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.

John Locke on Words

"The very nature of words makes it almost unavoidable for many of them to be doubtful and uncertain in their signification."
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke

Isn't it ironic that the very medium we use to communicate turns out to be inherently ridden with obstacles to communication?  Is human history anything more than a series of miscommunications?  Even at our best - all parties listening and speaking fairly - all we can hope for is that the significance of a word in my mind is close enough to the significance of the same word in your mind that we understand each other. 

It makes me wonder, why speak (or write) at all...?

But here I am, anyway.  I keep writing, speaking, thinking.  Continuing to use words to explore my own thoughts, and mystically transfer them to others in some form, is the best way I know of getting to the bottom of the issue. 

Literary optimists are lucky.  They get to believe we get closer and closer to true understanding the more we try.  Whether this makes me avant-garde or a fool, I don't know, but I throw my lot in with theirs.

In Him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

I closed my eyes.

I saw the universe outlined as if it was in the shape of a man.  He was tall and strong, arms at his sides, on his back in the nothingness that exists outside of time.  His body was full of the night sky and stars that shone from out of his deep blueness.  It was less like he had blue skin, and more like the sky defined his form.  And even though I could tell he was laying down, his body was horizontal, not vertical.  I knew the man was God.

I realized that I was the man too; each person is that man in a way.  We all have the universe inside of us, the stars shining out of us, everything swirling through us.  

I looked closer, and I saw that I was inside the man.  I saw His veins, stretching across the universe.  I saw that I was the blood; we are all the blood.  I knew that if we are the blood, then we are perpetually coming and going to and from His heart.  We are constantly being washed, made new, pumped back through His glowing heart and out into the universe once more.  I felt myself being pumped through His heart.

I opened my eyes.

Note: Another New Page!

Check out some of my flash fiction by clicking on the tab of the same name. 

Currently, two stories from a project I started a few years ago called "You & I" are up for now.  My goal with this project was to explore everyday encounters between strangers.  We have these all the time, but it's not often we stop and think about our role in the stranger's story, or even their role in ours.