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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Desire

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire. Thomas Merton
Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. Isaiah 26:8 (NIV)

Listen to Isaiah 26 in The Message:

...Throw wide the gates
so good and true people can enter.
People with their minds set on you,
you keep completely whole,
Steady on their feet,
because they keep at it and don't quit.
Depend on God and keep at it
because in the Lord God you have a sure thing.
Those who lived high and mighty
he knocked off their high horse...
All the exploited and outcast peoples
build their lives on the reclaimed land.

The path of right-living people is level.
The Leveler evens the road for the right-living.
We're in no hurry, God. We're content to linger
in the path sign-posted with your decisions.
Who you are and what you've done
are all we'll ever want.
Through the night my soul longs for you.
Deep from within me my spirit reaches out to you...

I have never cultivated a taste for coffee. I am, however, a great lover of Diet Coke. A local convenience store (Holiday) tempts me with 44 oz of it for 99 cents. This morning on my way in to the watering hole I saw a woman reading a book with a captivating title, Silence on Fire, and I asked her about it. It is based upon the writings of Thomas Merton.

We spoke and she shared with me that she is reading it as part of her 12 Step program and what followed was a few minutes of sharing as she waited for her ride to a meeting. She is determined and pursuing a better path. She has chosen her Master.

Today I found myself telling Jesus again, "You are my choice. You are all I will ever want." I remembered how He said to His friends, "I have earnestly (with passionate longing) desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." His desire was so keenly focused upon them, upon us, as he revealed in the flesh the Savior who had been concealed in all the generations of Seders past.

Christ's heart and strength were purposefully directed towards us and our redemption. That purpose, sharpened knife-edged and unforgiving of His divinity, dictated that He would die in our place with the full weight of His obedience bringing down the hammer of God's vengeance upon the nails. (Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But that is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person does not remain banished from him. 2 Samuel 14:14) "Not my will...but Yours."

It remains His passion to eat with us. To share the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in His Father's Kingdom with those forgiven ones whose desire is to live for Him. If Merton is right then our lives will be shaped by that desire every bit as much as was Christ's.

The end is love with reclaimed people living on reclaimed land.

The Desired Ones.

Us.

Kat with John



Dedicated to the woman at the Holiday. May Christ continue to order all your "Steps." Thanks for sharing.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

The Bird

Tiny claws grasp fir needles.
Hungry beak searches for small fruits
among fragrant green points.

Wild vines twist and twine
among the branches,
a current heavy banquet.

What is she to me?
Yellow-tipped, fawn feathers
casting about, alert for food or danger.

I am not even as good as a purple berry to her
but she delays flight
as I step imperceptibly closer.

Do you feel the Garden, Little Sister?
Light but a moment upon my coat
and Eden lives.

Let me hold you warm in cupped hands
feel soft wing to cheek
and two worlds become concrescent.

When berries fail Providence provides,
as I will hide your form in my winter heart
to nibble through to Spring.

kl

"Ask the animals what they think—let them teach you;
let the birds tell you what's going on.
Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics.
Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.
Isn't it clear that they all know and agree
that God is sovereign? That He holds all things in His hand—
Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature." Job 12:7-10



To John, my bird lover, the only man whose hand has ever covered mine, in celebration of a wonderful Fall day spent in the company of the God of all things.