the long darkness.....

That point where the light one has always known 

and the skills one has spent a lifetime perfecting 

and the faith whose previous challenges had been but whispers of the unseen future is where hope is found. 

In that place, no logic prevails; no meaning echoes from the depths. You stand deep in a tunnel of darkness without plans or schemes or even wild magical thinking; only your breath remains. 

 Quietly in, quietly out.

Hope is tucked in the secret chambers of our hearts, overlaid with fear or sorrow, buffeted by longing and loss. It is the flicker of ‘maybe’ the faint glow of ‘perhaps’. Under all the knowing we have gathered through the years, a child’s voice forms the words, ‘Please don’t forget me’. Faint promises of love are all that is left. 

 except for the waiting.

In the long darkness, hope stands solitary guard. Fragile. Precious. In the dark, hope carries us just as much as we cling to hope in order to move forward. 

So we remember the others.  Jesus’ mother ponders in her heart. Martha’s sister kneels, pouring out her love in fragrant anointing. Four men carry their paralyzed friend through a roof to get to the feet of Jesus. A dying thief seeks whatever Jesus can bring.

Hope. Trust. Faith.

We wait and we watch......in hope.

A blessed Advent to all.

Given for you......

If you are paying attention closely, there will be a moment on Good Friday when time stops.

In that moment, you will know the darkness.  Death will be at your fingertips.There will be no more time to heal wounded places or reconcile with estranged friends and family. There will be no more time to do good and mend fences.   No matter how many people surround you when that moment is yours,  you will make this final journey alone....

....just you and whomever it is that created us and who calls us back to our origins.

Wait and watch for the moment ......

                       then know that this Jesus
                                will walk into that darkness with you.

       

Waiting in the darkness......

Waiting in the darkness is the hardest time.  The darkness surrounds you and you cannot see the end.  You cannot see any possibility of good coming out of the horror of the now.  You cannot see a new way forward.  You cannot see your hand in front of your face.

               "...even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day,
                             for darkness is as light to you." the psalmist writes. 139.11

In our darkness, we lean into this, hoping, praying that it is Divine Truth: that even the deepest darkness is light to you.  We cling to this most especially when all reason fails us and despair hovers.

This is the darkness of Easter Saturday. The women waited in the darkness.....fully expecting Jesus was dead, forever.  The women waited in that darkness....before the bright light of Easter sunrise.  Before the announcement that He is Risen.  Before the possibility of resurrection becomes, well, a possibility.  Before all of that joy and rejoicing is the darkness of Easter Saturday when the tomb lies quiet and hope is shredded.

If today is your day of dark waiting, then my prayer for you is "hold on." The light is coming, and even the darkness is held in God's embrace.

Light

 "My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning,

 more that watchmen for the morning."

The long winter is almost over.  Not that I am promising that the snow will stop and the temperatures rise to reasonable.  But in just  few days, the sun will rise exactly 12 hours before the sun sets.

The Light is back.

We have waited and waded through a long and tiresome winter to reach this point, and my joy overflows.  I can sit in my bed and watch the sun rise in the sky.  First there is but a hint that a new, light filled day is just over the horizon.  Then everything is bathed in pinks and purples.  Then the color changes to a yellow which is white which is bright and so, in some ways, no color at all.  That's what we are waiting for.  That light.

When darkness threatens our life, our family, our soul.....we watch for the light, that sign that we can breathe again.  What seems impossible in the depth of darkness gains true potential in the breaking of the first light.

We hear the story....'early in the morning, on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb...'  There the light frightened and overwhelmed them, that is, until they saw the light.  The Risen Lord Jesus is the light we all long for.....the light who marks the final end of the darkness which was the cross then and is the cross today.

Until the day when Christ's light fills every corner of this world for every moment in every day, I will take my joy in the breaking of the morning light and the breath of a new day.

To war or not to war

Power is like acid on metal.  It will corrupt, and do it quickly.


We can wish that everyone who is given power uses it to the benefit of all mankind. That won't make it so.

People will convince themselves that their motives are honorable and their actions necessary - no matter what it all looks like to the rest of the world.  We are convinced that at the core, in our heart, we are good, generous people......until we are not.

Human beings take care of themselves and their own self interests. We are blind to the evil that lies within each of us, waiting  to be expressed.  We say, with confidence, "I'd never do that" and then when pushed up against the wall, we go right ahead and do it.  And feel justified; feel no need for repentance, amendment of life, reparation to the victims.

Nations are the sum total of their citizens.  The US has been blessed with a history of balancing interests and relying on situations to right themselves and yet the Civil War points us to a time when our own system failed us.  We couldn't solve that one without killing hundreds of thousands of our own citizens; our social system continues to struggle to right itself and offer true equality to all.

Therefore, we do not have all the answers for all the nations because we are made up of self-interested humans just like they.

The people of Syria and Egypt are struggling mightily against the self-interests of people whose use of power can not be trusted, operating in systems that do not offer the potential for peaceful resolution.

I have no answers, only prayers.  Many will die in this struggle of darkness and light, so I pray for the leaders of all nations that they might have wisdom, courage, discernment and patience.....and a good dose of humility would help as well.

Lord have mercy.