In praise of praise

Yesterday we spent some time in William Wordsworth's neighborhood; sat among his daffodils.   Later in the day we led a home share group on praise and worship. It’s a group of several young twenty-somethings in college; several 80-somethings in active re-firement volunteer careers; and a scattering of us inbetween. Bethyl and I were trying to say something meaningful about what praise was, and wasn’t. Praise isn’t giving in to an incurably self centered Deity who can’t get enough compliments. It isn’t like eating your spinach because you know it’s good for you. Instead, CS Lewis has a seminal thought that had escaped me:


“But the most obvious fact about praise---whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least. The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read. The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all. Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.” C.S. Lewis Reflections on the Psalms pg. 79-80.

Broken Birthday Pots

Living Psalm 23

I’m sitting here in our cottage, in the bay window seat, overlooking Psalm 23. Sheep lying down in green pastures. The green pastures leading to the still waters of Grasmere Lake beyond, and all that framed by the fells that lift my eyes up. Madam Day lectures when the sun shines; Professor night does his swing shift.   Here's a picture, below, out our back window.   The one above is on a nearby walk.  

I just returned from a walk high up along a ridge.  It was softly raining as I left The Barn and that changed to bright sunshine for awhile. Then the rain came again and turned white into pelting hail and snow coming down sideways. I pulled up my hood, strapped the chin Velcro tight, gloved up, and otherwise mentally battened down the hatches. The sheep didn’t seem to either notice or mind. As they grew longish ice beards mouths moved, green disappeared, and hoofs shuffled forward in a slow grass mowing operation.   Once I came down, the walk around Grasmere lake yielded this photo.

Three nights ago was interesting. The vicar of Chapel Stiles, George, picked us up and off we went into the dark hailing night thru windy narrow lanes some 20 miles. We pulled out of the dark into a puddle of light around a tiny community hall. When we entered the community hall there were about 30 folks drinking BYOB whatevers and others, tea, coffee. Two folk singers on guitars, viola, and wind pipes of various sorts. For seven quid a head it was a great evening’s entertainment. We clapped and sang thru ballads, toe-tapping Scottish reels, tear jerking stories of love longed for and lost. It was a great introduction into micro-community.

I’m reading a great book, Flickering Pixels: how technology shapes your faith, by Shane Hipps. He was an ad exec and converted to pastor. Here’s a sentence from the beginning chapter: “my task was to hijack your imagination, brand your brain with our logo, and then feed you opinions you thought were your own. You’re welcome…. My job was to save people from feeling impotent, unattractive, or powerless by offering them a Porsche, which promised to fix those problems…. Before you start judging, you should know I never offered cheap grace—the gospel according to Porsche will set you back between $80,000 and $150,000 depending on how much salvation you need.”   Personally I'm glad I need both much more and much less than that, depending on what's being saved.

Scripture memory is moving along slowly. I memorize as I fell walk most generally. But I do find it re-shaping my synapses and perseverance. It’s like slowing a race car down into a plow share. You don’t see as much but you leave deeper tracks, within you primarily.  I hold onto the verse “I am the Vine. When you are joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant…” John 14-17 is my current project; half way home there; entering the first few verses of chapter 16.

Welcome to our new home.   Here we are smiling at you over dinner, our first week in the Barn.   We love, love, love having a fire in the fireplace once again.   When we're not looking out the windows we spend a lot of time reading and gazing into the fire, resting.   We're so grateful to God for this sabbatical.  

A couple of days ago I climbed to the top of a volcano here on La Palma, one of several. Some predictions are that one of these suckers will blow and crack off a chunk of this island, sending a tsumanmi that’ll swamp NY City a few thousand miles away across the Atlantic. Cheerful thot. The forest was peaceful as I climbed, just me and God for the most part. The view at the top included a cross.   This cross, but in a different season, from a different camera; just thot this was a cool picture.  The Sacrifice stands up to all kinds of weather.


          I spent my time reviewing the sermon on the mount. Keyed in on the first few verses of chapter 7, about not focusing on the smudge on your neighbor’s face when your own face is distorted with contempt. As I came round a corner, close to the one below, heading down from the top, on the steepish path, four portly Germans were struggling their way up the path. They asked for directions. I found myself thinking, “they’re helping themselves to too much of that good German beer and been packing away the groceries.” As I gave directions and shoved off down the path, I tripped and slid into a hole, about 3 feet deep. Laughed at myself as they helped me up. Later I thot, just how much of a sense of humor does the Lord have, anyway?

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.