Hope

Breath of Heaven

Another of God’s little miracles

Morning Visitors

I welcome the cool breezes

thinking you do too….


I remember Arizona, walking outside on the first day after a long relentless summer and being surprised by relief. No one knows that except someone that has been through as least one year in the desert. We’ve had a short heat wave here but nothing like those days. To us it’s nothing, for we have the hope of the delta breezes and relief at night. You wouldn’t think I would miss it, and I don’t miss that parts of it. The magic of the desert did a number on my heart and soul that stays with me. It was so easy to see God in the sky, in the storms, in the backdrop of the Superstition Mountains as I came home after a long 12-hour shift.

I got to visit a really unique property yesterday, acres of wide-open spaces and views galore. I miss seeing the sky. I remember my Dad commenting on how much sky you can see in the desert when he came to visit. I didn’t think too much about it until we moved back to tree land. “Dirty nasty trees” is what Elaine calls them. (Using her best Gollum voice) Hence the sap that has settled on my car due to parking downtown last night. Oh well, everywhere has its drawbacks. I did enjoy seeing the bees on our crepe myrtle this morning. Something about watching them go from bloom to bloom reinforces the fact that all is not lost. There are still bees left.

Sometimes I get so sick of all the endless garbage strewn across the interweb. So much of it is brain-rot but then you run across something truly refreshing. Here it is….https://annekennedy.substack.com/p/jen-hatmaker-and-jesus

I remember when all the women (and some men) bloggers were jumping on Jen Hatmaker’s bandwagon. I never understood it, and I was skeptical. I won’t say anything about it since Anne says it so much better than I could but give it a read. And enjoy your Sunday. Go to church, and if you don’t have one find one. And don’t try to find a perfect one so don’t try. I have found that I ruin every perfect church I find. The most important thing is that you hear about God there and that they preach out of His book.

In the meantime, I will try to find another chair, Atticus claimed mine when I got up.

Road Trip

A bus seen in San Diego

It’s gone…..and it was hard, and it was easy. Easy because it was time, hard because I know those times won’t be coming again. There are the memories though, lots of them. Those will be there forever, God willing, hidden and vibrant in the core of my being for a long time to come. I don’t have to work too hard to hear those sounds. Feel the excitement of getting ready, packing, shopping. I don’t know about you, but road trips usually mean getting treats you don’t usually allow yourself. For me, it’s Cherry Poptarts, only Cherry, no others will do. When I was a kid, it was Svenhardts packaged rolls and pancakes over the Coleman stove. Man, those were good. As long as I live, I will hear the noises of Lower Pines Campground waking up in Yosemite. The pounding of tent pegs echoing off those sheer granite cliffs. Stellars jays squawking from branch to branch. The promise of coffee which tasted of liquid gold as the finger of light crept over Sierra Point, warming the edge of the meadow.

Road trips are a special kind of magic because you never know what you might see on the road. We’ve rounded a bend on the Oregon coast to see a car overturned with a man standing outside of it scratching his head. A couch in the middle of the road. An elk the size of a small state just about to cross the road. A windshield wiper blowing off with a storm approaching. And you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a thunderstorm rolling across the desert. And all the anticipation of the arrival of your destination in the forefront of your mind.

Many years after the tent camping days of my childhood, the 2004 Fleetwood Flair was purchased. It was a brand-new era. It was more glamping than camping and it was wonderful. All the joy and freedom of camping out with a soft bed and as many shoes and boots as I wanted. Excuse me for a few minutes while I let my mind wander. How can you explain the freedom of hitting the road and finally reaching your destination? Waiting with bated breath as you find out where the camp host has parked you. And then, the setup, which was minimal in the Motorhome, that was the best part. As the camp chairs are finally dragged to the right spot you feel yourself exhale, knowing you’ll be here for a while. Cut off from the cares of jobs, responsibilities, and life. Freedom.

I guess you could say this life is one long road trip, full of good and bad, trial and error, mishaps, mistakes and then finally the times when you coast. Everything going right. You savor those times, and you enjoy the scenery. Maybe you even think about your destination. Not the immediate one, the final one. I think as we get older, we do more thinking along those lines, or maybe we try not to think about it at all. It’s there in the question that frames itself in conversations with others or thoughts before we drift off to sleep. But it’s there just the same.

Jesus had lots to say about our final destinations. Both of them. If you don’t believe in a final destination, you probably don’t think too much about it. As Christian believers, our faith, our life, is centered on the hope that only Jesus has the ticket for our final destination. But even more than a vain hope, it’s a knowledge based on His life, death and resurrection. He’s the One who paid our admission. The only One who can. So, know this:

Life is Good. But life with Jesus the life is everlasting. The most important Road Trip you will ever take.

“The Bus”

Be Still and Know

This morning, I awoke kind of unsettled. I wandered around in the dim early morning light and gave the cats a snack. Then I poured coffee and settled in my chair with shades drawn. It wasn’t time for light. Yet. I felt “Meh” and I didn’t feel like praying. I just sat. Sometimes just the act of being still is exactly what God wants us to do in that moment. So, I just sat. Just so happened that my dial landed on Ecclesiastes today for my reading plan. Perfect. God has a sense of humor, I knew that but sometimes you need to be reminded.

“Cease striving…….”

And don’t we continue to strive even when we are sitting still? Our minds are almost never inactive. As I settled into the quiet, (in my funk) I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I remembered another morning. He reminded me of when I was so irritated at the traffic noise, and He prompted me to transform my irritation into an offering of prayer. And so, I did. I prayed for every car I heard and the person behind the wheel. I started to feel a love for all those people hurrying wherever they were going, and all the problems and heartaches (and joys) behind each life. Then I heard the train come through and I prayed for everyone on it. I was transformed.

Even now, when I hear the traffic, I hear something different because when you allow God to work, He can change our normal everyday irritations into something much different. And I could ache like I do, for the pines or the ocean and go to go that quiet place, even my closet, and find that I have come out refreshed as if I had just spent time watching the waves crash upon the shore or hearing the wind making the pines sigh.

God uses what we have. And sometimes what we have is not much, but God is God so He can make our nothing into something if we invite Him with only a whisper of a prayer or an almost thought we don’t even remember thinking.

Then, one more thing happened as I sat down to write this blog. I heard David Nevue play “The Lion and the Lamb” and that song always wiggles me because it takes me back to when blogging was new and we were all like neighbors visiting at the back fence or on the porch conversing over a steaming mug of coffee. Those times were so sweet that it almost hurts to remember. But not in a bad way.

Friends, I hope you can glimpse a bit of eternity today. Pause and remember how it must have been when it was all so new. And how it can be right now as you invite God into your everyday normal and precious life.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:2

Beyond the Nails

Morning walk: My feet pounded a rhythm on the sidewalk and my mind at last freed itself from the usual bondage of useless thoughts. They come unbidden and unwelcome, springing from nowhere land, either from the murky depths of the past or from the distant future of worry land. I guess it’s normal, this overactive thinking. Writers have a term for it, it’s called “Monkey Mind.” It’s a Buddhist term describing a restless, unsettled, and easily distracted mind that jumps from thought to thought, similar to a monkey swinging from branch to branch. When you are sitting down to a creative task or even minding your business going about your day, these are the negative, deflating, harmful and useless thoughts that drive us to distraction.

For me, walking is a great way to quiet the “Monkey Mind.” I release my mind and start to observe things. Flowers, tree branches against the blue sky, Mothers wheeling strollers, people doing outdoor tasks. Much of the time I simply pray and thank God for everything under the sun. Today I was listening to “What a Beautiful Name it is” by Hillsong Worship. I started to sing along softly, and I got a vision of Jesus at the dawn of Creation. I thought of them, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit (they were all there) but it was Jesus I thought of. I love animals and nature, so I thought of Jesus creating something and then saying, “Just wait until Lori sees this!” It was so personal. I caught His excitement and then thought of all He had to go through, knowing how we would fail so miserably at obeying his One and only command in Eden.

And yet, they kept going and created it all for us. From the very beginning Jesus knew what we would do, and He knew what He would do to restore it all. And even now, as we observe the beauty around us, as wonderful as it is, we know it’s just a precursor of what’s to come. As Jesus called each star by name, I believe He was already looking ahead, beyond the Fall, beyond the Flood, beyond the Nails and the Cross, to the restoration and redemption of His creation.

Too often, we miss the thousand miracles that present themselves to our view every day because we are too worried about tomorrow or mulling over past mistakes. And too often we try to fix people instead of just loving them where they are. Only God can do the fixing anyway. Another thought while walking, that Church needs to be more like our favorite cafe where you are loved, and known, greeted (and maybe even hugged.) Church shouldn’t be a spectator sport, and I blame myself just as much as everyone else. Maybe it could be more like this:

“Hey friend, welcome in, find a spot wherever you want, either a booth or a table!

As I got closer to the end of my walk, I saw a woman by a church who had just unloaded a van full of kids and they were all spreading towels and blankets on the grass, having just gone swimming somewhere. They were all excited and happy, all talking at once, thrilled just to be in the moment.

Maybe I can practice that?

I should be in Church, but……

Yes, I should be in church but here I am at home. And sometimes it’s okay.

Shades still pulled against the half-light of dawn; I opened this little book that Mom had given me as I do from time to time. Sometimes it encourages me to read things she wrote. It helps to fill the gap she left. I miss the way back when of her, before others highjacked the person she was. Alzheimer’s for one. The others shall remain nameless, and it no longer matters because those have already been cleared up having been swept away when she left this earth. When you get older as I am now, you tend to think of Heaven more. At least I do. Of course, I imagine how physically perfect it will all be but the part I long for the most is that there will be no dissention. No disagreements, no misunderstandings, no suspicion, no lack of trust, no sin.

After all, it was a lie that first tipped the world off its axis. And it’s more lies that have continued to wreak havoc on our world today. Four little words…….”Did God really say?” There are lots of things our first mother could have done at that point. The most obvious one to me is she could have simply turned to God. (He was readily available at that point) “Hey, God a little help here, this creature is causing me to doubt what you said!” Or maybe the kind of arrow prayer many of us use on a daily basis, “Help me, Lord!!!” She could have done what I do when I need a refresher on what God actually did say in a certain situation. After all, I second guess myself all the time on what I thought I heard.

But no. She believed the slick beauty of who was speaking and doubted the fact that God had her best intensions at heart. Don’t blame her though, I think most of us would have done the very same thing. Maybe not Enoch, since the Bible says he walked with God, so much so that he didn’t actually die, God just beamed Him up.

This Sunday morning, I echo Jesus words. “Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.” John 14:1

I came across a sermon from my old Pastor in Arizona which encouraged me greatly, maybe it will you as well. I am posting the You Tube link here.

Be of good cheer, keep on praying for the President because that is what God calls us to do. I earnestly hope these words reach someone that needs to hear them. We all need comfort and healing of different kinds and grace, always grace. So far, no bombs from Iran in this direction. The world is in distress, but we know the answer. It’s always Jesus. Getting to know Him is the one thing you will never regret.

I end with Paul’s salutation from the book of Galatians, which I love: “Grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age. ” Galatians 1:3,4.

Too Much Information

We are all inundated with stuff, news, videos, images, voices and noise all day long. I think of the line from the old show Cheers:

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot, wouldn’t you like to get away….”

No wonder we need vacations, staycations, and every other kind of “cation” we can think of. The reason bars and pubs have been such popular hangouts down through the ages is because living is hard for the working class. That’s not to say that rich people don’t have stress, they just have a different kind of stress. They have endless options of things to look forward to. Propel themselves forward in different ways. They hire people to do some of the things that take up so much of the rest of our time, for instance. This is just a small example. This morning, I went to visit my 92-year-old Aunt. The refuse company took her garbage can today, just took the whole can. She called them and got someone from Arizona (we are in California) Hopefully, she will get a new can by next Friday.

Then, she got a letter from the utility company wanting her to reapply for the discount program she is signed up for. There were two full pages of small print for her to fill out. There was another sheaf of papers for her to fill out for her referral for the specialist she is supposed to see. It’s never-ending. Those kinds of things are what we (the masses) have to do on a daily basis. It’s not that hard for me, I can go online but imagine being 92 and never having used a computer or a smart phone.

It’s in these ordinary working, waking, sometimes exasperating moments of life where God can come quietly and give us that Supernatural Rest (click to open AI) with a capital “R.” And that’s very welcome news, because in those moments where you feel “stuck” that is comfort indeed. For me, nature has always been a conduit for God’s rest. Other ways for me are reading certain authors. A book I return to over and over again is Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours. Each Chapter is like breathing fresh air. Another is walking. Nothing untangles my mind like taking a walk. Sometimes I listen to Bach radio on Pandora and sometimes I just focus on sounds. Birds, lawnmowers, people talking.

This year I joined a Bible study which has rekindled my love for the Word and changed certain things in me that never would’ve happened without it. In answering some of the questions we are challenged to be brutally honest with others and ourselves. And when we sing the hymn before dismissal, I find the peace I used to know walking to church on summer evenings (that I never knew I had then, but I know it now.)

Whatever it is for you, find that thing and do it. Pray, seek God. If you can’t find the words to pray, just thank Him for all He’s given you. And most importantly, turn off the news! Have a splendid and wonderful Saturday, folks!

“My soul finds rest in God; from him comes my salvation; my soul finds rest in God; from Him comes my hope.” Psalm 62:1-2

Reaching


Oh Lord, lead me through Your Psalms as I try to sleep. 

Let me find that green pasture and still my mind like those restful waters, instead of the churning thoughts that crash and swirl preventing sleep. 

Restore my soul to what it once was, let me find that unreachable place that just hovers out of sight. Remind me Lord that when I feel lost I don’t have to search for the path of righteousness on my own. 

You have already provided the Path in Yourself. You are the ram caught in Abrahams thicket once for all. We have everything we need in You Lord. My cup runneth over with Your Spirit even though right now You lay so quietly in my soul. 

I know you are there. And maybe this is the lesson you want to teach me. To trust even when my plate is empty. To hope even when shadows of death blow around me. To know that we have the victory. 

The grave is nothing but an April fools joke for believers. 

Selah

To Hear You Breathe

I come in just about every morning and listen, listen. You don’t know it but I come in so I can hear you breathe. It makes me feel a peace inside, a calm assurance that you are here. Then, on the heels of that, I feel the sting and loss of what it would be like if you weren’t. Like a cavern it grows inside me from some dark place that remains hidden. It nips at my soul’s heels like a reminder of how fleeting it all is. This waking life. I feel the whole creation longing for redemption……release from the curse we’ve put on ourselves. 

Every blade, every leaf, every tree whispers it through the air. Animals and humans alike, desperate for food in a parched land, orphans aching for the mother they once knew. So much suffering. Everyone knows something has gone terribly wrong and everyone pitches in their two cents, wondering what the fix is. Because we are human, and we don’t give up so easily we use different and ingenious ways to patch up the gaping hole in our maimed creation.

We wait for the wrongs to be righted. Because we know they must. We see the heartache flashing across our screens, snapshots of someone else’s grief. Our minds scarcely have time to deal with what we just saw and then comes the next, worse than the first. We live in a world that breathes in life and death, and sometimes in the same moment.

You told me how you prayed for the chicks at the Farm store. That they would have a good life. Oh my gosh it makes me cry and think how wonderful you are. How blessed I am beyond measure to have you. How much easier life would be if everyone had a best friend to soften the blows of this life.

Each morning, I long for that quiet place where I can hear from God again. I seek it but can’t quite find it against the backdrop of noise. But there is this. When I open your Book, I am comforted once again. I open it and feel eternity, life, wholeness there. I cling to the hope and knowledge of its rightness, for in between its pages there is the breath of the Holy Spirit. I don’t even have to flip to the back, I know the ending.

No matter what happens in this life, God already completed the master stroke when He said, “IT is finished.” The “It” in this instance is everything. The whole long story from creation to the end of all things. 

Redemption for creation happened in one terrible magnificent instant, making all things new when He rose from the grave. Breaking chains of all kinds forever. The old dead oak standing in the field laughs and starts to bud, the cows run out of the gate to fresh grass, no more slaughterhouse for them. Thorns grow soft and bloom. No humans or animals wake with hunger pains ever again. We all eat kale, except Heaven’s kale will taste like nothing we’ve ever had before. No one kills or dies ever again. And contagious laughter will forever ring through the halls of Heaven.

And the little will chicks peep for joy. 

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:3,4

Walking Dust

“My hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore, let me not trust in visible rewards. Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health, or strength, or ability, or human resources.” Thomas Merton

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our universal frailty. At lease it should. We are all just walking dust, after all. Our waking lives are filled with equal measure of it. Frailty, that is. Being human means that in every given moment we can simultaneously feel “blessed” or “stressed” beyond measure. Haven’t we all felt that shadow of “dread” that can come upon us even when things are going well? It’s like the feeling of falling mentally. For those of us who feel the very real feelings of social anxiety it’s kind of a normal state of mind. It can be considered a weakness, but for me, it amplifies my dependance on God. I guess that’s kind of what the Apostle Paul felt about his particular “weakness.”

The Bible doesn’t say what that weakness is, but it’s been fodder for speculation in many discussions and Bible studies. Going back to Ash Wednesday, I like the tradition of wearing the ashes outwardly, although I have never actually gone to a church that supplies them for application. Most Protestant Churches don’t offer them, but maybe they should. I tend to wear mine on the inside.

I have recently had my anxieties amplified by going without alcohol for 30 days. It’s a bit like having the band-aid ripped off the rough edges of life. It was something I felt I needed to do for a time, after being prompted by lots of introspection (and prayer) brought about by the Bible study I started earlier this year. It was hard. Day 3, I was wondering if I could actually pull it off. A genetic predisposition of Alcoholism ran from both Grandparents on my dad’s side. My Grandmother died at a young age resulting from a love of the bottle, and my grandpa quit after being given an ultimatum by his second wife. It was a deal breaker, and he quit forever, to his credit.

It skipped a generation and landed on and my brother and me. We both shared a love of drinking. My brother died unexpectedly in 2023 as a result of many health issues, some of them accelerated by excessive drinking. So, this has become a part of my journey at this (late) time in my life. Better late than never, I guess. It was time. One my own personal thorns of the flesh that needed to be put to death. We are all in good company. Even the Apostle Paul wasn’t exempt.

As Paul said of his personal “thorn in the flesh”:

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor. 12: 7-9

So, this can be encouraging, whatever your weaknesses are. No one gets out of this life alive. But as Christians, even in the midst of our “ashes” we can be encouraged. For when we are weak, Christ’s resurrection power rests on us! I don’t know about you, but as I get older, I am more confronted with more and more weakness.

Today, I wear my ashes inside, carrying about the dust of immortality. Always, carrying about in my flesh the knowledge of how close I came to the licking flames of hell, but also knowing I have escaped it only because of the Cross and the terrible road Jesus walked for me.

This my friends, is cause for celebration. Easter is coming. And in the midst of this life, we can have joy unspeakable and full of glory!

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not even see Him now, you believe and trust in Him and you greatly rejoice and delight with inexpressible and glorious joy, 1 Peter 1:8

The World is Changing

In the beginning of the Lord of the Rings movie, the narrator Galadriel says:

“The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it…..”

The men and women of the WWII era are dying. The Greatest Generation, they are called. And truly they were. When I think of the 18-year-old boys I see just about everywhere I think of them on the beach at Normandy. These kids have no clue about sacrifice. They think sacrifice is not having the latest version of iPhone. It’s not really their fault. They just don’t know any better. And I hate to generalize, there are still many wonderful kids out there, they just are being raised in a different world than I was.

The world is changing for sure. Things we hear in the headlines are things that if our Grandparents heard about it, they would think we were dreaming up the worst kind of hell. Child porn for example. Who in the world would ever have thought of those two words together. We have graduated into new heights of evil and it’s not good news. Morally we are in a deep decline and there is only one way out. But to believe that you have to believe in some standard of morality and therein lies the rub. Most college kids today have been taught for many years that there is no moral standard. That whatever you think in your mind and heart is what you should do. The Bible says the opposite. From the book of Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I daresay, what we see in the world today is the result.

So, what is the truth? When Jesus was standing before Pilate, condemned for a death that even Pilate didn’t agree with, Pilate was perplexed. He was trying to paint Jesus into a corner, figure it all out.

Pilate: “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Then Pilate asked the age-old universal question What is truth? It seems everyone is still asking it. But here is the truth and we can know it. The truth is embodied in Jesus Christ alone. Not only is Jesus the embodiment of truth, but He is also the embodiment of God Himself. Most people if asked, would probably say that they are okay just the way they are, pretty good moral individuals. But as humanity we are as broken as we ever were. We only need to look at the headlines again.

There is a song that goes like this:

“Jesus is the answer, for the world today….”

Because God is the embodiment of Love, but also the embodiment of Holiness, He did what only He could do to fix us. He sent the second person of the trinity down to this earth as a Jewish man. He fulfilled the whole letter of the law perfectly, without flaw. He lived the sinless life we could never live and laid down His life willingly for us. (No one took it from Him)

All that remains is that we accept the priceless Gift. But we do have to decide. No decision is a decision against Him. While there is breath there is hope. Jesus told the man next to Him, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.” Obviously that man didn’t have time to do all the things we normally equate with measuring up. All the Churchy things. The stakes are high. They’ve never been higher, time is short. Here is a message I found by Alistair Begg that illustrates it perfectly.

As usual, my prayers and peace are with all you new or faithful who are still reading my words.

In Jesus love, Lori