Eternity in Our Hearts

I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes people human.  What separates us from animals, even ones that make tools and perform complex tasks?

"Wow," you're thinking.  "She must be really cool if she spends her time thinking about deep questions like that."

Your assumption is understandable, but debatable.  To be fair, though, I have to admit that I think about this question so much because it is one of the foundational issues I've been led to explore in my program of study: Communication.  The Comm. program at my school is based on rhetorical theory and argues that people's ability to communicate (use and create language) the way we do is the thing (or at least one of them) that sets our species apart.

Grace is like a pair of sunglasses.

Plato may have been a genius, but he was also pretentious.  Take his Allegory of the Cave for instance.  If you're not familiar with it, check it out - Book VII from Plato's Republic.  This text has become a model for the way people understand knowledge and Truth.  But there is a problem with the model.

Plato assumes that only select people are able to withstand turning to face the light head on.  If most people in the cave saw the light of Truth, they would be blinded by it at best.  I can't agree.  I don't believe that only a few people can really know Truth.

However, that doesn't mean I believe everyone can look into it either.  Quite the opposite- I believe no one can look on Truth without being blinded, consumed by the light.  This is where a pair of sunglasses comes in handy.

Grace is like a pair of sunglasses.  It allows us to see Truth we would never be able to bear witness to on our own.  Looking on Truth, God ("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life", John 14:6), would indeed blind any who turn to look.  But with grace on, we can not only look on Truth, but come to know Him and enter His realm of consuming light where we become more whole than ever before.

How to Worship: a Reminder

To worship in Spirit and in truth.  (John 4:23)

To open myself to the Creator of the Universe, and let Him not only look into my heart, but live there.
To give Him the key, and even let Him redecorate, renovate.
To give Him the grand tour of the nooks, crannies, and secret hiding places.
To let Him poke around and find for Himself the ones I couldn't bring myself to show Him.
To hold nothing back.
To be completely honest.

To be.

Rest for the Unweary

After six days of creating a good universe and good things to fill it, God rested.  And yet we are told, "He who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps," (Psalm 121:4, NLT).

The fact that a God who spends every night sleepless without ever getting tired rests anyway says a few things about His character:

The little road

I am reminded of sliding and picking my way down the ravine behind the parsonage where I grew up: past two old outhouses that had long since fallen into disuse and disrepair; past discarded Christmas trees, now needle-less; being careful not to step on any rusty cans or kitchen utensils left over from the days when my back yard had been a Free Methodist campground.

The ravine was steep.  I would loosen my grip on one handhold, a tree or protruding root, and half run, half fall down the slope to the next.  The ground flattened out in a broad plateau at the bottom of the ravine where more and thicker trees grew, interspersed with tiny maples, ferns, and wild flowers.  There was also a little dirt road which avoided the steep slope of the main roads it connected to at either end.  It never seemed to match where it was coming from or where it was going, as if it was a slice out of some other world.