The Lightrise site

For those of you who don't know, check out The Lightrise.

The Lightrise exists to see the Light of Christ rise in and from the church, helping people understand their unique relationship with God and how that uniqueness, along with their talents and abilities, defines what they have to give the world.

You can follow The Lightrise on facebook and twitter. Scroll down once you are on the site to see some cool healings as well!

plunged beneath, II

part2 - thoughts
Our God declares Himself to be Deep Waters. Each illustration of God is in itself inadequate, if kept alone, but placing pictures together provides a partial puzzle that allows us to start to see something we had not before.

Deep waters are the only place certain things can occur. Scientists say there are types of fusion that can only be achieved in deep waters, because they afford a dynamic like no other earthly environment. It is a place of quiet darkness, where the entire ocean's weight rests. Deep waters are in the very presence of the tetonic plates that cause worlds to collide - water to wind and water to earth - or pull them apart. Psalm 93 says that "floods lift up their roaring," but "mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!" His deep waters hold more power and mystery than the floods of the earth. Psalm 92 makes me think of the deep, dark places of the ocean when it says, "How great are your works Oh Lord, your thoughts are very deep." Psalm 18 says that thick darkness surrounds God. The stillness, the quiet, the weightiness of the depths of deep waters is a pointer that I feel allows us to meditate on the depths of the Spirit of the Living God.

This past year has been like going over a waterfall in many ways, and now I feel almost though I'd been plunged into a different kind of deep waters. These are the deep waters that are carved underneath a waterfall in the violence of falling, churning water. In movies, when someone jumps off a high cliff into water, the camera shot almost always shows the plunge from below the surface, and there's that immediate calm that is almost jarring in its contrast to the force of distraction in the surrounding world. That, to me, is the "shadow of His wings" spoken of in Psalm 91. It's the peaceful, brooding presence of God's Spirit in Genesis 1. Because we love Him, He catches us in the cradle of the deep, holding fast to us. Because we are His creation, He hovers over us, ready to create new life from the barren wasteland of strife and pride. We fall from our own strength, pushed over the edge by waves of humanity and end up in a cascade of emotion, geographical change, and being split like water over the falls by the Holy Spirit separating us, the force of gravity meeting His wind that causes one tide coming over a cliff to fray while falling, into separate streams, drops and mist.

We are pulled apart, air entering uncomfortably between droplets that we never wanted to separate, into a Spirit-ordered chaos we can't grasp, but find ourselves falling into, far more fragmented and misunderstood than ever, only to plunge us into deep waters. And then we find ourselves quiet, spiritual nausea gone, at peace, in His arms.

Deep waters. We felt fragmented, but now are being knit together in ways that wouldn't have been possible if we were still trying to hold ourselves together. We are weak, but the power of His brooding both satisfies and makes desperate with expectation.

Lord, shift eternity's tetonic plates. Push deep waters from rest, and cause them to crest in a spiritual tsunami in our land!

orig. posted 12/05.

New blog

It is time..

My new blog can be found at:

http://thehesychast.blogspot.com/

It will, at times, contain recent posts from this blog. I am also toying with the idea of another blog, "Chronicles of the Great Spirit", which will be filled with stories of spiritual exploit.

Thanks for following DEEP WATERS HERITAGE, sporadic though it was. "the hesychast" will have regular posts.

Snow Day Rewards

I lay in bed on this snow day, off and on for cumulative hours, moving in and out of His aroma, which feels slight today - yet nonetheless enthralling to touch upon again.

"I'm never gonna leave, I'm never gonna leave, I'm never gonna leave... I'm never gonna leave this place, this place, at your feet, at your feet, God, I want to stay, all the days, of my life..."

Jonathan David-Helser, The Reward, playing at a volume just as slight as your aroma's sliding, as I write. I want to live here forever; I have lived here often, I know, yet so easily I forget what that means - then tumbling to other means. How deep the slightest turn of cheek and upturn of a smile can be.

I lay in bed, and sit at desk, and choose to not let slightness of delight be less than everything.

This is your Reward.

Reaping the unsown

Here is the end of an interesting parable in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19:

"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.' "His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'"

Is Jesus, in this parable of a demanding, difficult nobleman, likening himself to such a man? Well, it seems so - but how?

While dwelling on this idea, it took me awhile to find a reasonable answer - after all, the servant based his analysis of the nobleman on the character of his demands. And the nobleman confirmed the servant's analysis. The problem of likening Jesus' call and this man's demands lies here: What can God extract from me which I have not given him? What can he benefit from in my life, that he did not initiate?

The answer here lies in the way he described the unfaithful servant: wicked. The servant himself was wicked for not acting in accordance to the known nature of his master.

So, again: What can we give God he did not plant in us? What can God receive from our lives he did not first initiate? We can give him exactly that - Everything he did not initiate, and each way of living he did not plant.

While this servant did nothing, we often make the mistake of trying to give God our best, doing the works we think will please God. We like to use gifts, abilities and talents to do something for him he has not asked of us. We even like "having" intimacy with God through prescribed modes or attempts instead of acting in accordance with the nature of our King. This is giving what God did not sow, but in the negative.

We try to give from our good, but the darkness of sin, shame and the corruption of broken communion with Life itself is what our Master demands. Not as an aside, not as a requirement for "The Good Life!", not so we can write bestsellers to help people be more like us. The zeal of his heart for ours; the potential, everlasting quality of bliss that he sees available to us in love consummated; these things unlimited drive the divine author to leave the book open for one more day, to keep writing for blank pages' possibility.

Sin, shame, broken attempts - He demands these things, but did not sow them. The scars on his hands, feet and in his side are not blemishes; they are the reminder that he already gave all. He already took your shame and reaped the decay of death for you. He has taken and reaped, now is the time to deposit and sow the eternal quality of life you have, as he has.

And to the one that has, more will be given.