Obedience in the Dry Gulch

Climbed Roca de Counte today, a biggist stump of rock around whilst here in Los Christianos, Tenerife. I walked maybe 4 street-miles to get to the trail that soon died out and left me with scrub brush and a deep ravine to climb to the top. Looked high and saw a couple of hang gliders soaring in the thermals high above. I switch-backed, strode, crab-legged, and four-limb picked my way up whilst listening to podcasts-memorizing scripture. Had to be careful to not get to chummy with the cactus.

Had loads of fun this way until 2:30ish or so in the afternoon. I was 2/3rds of the way up. Close but no cigar. Had to come down. Each step required attention with scrabble, loose boulders, unstable ground. Walked a narrow aquaduct for awhile to scout a better trail thru the wilderness. Found one, mainly used by critters. No sign of human habitation or trekking. Came around the corner, following the dry gulch, boulder and scree laden, and there gob-smacking me in the gums was a 30 foot drop with no easy access down. Hmm. Pick a ledge here, scooch sideways a bit, hang by one hand, lever down into that crack...? Then I heard a clear Voice, “Go back. Now. Not one more step forward.” I obeyed. Cantilevered myself up back thru a rocky hollow and caterwamped diagonally away from danger. He made another way, up, over, around, down. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your active guiding presence. I know it would not have gone well for me otherwise. Reminded me of the old saying, “obedience is the only acceptable expression of holiness.”

Gold Brick Dreaming

Welcome to the Canaries with us! It’s a lovely island splashed with color, lava formations, and the towering volcano, Tiede. In the midst of this beauty, a couple of nights ago I dreamt a most amazing dream:

I was standing in waist deep water. Right under the clear blue water where I was standing, were three one of a kind, original, absolutely 100% pure, huge gold bricks shaped like triangles and stamped with an impression of genuine authenticity. I was standing right on them. Bethyl, a few steps away, seemed casual in her acknowledgement of this fact and didn’t move from her place to join in my amazement. I was thinking about how to appropriate the bricks, take them with me, somehow unhinge, mine, cart away this treasure.

As I remember this dream, the gold seems to be almost glowing under my feet, lit from within. The Trinity at work, revealed: the Word made flesh, Spirit powered, Father breathed.

My excitement is that They are becoming my foundation. As I memorize and meditate on scripture, ingest and digest the Word, my foundation grows more secure. It’s not for me to make You, God, my lucky gold coin--jingle you in my pocket, and get others to admire what I found. Here I stand where You are; I will not be moved. “If you work these words into your life you are like the smart carpenter who built his house on the solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit, but nothing moved that house because it was fixed to the rock.”

Another thought. As I was sitting on the couch going over my memory work this morning, I listened to jets going overhead. Then, later, a softer, phantom noise from the airport 5 miles to east. This less distinct noise came and quietly whooshed away out of ear’s hearing. It happened so frequently that I wondered, “What is that?” Finally I figured it out. It was the planes that had landed. They were now taking off again, later, and I was just getting the auditory backwash. Come and go; come and go. It reminded me of souls landing on and leaving the planet in regular sequences, thousands every second coming and going. It seems that we make more noise with our arrivals than our departures most generally: in with a cry, out with a sigh. Lord, stretch my heart to rejoice with you and grieve with you for what gladdens and saddens Your own heart. Amen.

King Lear

Yesterday we went to see Shakespeare’s King Lear. What a majestic tragedy; in fact the king of Shakespeare’s tragedies! It brought down the sunset on his career and was a desolate ending not nearly as pretty as our local tarn sunset.


King Lear provided me with a great literary example of how grief can snatch your mind, break your heart, kill you dead. Lear pranced and puffed the vain highs, crawled the grass-eating, Nebuchadnezzar lows. He loved a good show, valued appearance over substance. The play was a study in blindness: nuanced shades of myopia into character, motives, needs. Lear and his side-kicks played out baldly the blinding effects of pride, greed, avarice. Life became increasingly hopeless, bleak and flat under the stormy, uncaring sky. The desolation was breath-taking. Bethyl & I walked out of the theater into the blowing, cold rain. We were both left wrung out, exhausted, and spent--had to go for a walk in the rain to recover.  At first it was like walking on a fell top in the fog and ice.  Then the dawning of grace in a night sky became a stark contrast to this rampant nihilism. God showered us with prickles of praise, quiet gratitude. Thank you, Jesus, for redeeming us from the leering, yawning, chaotic chasm of Lear.

 

Body and Sole on the Mountain

Today I was given an enervating climb up Bowfell, a major local knob in the ground, sandwiched between Crinkly Crags and Scafell. I climbed with a new friend, George, the vicar at a nearby village. Pouring rain all along the valley bottom gave way to sleet, snow, hail, thickish fog and a stiff head wind the higher we climbed.

Half-way up to the summit my month-old right boot developed an annoying separation of sole from body, allowing rivers of waters to enjoy close companionship with my toes. In spite of that inconvenience it did remind me to be thankful that my own soul and body are united in the increasingly careful pursuit of God. As a result, I do more often experience rivulets of living water flowing from within me toward others’ bodies and souls.

I was reminded that God and I each have a part to do. He brings the mountains to us. We bring ourselves to the mountain. He gives capacity; we give consecration. As in Christ’s words, “In prayer there is a relation between what God does and what we do. We can’t get forgiveness from God without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part (Matt 6:14-15).” As I grasped onto rocks for balance, I felt His grasp on me. In tonight’s reading from Jesus Calling, one statement caught my attention, “The only thing you can grasp without damaging your soul is My hand.”

Life is a Journey, not a destination…

We have lived into 3 months, 17 days of this time of sabbatical rest – this time of un-hooking from the USA, our life and lifestyle. God is gracious to have led us here, to experience a similar-language and culture, yet quite different as well. We walk behind Him, not knowing more than this step. Few plans, except those determined by a visa requirement. We advance knowing He may not open that door… or He may.

Our couple-ness is rooted spiritually, reflected by an energized daily commitment to reading the Word, memorizing the Word, and praying together. Can this be us? This is a door of many that God is opening and we enter in and eat. Thank You, Father.

I’m walking a different terrain than Vance; my journey is over the fells of those years in my life where I have lived in darkness. I am “the lost and sick for whom Jesus came to seek and to save.” He made darkness His secret hiding place (Psalm 18:11) and is pretty cool about joining and dwelling with me there. He’s dwelt in those dark rooms of my life several times; I know I was redeemed. He is not having to convince all of me that He loves me. I know that love in my bones. He is walking into my less familiar zones, quietly just sitting alongside in the dark. About the time the ears of my soul tune in, I recognize a nuance of the Spirit, Jesus, sometimes, God--always gentle. Most striking though is the Kindness given to me.

I’ve come to recognize “kindness” as a gift from God that I embrace. I look back… there’s a long road of kindness – a gentle strength that remains alongside for the long haul… for a friend, a dying dog, those unable to speak for themselves, forgiveness of heart for betrayal, sometimes…just the truth wrapped so another hears without being harmed, or simple remembering that causes another to know I truly took the time to see and hear.

Your “Kindness” finds me, Lord. When I have not been able to say “yes” to hard things You want me to do, a well-timed-wind-not–of-my-own-self, but one that I recognize appears. I’m seeing a pattern that I know in my soul ~ the thought You had of me before I was conceived in my mother’s womb. My life is full of moments where Your Spirit imbues refreshing life into me and leads me on down the path of my journey. Father, the days I’ve lived would not have the priceless jewels but for You! Thank You for my tautness of heart!

AS I breathe the air You provide for my life, I live into the moment, the hour, the day unencumbered by the whats, whens, hows, wheres, and whos… when I am weak (and I am)… You are strong… you parcel out strengthening for just that moment… just that circumstance… and the way I was is transformed in becoming more like You… and the design of Your choosing for me increasingly becomes the ground to which I’m lifted to joy-full “yes.” Seen it time and time again over my “increasing” years.

I appreciate the Quiet-You-Are. Thank You, Abba.

Courage for the Journey

I walked into church this morning.   Busy fells: scrambling orienteering contest and regular Sunday walkers.


The cathedral was organized with chairs in an oval around a central table laden with un-lit candles. Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Catholics—all together today each with a symbol of their traditions also on the central table. A representative from each small church lit their own candle and placed their symbol next to their candle on the one table: 1662 Common Book of Prayer, KJV Bible, Wesleyan hymnal, an extra lit candle for the non-iconic Quakers (in case theirs went out!), & rosary beads. We all sang a hymn called “God Sets Us On a Journey” (tune: Hyfrydol; eg., Jesus what a Friend of Sinners, or, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus):

God who sets us on a journey

To discover, dream and grow,

Lead us as you led your people

In the desert long ago;

Journey inward, journey outward,

Stir the spirit, stretch the mind,

Love for God and self and neighbor

Marks the way that Christ defined.



Exploration brings new insights,

Changes, choices we must face;

Give us wisdom in deciding,

Mindful always of your grace;

Should we stumble, lose our bearings,

Find it hard to know what’s right;

We regain our true direction

Focused on the Jesus light.



End our longings for the old days,

Grant the vision that we lack—

Once we’ve started on this journey

There can be no turning back.

Let us travel light, discarding

Excess baggage from our past,

Cherish only what’s essential,

Choosing treasure that will last.



When we set up camp and settle

To avoid love’s risk and pain,

You disturb complacent comfort,

Pull the tent pegs up again;

Keep us travelling in the knowledge

You are always at our side;

Give us courage for the journey,

Christ our goal and Christ our guide.

----Joy Dine @ Joy Dine CCL License no 226319

            The service, the song, both spoke to me in our transitional Sabbath place of rest. We look back with remembrance only to look forward with confidence. The sea of mainly white-hairs all in a circle singing “end our longings for the old days” had a certain poignancy to it. How many of them, how much of me, actually invites God to pull up our tent pegs and disrupt our long night with the TV? More often than not I’m like these sheep of the Langdales where I’ve been walking—cozy and connected with their own good earth, content in their shepherd’s watch-care. There is an elemental goodness in that, true; but pastures wear thin and the journey continues if we’re to live. I invite you to sing the song, feel whatever emerges, and journal your thoughts. I invite your comments in this way.

Praying with your Feet

The perfect storm is resting over us for now about 36 hours or so. Rain and more rain. Yesterday I was out fell walking in the storm. I hiked about 10 miles along some high ridges up above our home, exploring. The wind and rain were playing around me; the higher I climbed, the more boisterous the play. At the top of Silver Howe I leaned into the gale at about a 30 degree angle backwards, arms lifted, and the wind held me up. This was a first where the Spirit held me in such a way.

At one point in the day, a little later and further along, the wind had died down and the fog was drifting in and out. I had rested in a crevice of a rock, getting some protection from the rain, listening with eyes closed to a sermon on sabbatical. When I opened my eyes the fog had settled more densely and I couldn’t see more than a few feet. I waited. A marvelous parade of sheep ghosted into my vision and just as quickly ghosted by, snuggling white on white into the fog. They apparently know where they were and where they were going.

I continued to wait. After another period of eyes shut, listening, resting, I opened my eyes and the fog had lifted a bit, enough to step out and move, if just a little. And so it went, one step opening to another.

And so I am being taught that when I can see nothing clearly, I am to rest and wait. When I can see only a little, I trust my Shepherd to keep me from falling or getting lost, like this, “Jesus, ok, where next should I put my foot, here or there?” I ask, breathe, and then my foot moves and I am Holy Ghosted along. So I learn to pray with my feet and legs. And soon I am arrived at home. And so I learn to walk with God.

            While Vance wrestled and tested his limits with walking, learning, and leaning into the Wild Wind yesterday, I welcomed the sweetness of solitude inside our quiet cave.   Oh, the sweetness!   I get to be "at home" today.   Soak me, Father, in your presence.  And, He did.

              Quiet unusual for us:  While he was walking Vance texted me a link to the podcast on sabbatical.   I listened.  I wrote out notes on the talk, soaking into the soil of my heart this beautiful thought:  "He who needs no rest, rested, to woo humanity to its much needed rest."  I take great joy in God's continued  and persistent reminders that Sabbath rest is why we are now here in this chapter of life.   How beautifully He woos us to our much needed rest.