deep beneath our asking.

"How can we pray to you, holy and hidden God, whose ways are not our ways, who reigns in awful mystery beyond the realm of space and time?  Yet how can we not pray to you, Mighty Father, who knows what it is to be man because you have walked among us as man, breaking with us the bread of our affliction and drinking deep of the cup of despair? 

Hear, O God, the prayers of all your children everywhere: for forgiveness and healing, for courage, for faith; prayers for peace among the desperate nations. Whether you give or withhold what we ask, whether you answer us in words that burn like fire or in silence that burns like fire, increase us in the knowledge that you are always more near to us than breathing, that your will for us is love.

And deep beneath our asking, so deep beneath that we are all but deaf to it ourselves, hear, O God, the secret song of every human heart praising you for being what you are, rejoicing with the morning stars that you are our God and we are your children.  Make strong and wild this secret song within until it bursts forth at last to your glory and our saving.

Through Jesus Messiah our Lord.

Amen."

-a prayer by frederick buechner.

on love.

"my mistake had been to confuse a destiny to love with a destiny to love a given person."

-alain de botton.

קָוָה

i am beginning to understand that this aching, clawing, relentless longing in me is the realest prayer i have, my truest prayer of all.

found.

"this much i will tell.  what's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup."

-godric, frederick buechner

the passionate restraint.

"As i understand it, to say that God is mightily present even in such private events as these does not mean that he makes events happen to us which move us in certain directions like chessmen.  Instead, events happen under their own steam as random as rain, which means that God is present in them not as their cause but as the one who even in the hardest and most hair-raising of them offers us the possibility of that new life and healing which i believe is what salvation is.

The power that created the universe and spun the dragonfly's wing and is beyond all other powers holds back, in love, from overpowering us.  God in his very stillness, holding his breath, loving us all, the only way he can without destroying us.

...the passionate restraint and hush of God."

-frederick buechner.

by his Presence.

"ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other.  has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?  has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?  has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the L-RD your God did for you in egypt before your very eyes? 

you were shown these things so that you might know that the L-RD is God; besides him there is no other. 

from heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you.  on earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of that fire.  because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. 

acknowledge and take to heart this day that the L-RD is God in heaven above and on the earth below.  there is no other."

-deuteronomy 4.

-----

oh L-RD, 

through the powerful name of our mighty liberator, Jesus, may we begin to learn how to take this passage to heart, that we may acknowledge You with power and in truth. 

amen.

living words.

"he (moses) was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on mount sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us..." -acts 7.

-----

living words.

words alive with the breath of God, the power of God, the wisdom and the promise of God.

words spoken long ago and carried for thousands of years, moving and creating and establishing and upholding until this very day.

words that do not return void.

words bound up in a holy book, every moment available to us.

LIVING WORDS.
LIVING WORDS.
LIVING WORDS.

the very words of GOD!

wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow!

praise the L-RD,
praise the L-RD,
praise the L-RD!

Name.

"the name used most often for G-d in jewish texts is also the most mysterious and intimate. in hebrew it's actually a word with no consonants and all vowels. it's unpronounceable. when you try to say it, you hear the sound of a breath, a simple exhale. what is the teaching? the name of G-d is not meant to be uttered, but to be breathed."

He was what He was.
He is what He is.
He will be what He will be.

blessed be the Name.

excerpts quoted from rabbi irwin kula.

holy, holy, holy.

Ah,
those who never give a thought
to the plan of the Lord,
and take no note
of what He is designing.

Ah,
those who say,
'let Him speed, let Him hasten His purpose,
if we are to give thought;
let the plans of the Holy One of Israel
be quickly fulfilled,
if we are to give heed.'

Ah,
those who are so wise
in their own opinion;
so clever
in their own judgement!

_

for My plans are not your plans,
nor are My ways your ways
-declares the Lord.

but as high as the heavens are high above the earth,
so are My ways high above your ways
and My plans above your plans.

_

the Lord is NOT SLOW in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

_

holy, holy, holy!
the Lord of Hosts!
His presence fills all the earth!

_

isaiah 5. isaiah 6. isaiah 55. 2 peter 3. amen.

tear it open.

something something something,
always working to make God seem so small.

and yet, beyond this veil thrown over our eyes,

GOD REIGNS.
GOD REIGNS.
GOD REIGNS.

the revelation of Love.

God is love.

First of all, for the sake of clarity, this sentence is to be read with the emphasis on the word God, whereas we have fallen into the habit of emphasizing the word love. God is love; that is to say not a human attitude, a conviction or a deed, but God Himself is love. Only he who knows God knows what love is; it is not the other way around; it is not that we first of all by nature know what love is and therefore know also what God is. No one knows God unless God reveals Himself to him. And so no one knows what love is except in the self-revelation of God. Love, then, is the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Jesus Christ. 'In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him' (1 John 4). God's revelation in Jesus Christ, God's revelation of His love, precedes all our love towards Him. Love has its origin not in us but in God. Love is not an attitude of men but an attitude of God. 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins' (1 John 4). Only in Jesus Christ do we know what love is, namely, in his deed for us. 'Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down his life for us' (1 John 3). And even there is given no general definition of love, in the sense, for example, of its being the laying down of one's life for the loves of others. What is here called love is not this general principle but the utterly unique event of the laying down of the life of Jesus Christ for us. Love is inseparably bound up with the name of Jesus as the revelation of God. The Christian Scriptures answers the question 'what is love?' quite unambiguously by pointing solely and entirely to Jesus Christ. He is the only definition of love. But again it would be a complete misunderstanding if we were to derive a general definition of love from our view of Jesus Christ and of His deed and suffering. Love is not was He does and what He suffers, but it is what He does and what He suffers. Love is always He Himself. Love is always God Himself.

Love is always the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

-dietrich bonhoeffer.

God speaks.

"silence is the language God speaks. everything else is bad translation."

-mother teresa.

feast.

sin comes from the mistaken belief that God withholds goodness from us, that he hordes away blessing. but our God does not withhold. He opens up His arms with super-abundance. He wastes nothing.

this is made especially evident in the ceremony of the Eucharist, for in order to best articulate his message and work, Jesus did not leave behind a textbook, he left a meal.

in this world we may not be given all that we desire, but we most certainly have been graced with all that we will ever need. we are called to the communion table to eat and be satisfied, to FEAST on the goodness of God.

'this is my body, given for you...'

within the Eucharist we acknowledge and celebrate the fact that we are forgiven and that we are invited and that we are lifted up to the table of God.

our God does not withhold.

our God gives unto death,
and He loves, and loves, and loves.

'I am the bread of life. this bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world...'

He beckons us to eat and be refreshed, to come to this mighty table full of joy, restoration, nourishment, light, and partake.

come.
taste.
see.

taste and see that the God of this world is so very GOOD.

(thoughts from the teachings of ian morgan cron).

tension.

sometimes the worst thing for faith is our ideals.

the beauty of following Jesus does not grow from His removal of life's messiness;

the weight and the power and the glory of following Jesus manifests in the fact that amongst all of life's chaos and failure and struggle and tension,

the power of the resurrection, the living Word, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the gentle One, Victor and Shepherd and Defender, King of all kings,

MESSIAH,

resides with us in the midst of it,

and breathes, speaks, creates,
resurrects

new life.

(amen).

and yet.

"man is rebellious and full of iniquity, and yet so cherished is he that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is saddened when forsaken by him. profound and intimate is God's love for man, and yet harsh and dreadful can be His wrath. of what paltry worth is human might - yet human compassion is divinely precious. ugly though the behavior of man is, yet may man's return to God make of his way a highway of God."

-abraham joshua heschel.

ABIDE.

such a beautiful and enduring,

such a challenging
and truth-filled
and exacting

kind of word.

burden.

as prophets,

we are overwhelmed by our sympathy for God,
we are burdened by our sympathy for man.

as prophets,

we stand before the people and plead for God,
we stand before God and plead for the people.

as prophets,

we are wearied by the heaviness of sin,
we are carried by the force of this mighty Love.

promise.

"He shall not grow dim or be bruised until He has established the true way on earth..."

-isaiah 42.

the heart of God.

"A precious vineyard - sing to it!
I, the Lord, am its keeper;
Every moment I water it.
Lest any one harm it,
I guard it night and day;
I have no wrath.

Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
I would set out against them,
I would burn them up together.
Or let them lay hold of My protection.

Let them make peace with Me,
Let them make peace with Me."

-isaiah 27.