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Nine ladies dancing (the nine Fruit of the Spirit - Galatians 5:22)Tuesday, January 2, 2001
John 1:19-28 Every branch on these trees is thoroughly crackable, could break at the tiniest touch. What holds up that hawk? How does he know just where to stay his feet? Only the hawk knows... Those who have a little more than one foot in the spirit world seem kind of strange to the rest of us...how can John stand the smelly scratching of that constant camel hair...where do those words of his come from? How can he have such certainty about the future? What does John see so clearly, when the rest of us are blind, in the dark, seeing nothing? Who does he see so clearly? Perhaps it is in the desert, where the air is thinner, that the clarity comes. By day a pillar of cloud, by night a pillar of fire, God is present and accounted for. I know that my Redeemer lives. I follow what I see, what I hear, what I feel...what I know. Those many moments when I don't see or hear...I still choose to "know". Why? Only God knows. I believe Him because... In a year-end compilation of quotable quotes, someone wrote, "I learned more in eight days of pain than I did in eight years of plenty." Turning away from pain is a professional occupation for many Americans, but maybe one of the consequences of grasping our comfort so tightly is definite uncertainty about anything beyond our own experience, lack of faith that keeps us in the dark. Driving back at noon I saw the hawk had flown. The diamonds which earlier studded every tree had fallen whole into the snow itself. Starlight dust sprinkled all the dazzling earth...dizzy beauty anchored by gravity, but authored by God. Lord, over and over I pray for you to open my eyes. The words come to my mouth nearly every day. Thank you for your faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. |
Driving up I-57 through the morning snowy landscape toward breakfast with my friend Don in Kankakee. Every tree shimmers in the sun, overcome with ice, giftwrapping a cold, bright, crisp morning. There's a hawk, suddenly, huge in a tree near the highway, perched high in the branches, still, watching me.