"He Himself" - the Master Husbandman - "knew what He would do" in the repression cutting down, cutting back the new growth, "that it may bring forth more fruit"...

There should be neither undergrowth, nor overgrowth, but balanced growth. Spiritual equilibrium alone will bring forth much fruit both in us and in others. We were created for more than our own spiritual development; reproduction, not mere development, is the goal to mature - reproduction in other lives.

There is a tendency in some characters, running parallel to the high cultivation that spends its whole energy on production of bloom at the expense of seed. The flowers that are bent on perfecting themselves, by becoming double, end in barrenness, and a like barrenness comes to the soul whose interests are all concentrated upon its own spiritual well-being, heedless of the needs around. The true, ideal flower, is the one that uses its gifts as means to an end; the brightness and sweetness are not for its own glory; they are but to attract the bees and butterflies that will fertilise and make it fruitful."

"The martens have been reading me a faith lesson. They come in flights at this time of year - lovely things with blue throats and feathered claws - one slept in my room last night and another darted in at the open window before I was up, swept round and out again.

Their faith lesson is this - that their wings need the sense of "an empty void" below to give them a start - their leg muscles have no spring in them and when they perch by accident on a level place they are stuck fast - poor things, we did not know that natural history fact in the past and when we have found them on our flat Algier roof with its parapet protection, we have thought they had got hurt somehow, and more than once we have tried to feed them till they died, instead of doing the one thing that they needed - tossing them off into emptiness.

So we need not wonder if we are not allowed to stay long in level sheltered places - our faith wings are like the martens and mostly need the gulf of some emergency to give them their start on a new flight. We will not fear when we feel empty air under them." -Lillias Trotter "A Passion for the Impossible"

I tell you that I'd prefer to pound my passion into the rich recesses of some great instrument, or to personify humanity's affect with the persistent stroking of a brush, but none of these means seem ever to satiate, and so I pick up this pen again, attempting to propel my passions into a channel of understanding. My day's activities flush through the filter of arranged words and cataloged memoirs, wherein the calendar's page turns on the collage of arranged memory, and either the completion or failure of consummated expression. Words seem to never give the voice to which I intend them, and their tenor oxidizes when exposed to the air of other's eyes. It seems those who create have to share, for some curious compulsion urges them straight past their fears and out onto the canvas of another's mind. It seems at times that my veins course with a molten vigor that propels me to the strangest spurts of joyful expression, and I know not how to contain or reign in this divine bliss. Of course, joy's counterpart -- despair is a close friend as well, and with these two faithful companions I seem to gracefully crash in their bounds, seemingly incapable of living in the mellow and contained ways I see my fellow men conducting. It is as if I am determined to detail every cranny in this crooked existence, and to personify the hue of every thread that binds and supports the golden band of God's faithfulness in our broken lives.

The tape rolls on, and the backdrop is 1 John 1:1-4. I am captivated by the means employed to reveal deity, and the sensory description actuated to propound our faith. It is given us that He is the Word of Life, and in studying this, it seems that this word is to be the vital word, or the intellectual word which depicts and embodies life. This Word of Life whispers purpose into every created thing, and was revealed with the hung skin of a mortal, and the life breath of a man. Not only was this word manifested to the world, but they beheld Him, and His glory among them. Their senses were engaged in every situation as the unfolding of eternity past broke through and unrolled in their present. Eternity spoken in the Law suddenly interposed itself in human form, and thus the eternal dialogue breached the bounds of religion and catapulted straight into the souls of man. The incarnate Word became as flesh and bore the branding of sinful man, wherein His redemptive plan was actuated by His condescension to us, and by His procuring of eternal life for us.

This vault of heavenly joy is permanently unlocked to us through the manifested word of God, and remains an inexhaustible fountain of refreshment for our weary and parched souls. I am attempting to realign my thinking of earth's joy's, for their presence is not sure as the hope been secured. My delight must be in the Giver, for the gift can surely change, and earth's joys pale and sting with the decline of created glory. Our longings speak to our eternal casing, and our hearts muse of the the world to come. New life walks beside death, and deeper sorrows introduce purer joy, while all along our hearts yearn, groan, and labor within to be released from their longing and satisfied eternally. Our pilgrimage ought strengthen our resolve, that with Creation we might finally be freed into the unbroken praise of our Maker, and the land of "no more." This Life--the very Word which is the Light of men, has been manifested, and seeks to lead us this day to the hope that will never disappoint.

Sunrise service commenced the day, wherein the first lines of praise convicted my ill-prepared sanctuary. Too much doing, and too little margin where the days joys are simply insufficient fodder for the sin-cursed soul. The truths we sang were like seasoned wood which quickly ignited my fire. By the full dawn my heart was warm, and looking out at the sea of my Maker's face eased and pacified my cares. The sun continued rising, as the promise to the righteous, and at the noonday it seemed I might bust for all the joy. Delicious and wholesome spinach, meat and the like filled our stomachs, while the love-soaked day with the family of His selection filled my soul. Wood-splitting, frisbee, shotgun shooting, cartwheels, and satisfaction upon the faces of my young and exhausted cousins. Thank you God for all of your gifts, but none more than your Son who died so that I might live! Because He lives, I can face tomorrow! Much love to you my friends.

Yesterday was Psalm 73. I love this Psalm. Asaph begins declaring in the affirmative, but is swiftly swept along by the tide of his time. His proclamation is as sure as the first blooms who wither in the frost. His life had become the screenplay which dictated the narrative in his mind, and what he saw spoke more convincingly than what he'd known to be true.
He says, "My feet has almost slipped...when I saw..." While Creation was pouring forth speech, contradiction and injustice coupled to combat truth that lead back to the Garden... "If God was so good, why I am in the dust? Why this continual suffering..."?
The eye is the lamp of the soul, and Asaph had become dull by looking too long in the wrong places. Whose eye does not weary of the vanity that fills this earth? But wait, this is not end...
A sudden juxtaposition occurs in the psalm, and in an instant, Asaph perceives the end, when man stands before His Maker. I imagine coming into a great and glorious room, full of wonderful distractions, to have the walls collapse into blinding whiteness. Clarity would be no longer evasive, and infinite, oozing sadness would seep from the heart been devoted to the temporal.
Such was his, as he perceived the incorrigible condition of his unregenerate heart. What a change results! The man is swept away, and that great, white room becomes the enveloping arms of truth, that henceforth enliven and strengthen his heart. He jumps from one billow to the next and utters deeper, and more penetrable truths that now strengthen and enliven my feeble praise.
"24 With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. 26 My flesh and my heart may [will] fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Blessed is the man who has found every facet to be faulty, and every relationship flawed, for it is he who say: "28 But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works."

America was aflame with foreign tumult on March 17 when I boarded my plane for New Zealand. The second my frame found its seat, my zeal collided with reality, and I was left with the prattling raucous that played out between my ears. There was certainly no undoing my decision, and every unguided hour left capacities vacant where anxiety was exposed. Plans began in their unfolding as sure as the sun does rise, and it seemed all heaven bowed to escort me into the unknown. Surely, each day we are one step before the shadow, as darkness removes its veil, but never before, nor since, have I walked so blindly as then.

I learned abruptly that my American life had been largely systematic, and one based entirely on "plans, purpose," and "principle." Any "faith" I may have claimed before, suddenly became taunting banter which raged and ravaged my soul. Each step I took revealed my pitiable existence in an entirely immense reality. It was as if the mountains that had held and lulled, transformed as giants to expose, crush, and consume me. Their enormity seemed to accuse me in the pride of my heart. Perhaps the hills of my youth had beguiled me into thinking I was something much grander than reality protested. Regardless of what brought about the change, the affect was undeniable. The sun set on my soul, and an opaque and damp fog enveloped me into a cloistered existence that seemed to span eternity as the companion of myself.

I'd nearly lost my mind some years back, and weeks before I left for New Zealand, an old family and childhood friend took his life. It seemed altogether probable that if I was unable to uncover and correct my soul's own defaults, I'd be forced again to consider the same fate as his. This in the back of my mind, my travels thus lead me down dusty sheep-stained roads, up steep, slick, rain-smeared ravines, into ranchers homes, ferriers cars, loud bars, sand-fly beaches, solar hostels, wet tents, high mountains, lower valleys and on many a roadside; bewildered, alone, and lost. My trip teaches me this day, and I am out reaching for the same truths that guided and sheltered my weary soul those years ago.

The details of my sojourning would bore the masses, and they will be spared for now; other points are seeking to poke through. I purchased a most exquisite watercolor there, and have been considering it now for some days. The painting is of an unfurling fern frond set in a deep green matte. I have loved it since my eyes laid it claim, and have only now discovered our affinity. I have felt so akin to this little thing these past days as I retrace my roots, walk back through my loves, and tug at the hems of my heart. It seems I've walked this nomad's road leaving parcels of my heart in places improbably retracable. I carry my roots around tucked up and tender, and wonder when the place will be reached when they might unwind and grow into the soil of the city whose builder and architect is God (Hebrews 11). Each field seems to undergo a screening as my olfactory system plays its tunes through every nerve of my sensory being. I am so fully alive in this blasted existence and curiosity keeps striking the hammers in this little soul-box, reverberating the wonder that propels the chords to meet in the frequency of their design. It is so, and as that little fella unfolds, will you pray that I might as graciously and tenderly allow the works rolled up in His scroll to unravel, drop down, and take root in any, and all of the capacities therein planned.

"The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted" (Proverbs 29:25).

I dreamed last night of an old friend. It seems my dreams reveal most about what is in my heart, and in them I am able to navigate through my fears without the inhibitions my reality presents. Upon waking, I am thrust into the world of silent fears and idle pleas, and my heart is presented with a superfluity of choices. Matthew Henry's commentary on this verse says that the fear of man either opens a man to various and unnecessary temptations, or subjects him to the contempt and sneer of others.

We can sense one another's fears, and credibility seems to drain through the cracks of a man's doubts. The fear of man sets us on a course whereby we are snagged by every criticism, despairing of other's doubts, and generally subject to every opinion offered our way. We herein ride the tumult of the vicissitudes of our lives, and we try our best to defend ourselves from the most precarious situations. This life becomes lived for, and by everyone else, and we generally slip further into our demise. I write this as an exhortation for myself, for if I never again outwardly accomplish a single thing on this earth, but am daily knowing more of the infinite love and grace of my God, than I have gained the world, and lost nothing. I need not shrink back when asked of what my life has brought, or what my hands have accomplished, for all is done within me, and the results are not my own. I say we must be emboldened to speak of the inward things, the works of grace in our souls, and forget about the rest; leave it up to the One who works it all according to the counsel of His plan. Be bold friends, whether in the company of saints or otherwise, for the work that takes place in the heart is of eternal magnitude and wisdom, and never ought be overlooked.

"We are encouraged to depend upon the power of God, which would keep us from all that fear of man which has either torment or temptation in it. Whoso puts his trust in the Lord, for protection and supply in the way of duty, shall be set on high, above the power of man and above the fear of that power. A holy confidence in God makes a man both great and easy, and enables him to look with a gracious contempt upon the most formidable designs of hell and earth against him. If God be my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid." Any hallelujahs?