17:7).

Week after week, with unfaltering and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched that dwindling brook; often tempted to stagger through unbelief, but refusing to allow his circumstances to come between himself and God. Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air; but faith puts God between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him. And so the dwindling brook became a silver thread; and the silver thread stood presently in pools at the foot of the largest boulders; and the pools shrank. The birds fled; the wild creatures of field and forest came no more to drink; the brook was dry. Only then to his patient and unwavering spirit, "the word of the Lord came, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath."

Most of us would have gotten anxious and worn with planning long before that. We should have ceased our songs as soon as the streamlet caroled less musically over its rocky bed; and with harps swinging on the willows, we should have paced to and fro upon the withering grass, lost in pensive thought. And probably, long ere the brook was dry, we should have devised some plan, and asking God's blessing on it, would have started off elsewhere.

God often does extricate us, because His mercy endureth forever; but if we had only waited first to see the unfolding of His plans, we should never have found ourselves landed in such an inextricable labyrinth; and we should never have been compelled to retrace our steps with so many tears of shame. Wait, patiently wait! 
--F. B. Meyer

This, the Love of Christ

Friday I found out that Steve Saint had been injured and paralyzed in an accident  as he was testing new equipment to be used in jungle outreach (he invented the flying car).  Our 12 year old daughter is just finishing the book he wrote, End of the Spear.

 

This came just hours after I found out that a young couple ministering in mission aviation in Zambia, parents to two little girls, have died this summer as he took her up for her first flight there with him.  He had gotten some of his education at a mission aviation training facility at which our son has also received preliminary aviation training and logged some flying hours.

God’s ways are so infinitely higher than our ways and that ought to shock-wave our hearts into peace rather than the natural human response of contemplating that these people could have done so much for Him.  In Zambia, this very young couple had already had such an impact that the president of the country proclaimed a national day of mourning at their death.  Speaking as a finite human, I wonder how much could have been accomplished for God’s glory in a few decades more.  But God knows how to protect and proclaim His own glory, and His plans for His people are not confounded by these twists in their stories, but rather commenced.

Last night we finished the book Into the Glory recommended to us by Cameron Townsend’s daughter.  Highly recommended if you can track it down. It ended with the story of seven lively, exceptionally gifted kingdom builders getting on a plane in New Guinea to fly to their respective homes and places of ministry, some back to young families.  Seven minutes later the plane caught fire and they went instead to their eternal home.

Excerpts from the moments of those days are recorded in the book and I found priceless (please, pardon the length--maybe take two days to read this lengthy post?  I just couldn't leave anything out nor chop it in two):

The man who had received the news and now must tell this to an auditorium packed with a worship gathering of their friends and family, walked the distance to the building: “Over and over a verse of Scripture kept running through his mind…”And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose”.   (Romans 8:28)

The wreck, still burning some few miles away, was announced, and the speaker stepped forward. “It was a moment of tender love, divine sensitivity.  'For thy sake we are killed all the day long.'  It was the words of Romans 8.  'We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.  However, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loves us…'”

“There was peace at Ukarumpa that night.  Comfort.  The Holy Spirit was there.  Grief?  Yes, but there was an overriding impression, almost an aura, that this was not a mistake.  Somehow, Some way, this was a  part of God’s great purpose.

Graham Pulkingham, the speaker, had prepared these words for that night:

“God is not glorified because we go off and do something for Him.  He is glorified when we give our bodies to be the habitation of His Holy Spirit…

“The world will tolerate you coming out here to do something they don’t understand; as long as you can produce something that is useful to the rest of mankind the world will put up with your bizarre behavior.  But if you told the world you had come out simply to be the living demonstration of Jesus Christ together, the world would turn upon you and rend you—for in their eyes that is a foolish thing to do.”

“He closed his message talking about that one extra quality which set apart as a special people the seven who died.  It was not their technical ability, nor even their dedication unto death.  It was love.

“If I see a hungry person and offer him a seed, it does not give him much nourishment.  But if I give him an apple, he has not only the seed, but the apple to eat.  So as you carry the seed of the Spirit into the world, make sure you have it encased in the fruit of the Spirit – which is love.  Then men will find nourishment as well as life.”

After the funeral, this in conversation:

“For years JAARS has lived with the motto: 'We do our best and the Lord does the rest.’  From a human standpoint, an error was made that caused people to die.  The Lord has laid down natural laws for us to live by.  If these laws are broken, we suffer.  But deep inside, I also know that in spite of our errors, in spite of our best-laid plans, God’s final purposes were always achieved.  All I can say is, those who died were chosen.”  He handed me  scrap of paper. "Read this when you have a chance”, he said.  Perhaps this will give you some insight into what I am talking about.”  My plane was ready to go.  I slipped the paper into my shirt pocket…”

"Late that afternoon in Port Moresby, standing at the edge of the Coral Sea, the rugged mountains and dense jungle behind me, I looked out over the water toward Australia.  The ocean was leaden, barely reflecting the heavy mottled overcast.  Brittle shards of sunlight began to burst through the swollen bellies of clouds, storm-tattered remnants driven west by the monsoon winds.  Bands of striated sunlight stalked like brassy shafts, illuminating the olive-tinted water, fracturing it like bits of broken green-glass bottles, then tarnishing it in deep gold.  I reached in my pocket ad unfolded the paper…it was a sheet out of Darlene Bee’s notebook [written by this young, beautiful, talented Bible translator days before her death in the crash]:

 

“Perhaps the moment after ecstasy;

After feeling the full, fierce force of life;

After knowing love, and while love is still warm…

Perhaps that is the time for dying;

Before everything and one has turned sour;

Before life is a burden,

Before the thrill of waking to a new day is gone;

Before we long for death…

To die while bursting with life,

Brimming with vitality,

Longing to live…

Perhaps this is the time to die—and live."

"So they died.  And so they live.

"Sixteen years before, five men had given their lives in the jungles of Ecuador that their killers might come to know God through Jesus Christ.  That was a true sacrifice—the innocent dying for the guilty.

“It was the testimony of the widow of one of these men, Marj Saint, that inspired Doug Hunt [the pilot in the crash] to lay down his nets and follow the Master as a jungle pilot—loving not his life unto death.  That, too, was true sacrifice.  Presenting his body totally to the Lord...

“Oh, God, and shall my heart be cold when men go out to die for Thee?” 

Today, Nate and Marj Saint’s son, Steve, lies paralyzed in a hospital bed.  On his Facebook page you can watch him speak with awe of the sacrifice of our Christ, the pain, his lacerated head bound round with stitches where the blade sliced through:

“Not one time have I wondered, or asked God why, this happened.”

“I think God is teaching me that He writes His best stories, from the hardest starts, from the hardest beginnings...”

He remembers an interview a news person had with Roger Youderian’s wife, in which he asks her to tell him (after losing her husband, one of the five men slain by the Aucas), when she asked God why, then what did God say to her?  She answered him: “I guess it just never occurred to me to ask God why.” 

And Steve recounts today: “ And I thought, how in the world do you get to that point in life  where you don’t even ask God why,  when your whole life turns upside down?  and now look –it’s happened to me.”

You can also see Steve talk over the internet with Mincaya, one of the Auca men who speared his father and the four others to death on that sandbar, and who now has been serving the Lord as one of His children for many years.  Steve says to him,

“In all the world, there are no people that I love more than I love you. I love your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren.  I love you…”

“The last night I was with Mincaya, I sat and watched him sleep, and I realized, this is one of my dearest friends in all the world.”

This, the Love of Christ.  We, His people.

Our son and his buddy at mission aviation flying camp last summer

From Darkness to Dawn to Gold

I’ve spent decades being enchanted with sunlight.  Not that I like constant sun, but that I love what the properties of sunlight do to a landscape.  There is light, yes, at dawn, but the light that comes when the sun enters each morning is altogether different.  I’ve often thought about the correlation to our Christian walk.  Through common grace all people on earth enjoy many blessings, but only those who walk in Christ, under His covering, experience illuminated  life in the Son, gilded in the way that the sun gilds every blade of grass.  For common grace allows us to live and move, be and become, but life in the Son promises that all things work together for God’s glory and our good.  I feel certain that at the end of time we will find that light and sunlight unknowingly  reveal to us things about God’s character and His creation that will bring us immense delight.

With those thoughts in mind I was fascinated to read this about the hour our Jesus died:

“An enormous earthquake occurred at this hour in Nicaea.  In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, Phlegon wrote that “a great darkness” occurred all over Europe which was inexplicable ot the astronomers.  The records of Rome, according to Tertullian, made note of a complete and universal darkness, which frightened the Senate, then meeting, and threw the city into an anxious turmoil, for there was no storm and no clouds.  The records of Grecian and Egyptian astronomers show thst this darkness was so intense for a while that even they, skeptical men of science, were alarmed.   People streamed in panic through the streets of every city, and birds went to rest, and cattle returned to their paddocks.  But there is no note of an eclipse; no eclipse was expected.  It was as if the sun had retreated through space and had been lost.  Mayan and Inca records also show this phenomenon, allowing for the difference in time.”  --Taylor Caldwell, footnote from research, Dear and Glorious Physician

Guess I never thought about darkness covering all the world-- the extinguishing of light symbolic of the extinguishing of The Light on such a cosmic scale. Every civilization that kept records, records this.   And earthquakes in Nicea?  Southeast of modern Istanbul? Wow!  Mysteries, all.

Another thing I’m puzzling.  The disciples were concerned about Jesus’ safety going to Judea because the Jews sought His life.  His answer?  “If anyone walks in the day He does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.  But if one walks in the night he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” (John 11:9)

In my awesome Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, on the reality and symbolism of light in Scripture:

“Light is a symbol of goodness and blessing….represents goodness and holiness as opposed to evil…in the NT the sanctified life is repeatedly associated with light…in Romans believers are commanded to “cast off the darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12—(again, alluding to protection from danger as Jesus ‘response did)…Light is also a symbol of God’s favor and the joy this favor brings…light is linked with truth and understanding as opposed to error and ignorance, and to the illumination that comes from embracing the truth…” 

"if anyone walks in the day he does not stumble..."

And then, just when I’ve thought of how the sun (imperfectly) represents the glories of Christ, I come across verses like these, that indicate these properties of light dwell also in His people.  Yes, we are called to “shine as lights in the world” in Phil 2:15,  and )…”Once you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8).  

But then this:

”Light dawns for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart (ps 97:11)…”The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (Prov 4:18).  Isn’t that describing what I am talking about—the turning of gray dawn light into golden harvest of a sun-day? Our path is like unto this? 

Then why shall we fear?  And why should we be afraid—discontent—disenfranchised from our purpose and our people?  Our path goes from darkness to dawn to gold.  This, our path, is ordained by God for His perfect purposes which will not be thwarted come what may.  Just as surely as the sun rises, the glories of sunlight will be our heritage in the Lord, shining unto life and growth and increase and good fruit regardless of the challenges in the path.  Therein is our safety, and our hope. 

But Have the Light of Life

Sometimes that which follows after is loaded with significance.

I was only looking for a Friday evening venue for my husband and I to enjoy with some friends.  Our town has become a vineyard-producing destination, a romantic getaway raised up from pasture-land.  The lead singer’s bio read, “She laid down her Bible and picked up her guitar…”  Turns out she was a preacher’s daughter; traveling about in the 70’s church to church, her angst about life, her unanswered questions, must have grown bigger than the back seat of her father’s station wagon, and a decade ago she just gave it all up, dropped out of Bible school and joined the night life with her great voice and poetic soul.  I couldn’t let it drop:  how does this happen?  What seeds are planted bearing terrible fruit, that cause a person one day to leave that which is good, true, holy?

Sure, I get the draw.  Doing Washington, DC all night is one of my most vibrant memories even 20 years later:  bookstore till midnight, dancing and exploring the streets, lingering over pre-dawn breakfast, and then sitting out on the third story stone windowsill watching the sun come up over the city--the wild abandon of sharing experiences with another and opening up the soul.

Yes, for the adventurous who feels bound and gagged by packaged religion, the poetic that feels the pulse of the night drawing, and the list goes on.  But aren’t we all much at fault in the body of Christ who have failed to paint life in Christ in effervescent colors, in Truth?  Nothing is more wildly adventurous than those who have forsaken all to go where Christ leads them—their stories are better cliffhangers than Indiana Jones, more intense than Bourne, and more dynamic  than Avatar.  Are we raising up our children to love their stories—full of life, brilliance, peril and thrill--or the movies that settle for lesser story, action, adventure?  To seek out these stories in those around them, old friends and newly met? Nothing is more poetic than the unveiling of a world the Master Poet created and sustains, with all its human souls and their weavings.  Are we raising up the next generation to feel the pulse of that beauty, the beauty in another human soul, in history, in God’s stories unfolding?

 God reveals the vitality of His life, His way, to those who believe in Him, trust in Him, and are thankful to Him.  “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.”  (Romans 1:21)  How important do we think it is, then, that we teach our children to have grateful hearts and tongues?  If God has ordained praise from the mouth of babes, as the psalmist says, then when are they too young to be taught a posture of thankfulness, no tolerance for the planting seeds of ingratitude and discontent which shelter so many other sins?  Do we think this is a small thing?

Talking with our children about some significant falling into various sins that they are observing of people they know and some that they love a great deal, the inevitable ending of these conversations is for us to remind ourselves of the sins which dog our own hearts and follows hard after our heels.  Jesus lifted up the woman caught in adultery; he scanned the crowd condemning her and  as they breathlessly waited for His diatribe against her sins, he swept them off their feet:  “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”  The oldest person there, having lived enough years to become familiar with his own heart and thoughts, walked out first, knowing of what he was made.  And the entire space emptied, as each soul looked inside and knew, before the living Christ, that he or she was capable even as the woman before them, of too much to mention.

But I digress.  What follows, loaded with significance, after Jesus’ mercy-laden “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more”*?

“I am the light of the world.  He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life*.” 

Have you ever walked the dark night with a baby, with trouble, with sleeplessness,  and welcomed even  the gray dawn, only to be undone in your soul by the beauty of gold when the sun touches everything and draws life from the shadows?  We live where the rain and overcast can go on for months without ceasing.  All of life changes for us when the sun comes out.

How much more this woman--how much more we --come to life, feel the shadows turn burnished and the world illumined, with the coming of the Son into our hearts.  Light wells up from the very depths.  Breathtaking.  Shocking.  Awe-inspiring, life-giving.  What could be more satisfying than “having the Light of Life*”?

*John 8:7-12

Raising Tree Huggers

I am compelled to post these tame photos of our people, traveling from tree to tree (surely there were some Ents among them)same as in the climbing story of their lives.  Compelled, because I just don’t dare tell you about, say, he who upturned his antique tractor over on himself trying to scale too steep a hill; she who skinned the rabbit (really--don’t ask.) and she who puts chia seed in drinking water and “You have to have the blueberries with it” sort of experiments in which she exploits innocent ingredients.  Don’t ask, either, what went into our morning shakes this week as the eldest voraciously continues her herbal studies.  All I’ll say is that we came to tears laughing more than once this week, and that we must have the funniest kids ever, discovered as they tell each other, one from the railroad tracks and another from the crook in the tree and the third from the cabbage patch, because really, we just aren’t that funny hereditarily.  But we sure will be healthy when she’s done with us, if we survive these episodes.

So here we are on a recent brief adventure, all the trees are friends to be met, discoveries to be made. 

Should I even mention the homemade blackberry-chocolate mint ice cream she made?  Probably not, because we're done with that batch and the one I just found downstairs, the coffee ice cream, while not as imaginative, is quite outstanding.