Journal
Tag: #lightoftheworld
I just saw this piece by Malala. If you haven’t heard about her, read on.
The chaos being experienced right now is not a distant event: it is the scream of humans that will follow us in ways we can’t know yet. What can we do? I’m praying. There’s people praying that those who can make a difference will do so.
Last month I wanted to look closer at this legendary masterpiece of Auguste Rodin’s, and found that it was a Type of Dante’s Poem, gazing at the portals of hell…. am I wrong?
There wasn’t time to dive deeper into that, we’ve all been flung a little further in at a new kind of emo/physical torment with Virus related issues. We’ve never been closer, in this new kind of loneliness, all of us together in a new kind of isolation, we’re like a Shadow of yesterday going into tomorrow, staring at Us all as through a glass, gazing at each other as if we’ve never seen us before, sans all the action. It’s a new kind of day. We’re unafraid of words we used to be afraid of. A friend who never asks for prayer, asked. What are we all thinking as we face another 24 hrs, an extended Lock down, or more news coming in from frontlines, where people are facing way more than emptied food shelves….
I got this ( pl see below Thinking Man). It isnt all gloomy. In fact, in it’s own heart rending way, the following words change me….
Pray for Italy🙏🏻
“From Dr. Julian Urban, a 38 year-old serving in a hospital in Lombardy, Italy:
—LIGHT IN A DOCTOR’S DARKEST NIGHTMARE—
Never in my darkest nightmares did I imagine that I would see and experience what has been going on in Italy in our hospital the past three weeks. The nightmare flows, and the river gets bigger and bigger. At first, a few patients came, then dozens, and then hundreds. Now, we are no longer doctors, but sorters who decide who should live and who should be sent home to die, though all these patients paid Italian health taxes throughout their lives.
Until two weeks ago, my colleagues and I were atheists. It was normal because we are doctors. We learned that science excludes the presence of God. I laughed at my parents going to church.
Nine days ago, a 75-year-old pastor was admitted into the hospital. He was a kind man. He had serious breathing problems. He had a Bible with him and impressed us by how he read it to the dying as he held their hand. We doctors were all tired, discouraged, psychologically and physically finished. When we had time, we listened to him.
We have reached our limits. We can do no more. People are dying every day. We are exhausted. We have two colleagues who have died, and others that have been infected. We realized that we needed to start asking God for help. We do this when we have a few free minutes. When we talk to each other, we cannot believe that, though we were once fierce atheists, we are now daily in search of peace, asking the Lord to help us continue so that we can take care of the sick.
Yesterday, the 75-year-old pastor died. Despite having had over 120 deaths here in 3 weeks, we were destroyed. He had managed, despite his condition and our difficulties, to bring us a PEACE that we no longer had hoped to find. The pastor went to the Lord, and soon we will follow him if matters continue like this.
I haven’t been home for 6 days. I don’t know when I ate last. I realize my worthlessness on this earth. I want to use my last breath to help others. I am happy to have returned to God while I am surrounded by the suffering and death of my fellow men.
Pls pray for Italy”
****
And may I add, pray for our neighbours, each other, ourselves. For international wisdom and tact as we go forward.
Pray with peace.
His embrace will not just hold you, It holds all men and friend and foe, whoa,
what’d I think His Comfort was… sweet cuddly Bear arm, warm with Paternity? His Comfort Zone is more than I dare dream… ach!
It’s in the Slap of the storm, in the Sap of the thorn,
Haha, I wasn’t chatting with God then, cuz He is in the crooky path of stray mountain goat; and I thought Love meant Light, but He takes the Night, longing like Darkness does for Dawn, for those that are unloved, forgotten…
…. all are clung together here: the healed, dead, dying, worthy, worthless, wasted idiot, reckless loser, offender, disbeliever, saint, deathless sinner : in that embrace that defies human limitations to Love like that.
Like that.
That line 👆 has been with me 3 weeks now. I wake up to sit in star-shade by our potted grapevine that snuggles baby pigeon twins: it is quiet, so quiet you could hear us breathe.
Times like these, it arrives with a Noise-
that we are Created:
the lot of us- kings, priests, fugitives, the dying, breathing, the reviven. I like that word : Reviven. (People do make up new words: check this from last year. So, this is my own word, unless someone’s beaten me to it and I’ve no clue😄!)..
it is in effect, making our own moment, we crash rigidity, we step down into cellars ‘neath our feet…..places we once knew existed, when we were unaffected by things we cannot physically see.
Ach.
We are not puppets, we have free will, the power of choice, we own soul and incredible powers to make/ break each other. I am blown away by our ‘400,000 species of plant life’, leave alone secrets in DNA or a Robot named Sophia.
I do not understand Rape either, its dehumanization ; or even how it feels to be an Executioner, however just the cause..
… besides all of the above,
what on earth are ‘ghost particles’ surfacing from inner earth?
My gran Tara would’ve hooted with joy, “Finally we have discovered hell!”
I’ve taken after her I know. We are both Encountees of the Divine, we shush no-God theories. It’s our Doxa! We pray in the stars, we pray over meals, in traffic jams, over news headlines and politicians splitting hairs, tails, we are all extensions of each other! So I pray for border countries unashamed by raised brows. Hey, if you’ve hung around MRIs and Cat scans long enough, you’ve lost some dignity, you don’t care who says what about which.
Last year I recovered from a serious heart condition and got home as if nothing happened. Yeah, miracle. From the womb of Heaven. I vowed at the hemline of God, oh Trouser hem if you will…. that if I outlived that ordeal, I’d blog, I’d blig about it, everything under that category.
We die alone, we live alone really- we lean heavily on each other and sibling and spouse but truly it’s a life about Givery– as in Giving. All the fuss about proving Eden wrong? It pales next to our screaming need to know we are inimitable.
Ofcourse,
phosphorus! Always suspected the PH of fish was crucial to our existence. How star studies reveal that, is a good thing.
I look deep in the sky when I can and there they are: Scripture writ with bold hand across the sky. Sometimes I get a loveletter in cloud- tone dialects that go, “When one feels low, they must get some fish. To fry, or to curry.”
On occasion a P.S. “…works even when you’re in a good mood.”
So while we stare at fish ponds & the news, while some run out food and survival, I’m thinking on how tough it is for us to remember we did not make ourselves. (The mysteries of human construction are the biggest news there will ever be about us…)
As I post this I’m wrapping myself around a question :
aren’t you too often startled at how infinitesimally puny our ‘problems’ are in comparison to our Source… the DNA of One who ‘doesn’t exist’…
which very Insistence qualifies Him?
REVIVEN : IT EXISTS! Check here
Original oil, RN. Sold.
….
He did not reply,
but in the Stillness,
all else was hushed:
that One time was enough,
enough for me to know
the Power of His
Stillness.
He made me cry with this one:
We thought about Title, I said “Reflections“, seeing I’m supposed to be the family poet. He gets me my mug of hot drink and sits next to me with, “What’s that?”
I tell him we need a title before packing up this beauty and he (Jeff) says, ‘Autumn blush.’ Like he’s done all these kind of words before, y’know abstract words with emo.
It’s been a long day today, longer than I can tell here. I wonder at the colors in this amazing man of mine, colors of joy and Spring, harvest yellows and ripples of an earth tide reflecting the heavens. Gratitude Lord for Your ceaselessness that flows like a Tide through our lives, just because You say so.
These past months I’ve come to a few (21!)conclusions that renew me; warning though…long post.
2. We create new experiences : re-visiting a long past ‘Happy Place’ right here in the Now.This Post: Little chapel in Monmouthshire, surprised me> an Instagram friend’s Photograph that provoked a childhood memory with new realisation that I have this beautiful space in me now forever. It never left, I needed a re- visit/ reminder, via blog? Wow.
3. ‘De-cluttering is also giving away some amount of personal space to listen to another. It is life’s sweetest investment. I haven’t been able to throw away old cards, or my kids’ kindergarten scribbles/ their first baby curls- but we’ve been inviting more people home. Over the months of 2019, I’ve had the privilege of watching my first love for God walk back in. Time has been restored. Time spent nursing health issues: the more I stopped sitting in my own personal fenced Pond, the more healing happened. (If you like, there are a few words from there in Heal).
4. ‘Old’ structures seen again with new eyes renewed my understanding of my own defences (I’m captured by the world around me👀 in blogosphere!) It is beyond belief how a PhotoBlogger’s Capture of Old Cold Bench re-wrote my own indifference to life outside the front door.
5. The Net has some inspiring movies that worked well in my core;listed in my Decade Tag Post. They expose some incredible events in everyday living. Looking forward to more!
6. Working at what I love can change the way I think, speak. New Painting in The Cusp of things stares at Change with a certain joy and dare.
7. Praying more for those in my ❤, or not, (again, am deeply stirred by some amazing Blog friends who remind me that we are humans in the most demanding era ever, and old fashioned as it may seem I’m stoked to pray for others as others have done for me), makes this whole connectivity thing worth the effort and time and love.
8. Play Angel unawares {This Upload inspires me to go out and take more real life pictures of my own. (You don’t have to read all of my Posts, but am getting a kick out of seeing what I’ve been upto 🤗). Humans can be angels, every single basic one of us.
9. True Life Recounts: change us.
10. Go, GLOW : work out, eat healthy, forgive, speak life. I’ve never personally asked myself to do that.😅.
11. Experiencing Silence writes new words Sing. Play an instrument. Listen to birds. Squirrels. Leaves. Rain. It’s no easy discipline, when you’re tempted to not be silent.
12. Gratitude actually works, even in a blog post!
13. Schedule ‘Rest‘. (Hard to believe how we downplay this one).
14. Wait, even on self. This is new for me.
15. Remember that one line that’s been holding my head. “THERE IS A TIDE TURNING…” < that Post was inspired by the trees outside my house. I know now Natures’ Prompts are from God.
16. Taking inventory of what lives with me : is a critical Must Do!
17. Working on Heartlifts crucial to existence, involves the act of Prayer. Yeah people will find you odd.
18. Know I can be seriously Unafraid.
19. Celebrate Moments, every moment.
20. Breathe deep♡ Love deeper
21. Words I speak too, Talk to me.
I think 21 is a great coming-of-age number. When I started this post, I hadn’t thought to links to posts, hope it reads right.
The whole inter galactic weave isn’t all about me, but somethings are. Things that impact interpersonal spaces, influence social existence.
Typo! Though it gets me asking:
what will it be like, a decade down?
This morning early at nearby Lake with fam and a few friends after midnight candles and chatty sleepover,
January felt chilly brrrrr 8 am, it was cloudy sun,
What will the next 365… 366 days hold as we do a leap year?
Will there be paper? Hey do people still write on paper?
… there be trees?
Water…?
..bees for candles? 🙂
brotherhood, togetherness, families, oxygen,
seasons?
What will we be blogging about,
or eating?
Last night we ashed 2019’s ugh habits. There were Promises
We held hands,
What about Us? Will we be happy, humane, will there be peace… not a decade down but year next….?
happy 2020 she’s almost a day old. I wish you Peace.
Do you have a happy place? A place you return to now and again sometimes for no reason, or when you do have a reason. I have a few like maybe you do too. This one below is almost exactly like the one I went to, eons ago, on a hill next to a forsaken lighthouse. It had lilies though, and a brick path with fallen out gate, I’d wait to hop over it and onto wild bush of Touch-me -nots.
The sheer smallness of the chapel was magnified by the amount of light falling in it, through it, it lit up chinks in the woodwork, so when you looked at it from the outside it was like a small house on fire. Emotional, some would say. But I’ve grown past mere emoticons. There was a Stillness in there that got into me. It defied, and still defies human conditions for joy. It stilled my father’s bad temper at being pulled out of bed to be on time for service 7 am. My Ma was the prettiest warrior I ever saw; when she sang the sun shone specially on her, her curls lit up with fire and faith in the God who taught her how to bring up us three girls all on her own with dad away on postings all over India. She taught us how to be Indian traditionals, yet free of false humility, how she did that I do not know.
when I return to the memory of that first chapel ever, I’m reminded of how small I am in the vastness of an era I do not understand. I’m reminded of fearlessness, of the brilliance of Light as It un-hides the dark- exposing areas in my life that needn’t be subject to human frailty. And I love how freeing that is, to lean on Light and feel Its’ pressure on my skin, on my senses even, and on my human spirit so frighteningly prone to Self-reliance. Which in itself is a good thing. And some days, the human spirit wants to lean on a Thing bigger than us. No matter the fuss and kick at higher strength, humans like/want/need the Infinite whether in affairs of mathematics or promises. We need the falling in love then the expectation of that Significant Other who needs be that Leaner-On. Some of us need a Festival, a Shopping Mall, Online heroes, or Plates of This and That. We go low, then high on things that will transform us via vein, brain.
Today I’m leaning on the One that found me in Unexpected Places, else I’d not have noticed Him. Else I’d have been suspicious of too much goodness, or Structure based mementoes that Transform our inner spaces irrespective of life as is visual, aural, tactile….
I’m excited, like in moments before you unwrap a gift. It is easier now to remember the good things not the bad. Hope is poised like buds waiting, tiny perked blossom. Promise cards/calendars read,”From this day I will bless you...” it started with Thanksgiving month. Every day feels closer to dawn, I want to lean back a bit, and rest on blessed assurance.
Not good?
I do think it’s good to be like that, like a child with no bitterness attached to the way we accept life all over again; accept our own capacity to be good, yeah that – forgive ourselves too, in the eyes of God alone who is perfect.
If you’re thinking I’m sitting in a cleopatra tub of milk floating with rose petals, no I’m not. I’ve at least 2 good reasons to give someone a tongue lashing…I have my own personal hate list that God keeps (yes God, dyou mind:) …keeps reminding me to shred.
But as these last days of 2019 narrow down over the weekend and we plan a candle lit midnight with a few friends, I’m truly looking forward to shredding to ash some emotions I’ve picked up along the way not on the 31st, but right now. Looking forward to stepping into new ness, not merely on the eve of 2020 but deep in the crevices of my ME where an Unshakable Kingdom exists. We choose life, we choose death, we choose in-between states of grey:
Hey, choose Life.
Never be afraid, even of the Light. It isn’t what we know. It puts the Dark to flight:
Beautiful terrible ring in the sky, I spy you through a glass darkly,
among other things I do not understand but grasp at.
May the day ahead and the ones to follow, fill you with a brand new season of rest, harmony and joy!
We took them out one by one. Joseph has lost his little clay head and there’s no time to fix him back so I cover his torso with a tiny cane head piece. Can you spot Joseph?
Our son Johann is blind and yes he put out each figure like last Christmas, but this time, post seizures/ meds, he cannot concentrate. His hands shake and I do not insist that Joseph goes next to Mary, so it’s all askew. Does it matter, I wonder.
Would the real Joseph have been quietly seated next to new mom Mary? Wouldn’t he have lost his head, even just a wee bit,with this surreal pregnancy of his betrothed, a ferocious Herod, … the details of that divine birth blow my mind each time. My spirit fills with gratitude that over the years, Christ has not stayed in clay, but has gazed into my life with very real presence.
The reality of Christmas is fantastic. A Divine Babe that grew to face a Cross, a resurrection garden, He would walk through walls to get through my heart of stone.
May the heart of you be warmed warmed warmed this season, with Love Divine from the Manger to the moon and back.💓
The lyrics of a song done with my lefty guitar (will upload when theres courage to do that:). Words run off me and I can’t think except watch how healing walks in. No evidence, it crawls in a millimeter at a time. Then two steps back. Yes I’m a dreamer but positivity alone has never helped med.side effects, see? And I’m seeing new light in the dark. Seeing hope against odds. Our son is on a new surge of withdrawal, the seizures stopped months ago, but this. As my fam and I watch each other cope, moods swing then settle. We must plan activity to zap his nervous energy. He’s been the sweetest calmest person here these 18 years, so this is hard. Jeff read this out to me just now,”He who dwells in the shelter of the most High will rest in the Shadow of the Almighty.“
I’m asking, so His Shadow goes where angels ‘d fear to tread, right. His shadow chases hell for us, It treads fire and walks stormy water to get to us, His Shadow would, Who, What else could? This isn’t a blog post for the sake of blogpost. I am grateful for that Shadow that lead me to some extraordinary readings today, rooting me back into security, ignoring my doubts, my fiery disbelief.
It’s too late now to be afraid
Too much Grace in this place,
too much Mercy walked in, kissed me,
New healings, I cant see yet, except thru’
This, glass darkly.
…
I was born of the dust, where Light fell like a stairway, ’twas calling calling, Child of the Dew, ‘fore you even knew it,
I know you..
Before you were born in the womb of galaxies of Stars, you & I were summoned to breathe, by the breath of God –
falling like Dew,
Lest we forget we are first born Natives of Light,
lest we forget ….
…
Painting Lyrics of my heart Watercolour digitalized, RN
I pray for you son that even if you do not see the Light in this life, you will know the Light sees you
Innerdialects 
You must be logged in to post a comment.