Into the Heart of Christ...living art in a pick-up truck

I had the overnight shift driving during one of our yearly Thanksgiving Surf Trip to the Outer Banks. Allen and I took shifts sharing the 15 hour drive to get to our favorite waves on the East Coast; the Outer Banks of Cape Hatteras. Thoughts of glass-smooth 6-8 foot waves curling into perfect barrels over my head...albatross dancing on the thermals just above the waves, dolphin leaping around us, hot apple fritters after six-hour long early morning sessions. I had mentally changed into my baggies and was running across the parking lot at the lighthouse.

And then we drove through it; heaven meeting earth....

We were on one of the long, low bridges spanning the marshes. The timing was perfect; that time of day in the warmer climates when the cool air of the night meets the warm air of the day and both sit still. The air was so motionless you could hear a butterfly's wing rub against the wind and the water sat motionless like school-girl when her crush walks by. 

The sun had just risen over the tops of the pines lining the bay and  we  were caught up right in the middle of  360 degrees of the Glory of God touching the stuff of earth...you couldn't tell heaven from earth...perfect mirror image. We were flying over the water.  We had escaped earths' capture and we ascended into Joy.

I did the only thing I could do when you confronted by such Holiness.
I screamed.

"Wake up!" Allen was  afraid we were about to die.
I couldn't keep this beauty to myself. In times like this can't keep your eyes shut or your mouth closed.

The image is burned into the corners of my imagination. And the Holy Spirit brought it back today as I journey into Advent...
The bridge of Death was spanned during the longest of nights, when the Glory of God shown down on the stuff of earth, when God was perfectly reflected in the One ...and the Angels screamed "wake up!" to the shepherds because they couldn't keep the beauty to themselves.

Have you see it? Did you scream?

Archimedes and Advent...esspresso on the floor

"Give me a place to stand and I will move the world"... This is the common translation for Archimedes' declaration that if you have a fulcrum and a long enough lever you can move an object of infinite size. So theoretically speaking, if he could develop a long enough lever he could move the earth....

True as this statement is, the problems lie in the fact that we cannot build a lever that large and there the world needs to move in a deeper fashion that simply physically.

This is the problem, and the solution of Advent...

The Hebrews knew (as we all should if we are paying attention) that the world needed to be moved. It was busted because babies were dying, folks were committing murder, and the physical world produced hardship (among other things like idol worship). They had done their best using the fulcrum of their hearts and the lever of the law but it had failed...not because of the lever, but because the fulcrum was in the wrong place... (see Numbers 11:23 and Isaiah 59:1)

So enter the Advent solution: a new fulcrum (see Ezekiel 36:25-27) and a new lever (John 1:14)....
and ever since that first not-so-silent-night the world has moved indeed...

So are you trying to move the world on your own? Sure, you can do some good things, but that's just budging the world. For me, my little earth-moving-place is a  stool I bought in seminary. I sit on it, drink espresso and read of the saving acts of the loving God who rocked the world through a little baby...and I move the earth by starting with myself.
blessed Advent to you all
b

cow chips, trail chips, and Jesus

The other day I was out for a trail run in the Metacomet Trail. It's a blue-blaze trail that crosses Connecticut..classic ankle-grabbing-stone-tripping-root-fest. I love it! I had never been on the section I ran before, so I kept my eyes open (always a good idea on a trail run any way)

I taught by daughter to keep an eye out for blue blazes on the trees and rocks when we hike it, and once and awhile to glance over her shoulder to make sure the trail home is clear as well.

..but it's an older trail so some of the marks of rocks are covered with moss and some to the marked trees have died and fallen.

When your out alone running you need to keep looking so you don't lose your way. Chasing Jesus is a lot like this:

It's been a long time since He first blazed the trail and over time some of the marks have been covered or hidden. Some of this has been intentional like when people steal trail markers, other times it's just because of time...and the folks who knew the trail when it was new and fresh have died or no longer point the way. 

So I ask you, are you keeping your eyes open for the blazes, or you just walking through the woods hoping you'll find the way? Do you look around you for the signs? Do you ask the and look to the pioneers before you? Are you bushwacking in the brambles? Are you following cow chips?
b