Divine Milieu...Springsteen...Darkness on The Edge of Town...

Everybody's got a secret Sonny
Something that they just can't face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town...

Divine Milieu...One...

In the mood for some more U2...and T.S. Eliot

"Where is the life that is lost in the living..."
-T.S. Eliot

Have you come here for forgiveness,
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head
Did I ask too much, more than a lot
You gave me nothing, now it's all I got.
We're one, but we're not the same.
Well, we hurt each other, then we do it again.
You say love is a temple, love a higher law
Love is a temple, love the higher law.
You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on to what you got,
when all you got is hurt.
One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should.
One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we're not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other.
One, one.

Soren Kierkegaard Thought...

“Now with God’s help, I shall become myself.”

For Catherine...Divine Milieu...Le bon Dieu...

Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it is
I'm not afraid to die
I'm not afraid to live
And when I'm flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did

Cause hardness, it sets in
You need some protection
The thinner the skin

I want you to know
That you don't need me anymore
I want you to know
You don't need anyone, anything at all

Who's to say where the wind will take you
Who's to know what it is will break you
I don't know which way the wind will blow
Who's to know when the time has come around
Don't wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye

In summer I can taste the salt in the sea
There's a kite blowing out of control on a breeze
I wonder what's gonna happen to you
You wonder what has happened to me

I'm a man, I'm not a child
A man who sees
The shadow behind your eyes

Who's to say where the wind will take you
Who's to know what it is will break you
I don't know where the wind will blow
Who's to know when the time has come around
I don't wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye

Did I waste it?
Not so much I couldn't taste it
Life should be fragrant
Roof top to the basement
The last of the rock stars
When hip hop drove the big cars
In the time when new media
Was the big idea
That was the big idea

Korean Food and Canadian Beer with Kathleen in Toronto...

Springsteen and Buechner...

“In the hollow of the evening, as you lay your head to rest
May the evening stars scatter a shining crown upon your breast
In the darkness of the morning as the sky struggles to light
May the rising sun caress and bless your soul for all your life…”

-Springsteen, Surprise,Surprise

“The shattering revelation of that moment was that true peace, the high and bidding peace that passeth all understanding, is to be had not on retreat from the battle, but only in the thick of the battle. To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake – even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death – that little by little we start to come alive. It was not a conclusion that I came to in time. It was a conclusion from beyond time that came to me. God knows I have never been any good at following the road it pointed me to, but at least, by grace, I glimpsed the road and saw that it is the only one worth traveling.”

-Buechner, Listening To Your Life

Tired But Very Much Alive

Tired from the drive yesterday, yet I am feeling very much alive and energized from being on this journey thru the past as I live it in the moment. Catherine has been right about so much - hope that she is well in Madrid! Even though we are separated by geography our souls are held together by the same spirit.
I am so anticipating each day that lays ahead and enjoying each moment, lingering in it, soaking up all the life and meaning in the seconds of the moments. Listening for grace in all the sounds and what my life is saying to me in all these key moments.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Faema Caffe in Toronto....

Coffee at Faema Caffe in Toronto.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

U2...Breathe...Some Lyrics....

Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet
Will not be drowned out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
Yeah, yeah

We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown

Walk out, into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I've found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it's all that I found
And I can breathe
Breathe now

My Place Today...Toronto

Well I woke up in Toronto today! Weird to think that yesterday I woke up in Two Harbors – the driving went very well. It was a long, but good day with various surprises, blessings, moments of grace so that the day kept getting better and better. Listened to a lot of really great music along the way, received some encouraging e-mail from some wonderful people in my life that I will be seeing on this journey soon.
Today, I am spending the day in Toronto. I am staying with my cousin Kathleen. While she is at work I going to spend some time getting some writing done and catch up on some sleep if I can.
Will keep updating on here.

Quote For The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Quote For The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

In Toronto! Long but good day. Listened to a lot of good music - enjoyed coffee and donuts from Tim Horton's.

Leaving in the Morning...The Journey Thru The Past...

"Morning, a time for breaking ground and sowing seeds,
and yet we give up our sunshine
so we can buy what we need.
That leaves the evening, to share a fire with a friend or two,
to lose sight of the hours
To go lightly with you

I let time go lightly when I'm here with you,
I let time go lightly when the day is through.
I keep a watch on time when I've got work to do,
I let time go lightly with you.

Old friends, they mean much more to me than the new friends,
Cause they can see where you are,
and they know where you've been..."

-Harry Chapin, Let Time Go Lightly

Well I am drinking a Labatt's Blue and thinking about the Journey Thru the Past that I will be starting tomorrow morning. Heading to Toronto in the morning...talked with my cousin Kathleen and I am going to stay with her tomorrow night and then figure out where to go next. Write a paper and some blog entries in Toronto.

I also talked with my Aunt Julie and Uncle Michael tonight which was great, good to talk with family, people that have known me since I was born. That is why I have the lyrics to the Harry Chapin song, "Old friends (family), they mean much more to me than the new friends,Cause they can see where you are, and they know where you've been..." My new friends are awesome, and wonderful yet, there is something about talking to people who have known you for a long time. Tonight I talked with Becky, an old friend that I have not talked to in eighteen years or so - that was also a wonderful experience. So good to have so much family and so many friends in my life!

Interesting, that Julie encouraged me to have some good music on during my trip tomorrow and that Catherine also encouraged me with the same advice. Catherine's words and thoughts hang heavy in my mind as I contemplate what the next weeks will bring and also what Hemingway wrote, "That tomorrow should come and that I should be there." Looking forward to the adventure...I want as Springsteen sings, "...to know if love is wild, I want to know if love is real..."

Will keep updating on here each day...

Rich Mullins...Wounds Of Love...

It's a quarter 'til tomorrow
And it's only half past yesterday
The here and the now
Done come and gone
It's gone away
And the moon over Two Harbors winks
And nods its head for a long good night
And I don't know where you are
And I don't know how you're sleeping
But I sure do hope that you're alright
And may the angel of His presence keep your heart
And when your prayers give flight to your dreams
May the only scars you see on their wings
Be the wounds of love
Be the wounds of love
The bottle is still so full
There's no one here to turn the tap
So much in me wants to reach out and hold you
But you're so far away I can't do that
And the dark comes through
these windows on the wind
Makes those votives glow more brilliantly
Well, if passion can lead to prayer
Maybe prayer can give us faith
And if faith is all we've got
Then maybe faith is all we need
And may the angel of His presence keep your heart
And when your prayers give flight to your dreams
May the only scars you see on their wings
Be the wounds of love
Be the wounds of love

Divine Milieu...U2 - 40...

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the LORD and put their trust in him.
- Psalm 40:1-3

Catherine, Chicote's Bar & The Journey Thru The Past...

Night again…another period of daylight has passed, time every creeping onward in its persistent progression, relentless in its fortitude. Today I did receive the e-mail that I was hoping for last night and this morning and I can now reveal the identity of the person I was anticipating hearing from – the theologian/author Catherine Barclay, PhD. Through her thoughts and writings Catherine has had a profound influence on my life; she is a wonderful person that has unique qualities that one can not quite forget once being engaged by her. I have heard that she does most of her writing now at Chicote’s bar in Madrid, a place of inspiration and illumination; it is thought that Hemingway spent some time there while he was in Spain during the 30’s. I am looking forward to taking her advice and embarking on my journey thru the past in the next couple of days. Anticipating grace in the journey and in the places and in the faces I encounter on it.

A Journey Through The Past…A Prelude…and Some Sci-Fi Theology…

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them. (George Eliot)

And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. (U2)

There is a secret set within each of our hearts. It often goes unnoticed, we rarely can put words to it, and yet it guides us throughout the days of our lives. This secret remains hidden for the most part in our deepest selves. It is simply the desire for life as it was meant to be. Isn’t there a life you have been searching for all your days? You may not always be aware of your search, and there are times when you seem to have abandoned looking altogether. But again and again it returns to us, this yearning that cries out for the life we prize. It is elusive, to be sure. It seems to come and go at will. Seasons may pass until it surfaces again. And though it seems to taunt us, and may at times cause us great pain, we know when it returns that it is priceless. For if we could recover this desire, unearth it from beneath all other distractions, and embrace it as our deepest treasure, we would discover the secret of our existence.
-John Eldredge from Desire

“…through my revulsion at my own weaknesses as well as through such satisfaction as I had in my own strengths, it seems to me now that a power from beyond time was working to achieve its own aim through my aimless life in time as it works through the lives of all of us and all our times.”
-Frederick Buechner

Morning has come as it invariable does and with it all the possibilities of the day if we can jettison the fear that is some how within each of us at some level and let the heart be free and alive. Much easier to write these words than to live them…like all of life the degree to which this is easier or harder rests on the season or moment we find ourselves in. Hoping for some indication as to the direction my day will take before leaving on a journey through the past. Waiting…waiting to see…

Divine Milieu...Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here...

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Sci-Fi Theology, Pink Floyd, The Matrix, And A Kiss...

I couldn't resist this...

Divine Milieu...Neil and Bruce - Helpless...

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind
I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked
and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us

Helpless, helpless, helpless.

Divine Milieu...Neil Diamond - I Am I Said...

"I am," I said
To no one there
An no one heard at all
Not even the chair
"I am," I cried
"I am," said I
And I am lost, and I can't even say why
Leavin' me lonely still
Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of bein' a king
And then became one
Well except for the names and a few other changes
I you talk about me, the story's the same one
But I got an emptiness deep inside
And I've tried, but it won't let me go
And I'm not a man who likes to swear
But I never cared for the sound of being alone

Magical People and Sci-Fi Theology...

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru' narrow chinks of his cavern."
- William Blake

Again it is late. Not sleeping and not wanting morning to come if I was sleeping because I don’t know what to do when morning arrives. Apprehensive, ambivalent, anxious - hmm….today did not go as I had thought it would and I am not sure why. Perhaps lowering my expectations would help or extinguishing expectations all together? There is something magical in talking to some people even if they may not think so, not sure how to define what that magic is but its there nonetheless. Magical, alive, or back to Hemingway’s phrase maybe the magic is in their being, “…as good as spring itself…” for to be that is, in its own way magical and beautiful. I am looking at a list of things to do that is in front of me and the two things that I most want to do on it are the two that may not happen – out of my own fear or my heart being faint, not sure which. If anyone is reading this I must seem awfully cryptic but this ruminating might only be a self indulgence to bring some clarity at least for a momentary fragment of time.

Another theme on my mind is sci-fi theology, a new category of theological thought coined by a soon to be eminent theologian who is currently working a book. It is sure to be an enlightening read – if tomorrow unfolds as the possibilities of an open future holds as reality, which is part of the sci-fi theological presuppositions - it is entirely possible if not probable that I will receive an e-mail from this theologian/author to inform further about thoughts on this fascinating topic that I hope to incorporate into a paper I will be working on over the next couple of weeks while on a journey through the past. I will be eagerly awaiting this response and it will make for a good day.

Hmm… hopefully I will be able to sleep now. Magical people and sci-fi theology – two interesting things to have on your mind as you drift off to sleep. Will see what the morning brings…maybe there will be grace in the cup of coffee and an e-mail?

Divine Milieu...Brandi Carlile - Throw It All Away...

Haiti Update - A Story...

A friend of mine in Ottawa mentioned to me last weekend that a friend of hers had been missing for two days in Port au Prince after the initial earthquake. On Tuesday of this week I asked her if she heard any more about or from her friend and this is the reply I recieved:

"Lara is fine, the earthquake hit while she was in a taxi on the highway between the airport to her hotel. Timing was on her side because had she arrived 30 minutes earlier and checked in things would have been very different for her...the hotel completely collapsed as did the office building where she was to attend meetings. As it was she spent two nights sleeping outside but finally made it to the Canadian embassy and is supposed to be home shortly."

Divine Milieu...The Rolling Stones - Waiting On A Friend...A Lot of Life Is Like This Song...

A smile relieves a heart that grieves
Remember what I said
I'm not waiting on a lady
I'm just waiting on a friend
I'm just waiting on a friend...

But I need someone I can cry to
I need someone to protect...

Grace In A Rainbow...When You Least Expect It...

The scene was a small roadside cafe,
The waitress was sweeping the floor.
Two truck drivers drinking their coffee.
And two Okie kids by the door.
"How much are them candies?" they asked her.
"How much have you got?" she replied.
"We've only a penny between us."
"Them's two for a penny," she lied.

And the daylight grew heavy with thunder,
With the smell of the rain on the wind.
Ain't it just like a human.
Here comes that rainbow again.

One truck driver called to the waitress,
After the kids went outside.
"Them candies ain't two for a penny."
"So what's it to you?" she replied.
In silence they finished their coffee,
And got up and nodded goodbye.
She called: "Hey, you left too much money!"
"So what's it to you?" they replied.

A Theological Interlude...

Here is a thought that occurred to me while thinking about the atonement: Jesus on the cross is God. Then in some way, mysterious as it may be, God “knew” sin as Paul wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God “ (2Co 5:21). So, for sake of argument, Jesus in the hypostatic union became “sin for us” if we are to have a literal reading/understanding of this text then some change had to have happened within the Trinity. God then is more mutable than immutable at least in an existential sense and quite possibly in an ontological sense if this “sin for us” in all its potentiality had to go somewhere and be absorbed in some definitive way as to be eliminated in principle on the cross.

Taking Karl Barth’s concept of “nothingness” and thinking about it with Greg Boyd’s concept of a middle way between the annihilationist and classical view of hell that he outlines in the final chapter of Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy where he also uses Barth’s “nothingness” in his argument and thinking about these ideas in the context of the cross and atonement what I am proposing is this: evil – which is “nothingness” or “darkness” as it is ultimately devoid of any life (zoa) or “light” when completely separated from God or to borrow from Tillich, “the ground of all being” evil then devoid of “being” in a very real ontological sense is no longer a participant in “the ground of all being.” Then when Jesus is “sin for us” on the cross all sin/evil/missing the mark/nothingness/darkness is absorbed into the “ground of all being” and extinguished into itself in a similar way that matter collapses into itself in a black hole. There “sin for us” is enveloped into itself and its being is “nothingness,” it state is separation in complete self absorption and all this is occurring for the briefest of moments in time (Jesus as God in time) on the cross when Jesus died.

And in that brief window of time, Satan glimpsed his utter and complete defeat into oblivion and nothingness but now cannot comprehend it while in complete self absorption – hence his futile attempts to still conquer grace [But where sin increased, grace increased all the more… (Rom 5:20 b)] In principle then evil/sin on the cross was dealt a death blow (Col 2:15) and is now merely in a state of anticipatory collapse into “nothingness” at the culmination of time at the return of Christ.

Divine Milieu...Kris, Johnny, Willie & Waylon - Me and Bobbie McGee...

Every night she kept me from the cold.
Then somewhere near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away,
Lookin' for the home I hope she'll find.
And I'd trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday,
Holdin' Bobby's body next to mine.

Freedom's just another word for nothing' left to lose:
Nothin' left is all she left for me.
Feeling good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues.
Buddy, that was good enough for me;
Good enough for me and Bobby McGee...

Divine Milieu...Kris and Rita - Help Me Make It Through The Night...

Kris Kristofferson has written that, “….tomorrow is just the echo of forever…” and I would have to agree with him and old Billy that, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time…” yet, we are caught between tomorrow and yesterday.

Often the most daunting time between tomorrow and yesterday is the night that separates the two, the dark, lonely nights of our journey while we await for what Homer described as, “Dawn in her yellow robe (to) rise in the east out of the flowing ocean, bearing light for deathless gods and mortal men?” It is in this night that we do not want to be alone, when even if we sleep the words from the Song of Songs resonate within us, “I slept but my heart was awake…” we yearn for, “…one bringing contentment…” so in our desperation we crave and agree with the words of Kris, “Let the devil take tomorrow Lord tonight I need a friend. Yesterday is dead and gone and tomorrow's out of sight and it's sad to be alone. Help me make it through the night…. I don't wanna be alone. Help me make it through the night…” this is an all too human longing, to be comforted by another soul, another body.

Indeed, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: ….a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance….a time to embrace and a time to refrain….a time to love…” and these seasons come and go as do people. There are seasons of dryness and seasons that are soaked by the warm rains of spring – the days in the dry times can feel, “…as long as the night is dark…” and that is when friends “…that are as good as spring itself…” can help you make it through the night…

Grace abounds in all the seasons of our lives, in the shared human experience of the night and the day and in the time in-between. In the dryness and the rain soaked moments – all we need to do is look, be aware, awake to it. Be present in the presence of the grace that surrounds us like the love that does if our hearts are open to it…

Experience...

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

-C.S. Lewis

Music...

“It is possible for music to be labeled Christian and be terrible music. It could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled clichés. The “Christian” band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren’t a great band….My understanding is that to be Christian is to do whatever it is you do with great passion and devotion. We throw ourselves into our work because everything is sacred….Music is already worship. Music is praise. Music is sacred. Music is good. Creation doesn’t need a label to make it sacred or acceptable or blessed.”

– Rob Bell from Velvet Elvis

Divine Milieu...Thunder Road...Again...

I love this song! It is so much a part of me now, it is embedded in my story - I first heard it when I was around sixteen and I am sure that I have listened to it at least once (often many more times) a year since then. It takes me to so many places and faces and it it is still doing that for me now with new faces and places. Some lines from the song make me smile as I remember and some make me smile for what it brings to mind now at this time in my life...

Simplicity in beauty, poignancy in the moment and grace in both….

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death – William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death

Tolstoy Thought...

“Remember then: there is only one time that is important – Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”

– Leo Tolstoy

The Great Adventure...

‘The “great adventure” you’re yearning for is the life you’re living right now, not the one you dreamed of living. You must let go of old adventures in order to embark on new ones. It’s the “boring” things in life that often matter most. Life always moves forward and if you hang too long to the past you’re dying.’

-Greg Boyd

The Road...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet
And whither then? I cannot say.

- J. R. R. Tolkien

Morning...

Each morning when I wake and before I get out of bed and go in search for that first cup of grace I lay there and think for a few moments about life – where the day before and the night just past have brought me to and from and where if I am honest, if only for a fleeting moment it is I’d like this new day to go. It is invariable at these moment that this thought returns to my conciousness, “… this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” This has been in a way my first prayer each morning for a long time now, it encapsulates remembering, accepting, and anticipation of all the possibilities that a new dawn brings – we are in a beautiful way new each morning! The sun rises, God smiles on us with compassion and as sure as both of these things are, we are reminded of the Father’s faithfulness.

Anne Lamott has said that there are really only two prayers, “…help me, help me, help me, and thank – you, thank – you, thank – you…” and Bono when asked what his two favorite songs are responded, “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “Amazing Grace” – these comments are all inside the passage from Lamentations above. To make it through a long night while repeating “help me” and to know amazing grace and respond with repeated “thank – you’s” are what make us new each morning before we get out of bed and continue on our journey. Yet, perhaps the journey really doesn’t pause while we are sleeping but sleep is as much a part of the journey as the hours we are awake?

Note: not sure why the videos are not working but I think it is only a temporary thing from what I understand.

Grace is Listening to A Bruce Springsteen Song…Especially On A Night Like Tonight…Thunder Road…Bruce and Melissa…

When you’re waiting for a day to come or any day the moments can move so slow…

You can hide 'neath your covers And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets...
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes...

Grace in A Smile...

"Just to see you smile
I'd do anything
That you wanted me to
And all is said and done
I'd never count the cost
It's worth all that's lost
Just to see you smile...”

-Tim McGraw

Deje Vu or Remembering...Listening to My Life...Memories and Chrissie Hynde in the Divivne Milieu...

“Listen to your life….because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."

Déjà vu…
“We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it!”
-Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“If knowing answers to life’s questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables – of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensables, and most of all, things unfair.”
– Madame Jeanne Guyon (mystic and contemplative)





Oh, Why you look so sad?
The tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now
But don't be ashamed to cry
Let me see you through
Cause I've seen the dark side too.
When the night falls on you
You don't know what to do
Nothing you confess
could make me love you less

So,
If your mad, get mad
Don't hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now
But hey, what you've got to hide
I get angry too
But I'm a lot like you
When you're standing at the crossroads
Don't know which path to choose
Let me come along
Cause even if your wrong...

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
Take me in into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you
And when,
When the night falls on you baby
Your feeling all alone
Walking on your own

Grace in Remembering...1989...L.A. to Chicago, Rock Lake, Cowboy Junkies-Misguided Angel

“You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place ... like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way again."
–Kathleen O’Hagan



Beautiful song by Canadians, The Cowboy Junkies - Misguided Angel. I love Margo Timmins haunting voice. Listened to it a lot the summer of 1989

Divine Milieu...U2 - Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses...

For some reason I simply could not get this song out of my mind today, it kept on playing over and over. Perhaps it is speaking to me in some way about life or else it simply a great song that is on repeat in my head?


You're dangerous, 'cos you're honest.
You're dangerous, you don't know what you want.
Well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot
For any spirit to haunt…

You're an accident waiting to happen
You're a piece of glass left there on a beach.
Well you tell me things
I know you're not supposed to
Then you leave me just out of reach…
Well you lied to me 'cos I asked you to.
Baby, can we still be friends?
Took a drive in the dirty rain
To a place where the wind calls your name
Under the trees, the river laughing at you and me.
Hallelujah! Heaven's white rose
The doors you open I just can't close…

Don't turn around, don't turn around again.
Don't turn around your gypsy heart.
Don't turn around, don't turn around again.
Don't turn around, and don't look back.
Come on now love, don't you look back.

Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea?
Who's gonna taste your saltwater kisses?
Who's gonna take the place of me?
Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who's gonna tame the heart of thee?

-Bono

Patty Griffen Lyrics...

I live too many miles from the ocean
And I'm getting older and odd
I get up every morning with a black cup of coffee
And I talk to the mother of God

Something as simple as boys and girls
Gets tossed all around and then lost in the world
Something as hard as a prayer on your back
Can wait a long time for an answer...
Can wait a long time for an answer…

Thought from Beuchner...

“That life is grace, for instance – the givenness of it, the fathomlessness of it, the endless possibilities of its becoming transparent to something extraordinary beyond itself….all I can do with real assurance is once more to echo my old teacher Paul Tillich to the effect that here and there even in our world, and now and then even in ourselves, we catch glimpses of a New Creation, which, fleeting as those glimpses are apt to be, give us hope both for this life and for whatever life may await us later on. 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.”

Divine Milieu...U2 - Yahweh...

Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn...

-Bono

Thought From John Elderedge...

“The world of posers is shaken by a real man or woman. They’ll do whatever it takes to get you back in line - threaten you, bribe you, seduce you, undermine you. They crucified Jesus. But it didn’t work, did it? You must let your strength show up. Remember Christ in the Garden, the sheer force of his presence? Many of us have actually been afraid to let our strength show up because the world doesn’t have a place for it. Fine. The world is screwed up. Let people feel the weight of who you are and let them deal with it,”

-John Eldredge, Wild At Heart

My Place Today...Grace in A Book...

I am at Dunn Brothers Coffee this morning in Maple Grove, drinking some coffee and doing some thinking as I prepare for my day. Not many thoughts today, I feel a little flat for some reason. A dryness of sorts and I have no explanation for it, perhaps the doldrums of life – the ebb and flow of living each day. All this I guess is to be expected and all can be a creative experience if learned from as Dallas Willard commented, “Nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world.” So I will move forward even if it feels more like creeping with intermingled lurching this morning.
Once in a moment of time that seems long ago and yet like yesterday a friend gave me a book during a trying and difficult time in my life and I am so thankful that my friend gave it to me. That book has been grace to me when I read it each morning and contemplate on the truths that are so eloquently unfolded in each word, sentence, paragraph…
When I read this book I am reminded of my friend and how God brought two lives and stories together so that they can be weaved into the larger narrative of life. When stories collide it is no accident but rather a compassionate favor of providence. Martin Buber’s estimation is true; “All actual life is encounter.” Grace is manifested both in the friendship and the love that can be shared when our hearts are open to the reality of what it means to be alive! Even in the simplicity of sharing words on a page of a book two souls can be united and connected in some mystical, inexpressible way that defies the natural and inevitable leads to somewhere. Somewhere beyond what can be imagined or hoped for, a place of grace that is in the moment, life in the now – neither trapped in the past nor longed for in the future. As T.S. Eliot wrote, “In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not.” This newness of circumstance is both blinding in the possibilities, yet frightening in its reality – it is out these two apparent contradictions that the nature of the beauty inherent in this new thing is revealed and beauty and truth are all we have as Keats knew long ago, “…truth is beauty and beauty truth…” and by being in the presence of beauty and truth these words from Kierkegaard begin to evolve, “Now with God’s help, I shall become myself.”

The Sermons Of Niebuhr - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The Sermons Of Niebuhr - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Remembering MLK...

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.
(thanks to Maggie for putting this on Facebook so I could borrow it)

MLK

Sleep, sleep tonight And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain So let it rain, rain down on he.
So let it be. So let it be.
Sleep, sleep tonight And may your dreams be realised.
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain, let it rain
Rain down on he.

-Bono

Grace in a Beautiful Day…Sunshine and A Smile on Your Face…

The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground But there's no room, no space to rent in this town You're out of luck and the reason that you had to care, The traffic is stuck and you're not moving anywhere. You thought you'd found a friend to take you out of this place Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace It's a beautiful day, the sky falls And you feel like it's a beautiful day It's a beautiful day Don't let it get away...
- Bono

Some More Anne Lamott...

“It might help if I go ahead and tell you what I think is the truth of your spiritual identity…Actually, I don’t have a clue. But I know that you feel it best when you’re not doing much – when you’re in nature, when you’re very quiet or, paradoxically, listening to music.
I know you can feel it and hear it in the music you love, in the base line, in the harmonies, in the silence between notes: in Chopin and Eminem, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Bach, whomever. You can close your eyes and feel the divine spark concentrated in you….You are Spirit, you are love, and even though it is hard to believe sometimes you are free. You’re here to love, and be loved, freely. If you find out next week that you are terminally ill – and we’re all terminally ill on this bus – what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them….Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down….You’ve done amazing things. And you are loved; you are capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It’s what you are made of. And it’s what you’re here for. Take care of yourselves; take care of one another.”

-taken from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Anne Lamott Thought...

"But my faith tells me that God has skills, ploys, and grace adequate to bring light into the present darkness, into families, prisons, governments."

Divine Milieu...Bob Dylan - Saving Grace...

Saving Grace

If You find it in Your heart, can I be forgiven?
Guess I owe You some kind of apology.
I've escaped death so many times, I know I'm only living
By the saving grace that's over me.
By this time I'd-a thought I would be sleeping
In a pine box for all eternity.
My faith keeps me alive, but I still be weeping
For the saving grace that's over me.
Well, the death of life, then come the resurrection,
Wherever I am welcome is where I'll be.
I put all my confidence in Him, my sole protection
Is the saving grace that's over me.
Well, the devil's shining light, it can be most blinding,
But to search for love, that ain't no more than vanity.
As I look around this world all that I'm finding
Is the saving grace that's over me.
The wicked know no peace and you just can't fake it,
There's only one road and it leads to Calvary.
It gets discouraging at times, but I know I'll make it
By the saving grace that's over me.

-Bob Dylan

Divine Milieu...Bob Dylan - Pressing On...

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”
-Paul

Many try to stop me, shake me up in my mind, Say, "Prove to me that He is Lord, show me a sign." What kind of sign they need when it all come from within, When what's lost has been found, what's to come has already been? Well I'm pressing on Yes, I'm pressing on Well I'm pressing on To the higher calling of my Lord...
-Bob

Contemplating A Journey Through The Past...

“Will you think of me and wonder if I'm fine?
Will your restless heart come back to mine,
On a journey thru the past.
Will I still be in your eyes and on your mind?
Now I'm going back to Canada
On a journey thru the past and I won't be back
till February comes…”
-Neil Young

Still up tonight! Not sure how to describe today, “…all in all it wasn’t bad, all in all it wasn’t good…” might come close. Does anyone else ever feel like in some little way you have been creeping forward and going in somewhat of a direction, any direction, but at least in a direction? And then wham! You are sent reeling back into a place you did not want to be, a place you thought that you had moved out of or away from. Yet, there you are right back there again. Maybe that was what Paul was talking about in Romans; “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." This must be a universal lament and struggle and it must be why there is grace. For these times of failure or doubt or self hatred – all of what we wrestle with as humans and yet grace comes along and whispers to us, “it’s o.k.” there is enough grace to deal with anything and enough love to heal anything. The real secret in life is to keep moving, “keep pedaling” and know that you are not alone!

All this to say that I believe that I must go on a journey through my past – I wasn’t exactly sure about this, but tonight I am resolved to embark on this journey. T.S. Eliot was correct that, “…what we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from…” and “…we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive at where we started and know the place for the first time…” This place is in a mysterious way in our past that we get to by remembering and also in our future but the only possible route to it is by journeying in the now, the moment, and catching and piecing together glimpses of where you are and where it is you are to be. Eliot describes this place as, “…not known, because not looked for but heard, half – heard, in the stillness between two waves of the sea. A condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything) and all shall be well when the tongues of flame are in – folded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one.”

I will write more about this journey in the coming weeks, and see where each day takes me. In some way I hope to find the answers to many questions about where my life is going and that, “…most of the time people meet, they become friends. They spend more time together…” but what do you do when it may not be so and life seems unnatural? Eliot again I believe in some sense answers this, “…as we grow older the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated.” Hemingway wrote about these moments of hurt and wanting to move backwards and feeling not natural in these sentences, “You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.” So, it is the awareness that there is always spring, and hope that there will always be someplace for things to go just as there is always a place for the river to flow when it thaws. In life also, “…to move backwards, away from people…” is like dying – it is in the embracing of the possibilities that you become alive on the journey together!

Once again I hope this late night rambling makes some coherent sense in the morning. Good - night!

Late Night Ponderings...

Well, it is late – or early depending how you want to look at it I guess. Either way I am not sleeping yet as there are too many thoughts ruminating around in my mind! Had a great evening, went to the Vineyard Church in Duluth with my friend Matt and we met a friend of his, Maggie there. After the service the three of us ended up going out to eat and having some drinks – another experience of grace.

Tonight there are some words that I keep looking at and pondering, “…but there is nowhere for this to go…” – these words describe how we often feel in life I think yet, I can’t help but thinking there is somewhere to go and that is forward, in some way forward. Moving backwards in life or anything seems like dying in some way and to be alive seems so much more rewarding - to love, to risk, to venture in some way the life of the heart aglow with vitality.

It’s late and I hope this rambling makes some sense. Good night!

Divine Milieu...Brandi Carlile with the Seattle Symphony - Fall Apart Again

As long as the day is full of time there will always be room for
Your hand in mine...
You fall apart again and you can find a friend
Don't turn to someone else because they won't understand...

My Place Today - Grace In Remembering…The Heart… And Life…

(At Two Harbors Public Library)

“When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I’m feeling most ghost – like, it’s your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I’m feeling sad, it’s my consolation. When I’m feeling happy, it’s part of why I feel that way.If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.”

-Beuchner

This morning I was reading Listening to Your Life by Buechner and I was so struck by his reflections on remembering and it brought back to me the idea of “poetic memory” that Milan Kundara so eloquently described in this way, “...everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful." There have been “…so many faces in and out of my life…” and my heart has been touched by the faces and Buechner hits on something so true - that remembering each other in some way makes us human, allows us to be alive. In some way remembering releases our hearts to be free, fertile, fresh, open, soft and receptive as Michael OnDaatje wrote in his novel The English Patient, “A Love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing – not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and past.” A character in the novel, Hana, says, “…for the heart is an organ of fire, for the heart is an organ of fire. I love that. I believe that.” The love story that OnDaatje describes I believe transcends two people that may be enamored with each other as it is a grander thought – the love story that each of us can have with life! The fullness of what life can be, as Bono sings, “…life should be fragrant rooftop to the basement…” a “consuming” of our being in the dance of life. This means that we all need each other and to give ourselves away and remember each other so that all the sacred “poetic memories” can keep our hearts on fire!

Divine Milieu...Sarah McLachlan - I Will Remember You...

I'm so tired but I can't sleep
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside
But we can't be heard

But I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories...

Divine Milieu...Bruce Springsteen - Girls In Their Summer Clothes

Frankie's diner, an old friend on the edge of town
The neon sign spinning round
Like a cross over the lost and found
The fluorescent lights flick over Pop's Grill
Shaniqua brings the coffee and asks "Fill?" and says "Penny for your thoughts now my boy, Bill"

She went away, she cut me like a knife
Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life
In just a glance, down here on magic street
Loves a fool's dance
And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet

The girls in their summer clothes
In the cool of the evening light
The girls in their summer clothes, pass me by...

My Place Today...

In North Branch this morning but soon will be heading north to Two Harbors. This has been a wonderful week for me, being with friends and being surprised by grace in so many ways. How can we possibly be alive and human without community, family, and friendship? Some of these thoughts have been on my mind for awhile and interestingly when I was reading Buechner’s Listening To Your Life this morning; his reflections were on a similar theme,
“…when it comes to putting broken lives back together – when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls – the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do – to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst – is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.”
I believe, and now even more so through experiences that “…steeling yourself against the harshness of reality…” leads to a debilitating desperation and it is through being open and in relationships with others and God that life, the abundant life is at all possible. As Buecher wrote, “…you cannot be human on your own…” it takes being in the dance of life – even if it may be difficult, messy, painful because not to dance, not take the risk means there will be no happiness, joy, or love. Grace is manifested in life, in the dance and regardless of what may happen either horrible or wonderful grace will be there – often in a place and/or a friend - another human on a similar journey looking for eyes to behold, ears to listen and a warm hand to hold and be comforted by and when this happens the moments become sacred and transforming as Jesus is there and by him being there it becomes eternal. Grace is beautiful…

Face Of The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Face Of The Day - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Haiti Update

Unthinkable Devastation » Blog » Greg Boyd (Christus Victor Ministries)

Unthinkable Devastation » Blog » Greg Boyd (Christus Victor Ministries)

Divine Milieu...Brandi Carlile - Hiding My Heart Away...Grace in the Midst of Darkness

So this is how the story went
I met someone by accident
That blew me away
That blew me away

It was in the darkest of my days
When you took my sorrow and you took my pain
And buried them away, you buried them away....

I woke up feeling heavy hearted
I'm going back to where I started
The morning rain
The morning rain...

I know...

I know...I know...I know...how it is not natural and the hurt! Yet, there is always someplace to go. There is always a rainbow, some light that breaks through, making
things new, alive and free...

RELEVANT Magazine - Don Miller Responds to Pat Robertson

RELEVANT Magazine - Don Miller Responds to Pat Robertson

Haiti: God Is Suffering With Those Who Are Suffering - SojoMail 01.14.10

Haiti: God Is Suffering With Those Who Are Suffering - SojoMail 01.14.10

Jessye Norman - Amazing Grace...Wembley Stadium 1988

“For twelve hours groups like Gun’s and Roses have blasted the crowd through banks of speakers, riling up fans already high on booze and dope. The crowd yells for more curtain calls, and the rock groups oblige. Meanwhile Jessye Norman sits in her dressing room….Finally, the time comes for her to sing. A single circle of light follows Norman….No backup band, no musical instruments, just Jessye. The crowd stirs, restless. Few recognize the opera diva. A voice yells for more Gun’s and Roses. Others take up the cry. The scene is getting ugly.

Alone, a capella, Jessye Norman begins to sing, very slowly:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found –
Was blind, but now I see.

A remarkable thing happens in Wembley Stadium that night. Seventy thousand raucous fans fall silent before her aria of grace.
By the time Norman reaches the second verse, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved…,” the soprano has the crowd in her hands.

By the time she reaches the third verse, “Tis grace has brought me safe this far, And grace will lead me home,” several thousand fans are singing along, digging far back in nearly lost memories for words they heard long ago.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.

Jessye Norman later confessed she had no idea what power descended on Wembley Stadium that night. I think I know. The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.”

-Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace

Divine Milieu...Elton John & Billy Joel - Your Song...

There is a glimpse of grace in remembering the color of a friends eyes...perhaps someone from your story, from your journey that touched you, cherished you, loved you and in their eyes you saw grace sparkle. There have been so many eyes that have sparkled on my journey and sadly I have forgot the color of some..

So I have been thinging about this Elton John song and echo the lyrics:

“So excuse me forgetting but these things I do
You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue
Anyway the thing is what I really mean
Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen...”

The Dance...

"Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."
-T.S. Eliot

Held...Natalie Grant

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
-Paul

When The Cup is Empty...

I am well today! Actually this week has been a pleasant one for me filled with grace and a few rainbows, some peace and tranquility, both of which I have not experienced in so many moments in succession for some time now.
Yet, with the horror in Haiti and the difficulty and pain in so many peoples’ lives, I feel as if I must in some way be in solidarity with all those suffering – if not in any other way, then, to be in prayer.
There is the opposite of a cup of grace at times and in seasons of lives and that is when the cup appears empty! When tragedy strikes, when “…the day is as long as the night is dark…” when, “…things knock you down you don’t even see coming…” when, you are in your own Gethsemane, when the Dark Night of the Soul consumes your being. There is indeed, “…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…” – all the fullness of being human and experiencing life can in no way be lessened by ignorance for as C.S. Lewis explained, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Sorrow makes us all children again – destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing.” I believe that this is true – our personal or shared grieve reduces us to a place that is strange and we would prefer not to know, but in some strange way to know and be in those places at times and seasons is to know what it is to be human and gives each of us the compassion and resources to become communities for each other and share each other’s lives and burdens.
This does not mean any of it is easy, no - it is hard, hard, hard! And it makes us angry and it makes us lash out and it makes us ask God why. Where are you God? Is there no other way for this world to be…is there a way out of this madness? Where are you? Where are you?

As Bono expressed in lyrics,

Jesus, Jesus help me
I'm alone in this world
And a fucked-up world it is too.

Tell me, tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it's all gonna be.

Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man.

Rich Mullins asked Jesus similarly in lyrics,

Did You ever know loneliness
Did You ever know need
Do You remember just how long a night can get?
When You were barely holding on
And Your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in Your sweat

Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While You're up there just playing hard to get?

We all in our own ways have to wrestle with these things and answer the questions and it is my prayer that the cup of grace will be filled again for all of us at just the right times while on our journey’s so we can “…walk on…” and find the strength to continue on while even in the deserts of our journeys and find the love of God in friends and solidarity in our communities. I am assured that God is faithful and as he said to Jeremiah, “…do not be afraid….for I am with you and will rescue you….in days to come, you will understand this…”He will hold us! We are held while we tremble through the long, cold, dark night by Jesus!

This is my hope and my prayer:

That our Abba, Jesus and the unquenchable Holy Spirit will come now into all of our lives and begin a profound and sincere healing, a miracle of grace and love that will turn into a passionate life of the Spirit for us and free us to dance in the ecstatic dance of the Trinity - and that all this will happen within the hospitality of our community of love. All praise and thanks to Jesus Christ.

Divine Milieu...Neil Young - Journey Through The Past

Will you think of me
and wonder if I'm fine?
Will your restless heart
come back to mine
On a journey thru the past.
Will I still be in your eyes
and on your mind?
Now I'm going back to Canada
On a journey thru the past
And I won't be back
till February comes...

Grace in Running a Race...

I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel his pleasure..."
-Eric Liddel

Grace..."Eyes Brighter Than the Sun"

"When you are praying alone, and your spirit is dejected,and you are wearied and oppressed by your lonliness, remember then, as always, that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun."
-St. John of Kronstadt

Drumming, Openness, Providence and Whatever

Drumming, Openness, Providence and Whatever

My Place Today...Not Sure What to Say...

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
-Ludwig Wittgenstein

Grace and A Prayer in A Sigh…

“The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply…” (Mar 8:11-12a TNIV)

“Everybody prays whether [you think] of it as praying or not. The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else s pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life. These are all prayers in their way.”
-Buechner

Tolkien - From Darkness to Light...

Perhaps grace at certain times and in certain places comes as release! Release from our demons and all that it is that has haunted and darkened our hearts, all that has contributed to us too soon growing old and living as if we were dead already, in a darkness. When grace comes, release comes and so does light and life – freedom to live!

Hemingway...

"People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."

-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Grace and Complication...

"Home is where one starts from. As we grow older the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated."
-T.S. Eliot, East Coker

"All The Mountains Are Down!" - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

"All The Mountains Are Down!" - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Pray For Haiti

Divine Milieu...Vintage Billy Joel - Say Goodbye To Hollywood

So many faces in and out of my life,
Some will last, some will just be now and then.
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes-
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again...

Divine Milieu...Bruce Springsteen-The Promise

Inside I felt like I was carryin' the broken spirits
Of all the other ones who lost
When the promise is broken you go on living
But it steals something from down in your soul
Like when the truth is spoken and it don't make no difference
Something in your heart goes cold...

John Prine Thought...

"And you know that I could have me a million more friends
And all I’d have to lose is my point of view
But I had no idea what a good time would cost
Till last night when I sat and talked with you..."

Some Needed Encouragement Today...U2 - Walk On

I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on...

Some Buechner...

Came across this today and it seemed to fit what I have been doing lately:

"...you may in the privacy of the heart take out the album of your own life and search it for the people and places you have loved and learned from yourself, and for those moments in the past - many of them half forgotten - through which you glimpsed, however dimly and fleetingly, the sacredness of your own journey."

Some More Grace in The Divine Milieu...Brandi Carlile - Before It Breaks

I’m all right, don’t I always seem to be?
Am I swinging on the stars
Don’t I wear them on my sleeves
But when you’re looking for a crossroads
It happens every day, and whichever way you turn
I‘m gonna turn the other way...

Grace in St. Louis...

This is something that I wrote while on the Missions Trip in St. Louis:
“Stop asking why, always looking for all the reasons and see grace and marvel in the wonder of life…”
07/22/09

Rainbows

I found out yesterday that a friend of mine is going through some real crap right now. The world is trying “ to break” her as Hemingway described it and I am praying that she will “be strong in the broken places” at some point down the road on her journey. Life in so many ways and at so many times is just plain hard! We all want to ask why? It feel like “…sheer undiluted slog…” and I believe it is at these moments in some unfathomable way God’s grace comes. It comes in different ways for people, but it comes, and when it arrives it is always sufficient for that moment in life.
Another friend of my mine that has been through hell and out the other side was telling me about a John Prine song this past weekend and one particular lyric in it, “…A rainbow may follow up a hurricane…” and I think there is grace and truth in that line. He has found his rainbow and I am assured that as we all walk through our life, we will have hurricanes and there will be rainbows – most likely the rainbows will appear when we least expect them. And in that way, rainbows have a lot in common with grace as they are both at the same time wonderful and beautiful.
May you all find a little grace today…

Rich Mullins Thoughts

I've gone so far from my home
I've seen the world and I have known
So many secrets
I wish now I did not know
'Cause they have crept into my heart
They have left it cold and dark
And bleeding,
Bleeding and falling apart

And everybody used to tell me big boys don't cry
Well I've been around enough to know that that was the lie
That held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons
Well we are children no more, we have sinned and grown old
And our Father still waits and He watches down the road
To see the crying boys come running back to His arms
And be growing young
Growing young
And when I thought that I was all alone
It was your voice I heard calling me back home
And I wonder now Lord
What it was that made me wait so long
And what kept You waiting for me all that time
Was Your love stronger than my foolish pride
Will You take me back now, take me back and let me be Your child

'Cause I've been broken now, I've been saved
I've learned to cry, and I've learned how to pray
And I'm learning, I’m learning even I can be changed…
-Rich Mullins, Growing Young

My Place Today

At Caribou Coffee in Duluth for a few moments in time today and then back to St. Paul again, somewhat of a nomadic life at present. Had a great time in Two Harbors this past weekend – spent time with some friends “…that are as good as spring itself…” and experienced grace in so many of those moments! Posting a picture of where I stayed at a friend’s place because I believe there is such profoundness in the simplicity of places. The same feeling I had sleeping on the floor at Compton Baptist Church in St. Louis this past summer while on the Missions Trip there. A grace and a joy in such places that have a mystical sacredness to them due to the people you are sharing the time with while you are there – a sense of wonder at being alive in a community of grace and shared experience while on this journey of life. A continually weaving of all our stories through time places and words…

My Place - Last Couple Nights...

“…but places are full of mystery as times are, and almost from the start I knew that, of all places, it was the one that was right for me.”
– Frederick Buechner

Couldn't Resist Another Grace in the Divine Milieu Post... U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name

...the whole world
seems very strange
In a pleasant kinda way...

-Blue Rodeo

My Place Today

I am at Caribou Coffee in Duluth this afternoon enjoying some coffee and contemplating life. Here is my thought for this afternoon…

“Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.”
(Ecclesiastes 11:1 NIV)

“I am the bread of life.” (John 6:48 TNIV)

In the community of grace give of your life generously as you receive life from God and then you will have a life in abundance. A shared life, in all the fullness of the human experience and condition - give yourself away so you can receive yourself again. Solidarity in living and sharing whatever it is you may be going through, whether it is suffering or joy, so that all may know that they are not alone. We all can be the comforters and supporters and dispensers of grace, the vessels thro which God can speak and love.

If Grace Is An Ocean We’re All Sinking…

…We are his portion and he is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in his eyes
If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking
So, heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way… He loves us…

“…if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”

“I know nothing, except what everyone knows – if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”

-W.H. Auden

“I understand that Auden meant grace in the theological sense, meant it as the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned love – the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”

-Anne Lamott, Travelling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Last Night - NDY (Not Dead Yet)

Last night I was at the Dugout Bar in St. Paul listening to the band NDY (Not Dead Yet) playing featuring Greg Boyd (http://www.gregboyd.org/) on drums. It was a terrific evening! For me it was another example of “Grace in the Divine Milieu” that I have been thinking and blogging about quite a bit this week. They played rock and roll from the 60’s through today and there was such an atmosphere of fun and excitement - of life! That is perhaps the best way to describe it – alive! Very cool experience.

The Divine Milieu...Patty Griffin - Nobody's Crying

"...I wish you well
On your way to the wishing well
Swinging off of those gates of hell
But I can tell how hard you're trying
Just have that secret hope
sometimes all we do is cope
Somewhere on the steepest slope
There'll be an endless rope
and nobody crying..."

-Patty Griffin

U2 in the Divine Milieu...With or Without You Live from Slane Castle

“I remember the first time I was truly in awe of God. I was caught up for the first time in my life in something so massive and loving and transcendent and…true. Something I was sure could be trusted. I specifically remember thinking the universe was safe, in spite of all the horrible, tragic things in the world. I remember being overwhelmed with the word true. Underneath it all life is somehow …good…and I was sixteen and at a U2 concert. This was real. This mattered. Whatever it was, I wanted more.”
-Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis

With or Without-Lyrics

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side,
I wait for you.
Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you.

Through the storm, we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I’m waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live with or without you.

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give, and you give
And you give yourself away.

My hands are tied, my body bruised
You got me with nothing to win
And nothing left to lose.

And you give yourself away

And you give yourself away
And you give, and you give
And you give yourself away.

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you
With or without you.

We will shine like stars,
Shine like stars on a summer’s night,
We will shine like stars,
Everything will be alright,
One heart, one heart…

"Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever."
-Daniel 12:3 TNIV

"...then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life."
-Philippians 2:15-16 TNIV

Brennan Manning on The Divine Milieu

“Living by the gospel of grace leads us into what Teilhard de Chardin called the divine milieu – A God filled, Christ-soaked universe. A world charged with the grandeur of God. How do we live in the presence of the living God? In wonder, amazed by the traces of God all around us.”

-Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

A Kiss from Trinity – Back to Life! The Matrix Redux…a la Greg Boyd

Neo had been killed by the agents of the Matrix but is resurrected by Trinity’s faith and love. It is only at this time that Neo finally believes the truth and experiences the reality that he has power over the agents of the Matrix. He has died to the Matrix and has let go of all fear, doubt, and disbelief. His mind has been freed. He now believes Morpheus’s teaching that the agents can never be as strong or as fast as he is. He finally lives up to his name – Neo (meaning “new”). Finally, Mr. Anderson (Neo) is in fact a “new creation” (2 Cor.5:17).
From this time on, the battle within the Matrix will be fought in a new way. Neo now fights from a position of victor to help others break free from the Matrix. In the words of agent Smith, Neo’s, own freedom from the Matrix as well as the freedom of all who will choose to follow him is “inevitable.”
So it is with us. We have in fact been resurrected by the Trinity. Our real identity is found in Christ. We truly are new creations. When we finally put aside all fear; doubt, and disbelief and fully accept this fact – despite all our experiences to the contrary – we are empowered to extinguish the “agents” of the Matrix – what we’ve been calling “Matrix neurochips.” We no longer futilely fight to gain an identity we think we don’t yet have. Instead we realize our identity is already established in Christ. We wake up to the fact that we are exhaustively defined by Christ’s death and resurrection. Thus, our battle within the Matrix is not to establish the truth of who we are but to apply the truth of who we are to all our thoughts, emotions, and behavior. And we understand that our total conformity to Christ is a matter of inevitability. From before creation it was predestined that all who chose to trust in Christ would ultimately be “holy and blameless in [God’s] sight” (Eph. 1:4; see Rom8:29).

-Greg Boyd, Escaping The Matrix: Setting Your Mind Free to Experience Real Life In Christ

My Place Today

Today I am in North Branch at a friend’s house. Looking out the window from where I am sitting it looks like a beautiful day; the sun is bright with the shadows of the trees being cast across the blanket of snow. Cold! It looks cold and I am sure that it is, although I have not ventured out to feel the cold. On my third cup of grace this morning as I am still attempting to awake fully – perhaps every life is like a morning and we all are attempting to awake fully to an awareness of it. To what it means to be alive, to be human and that is what grace affords us in some way. Just as a cup of coffee does something to help each morning, something even to the soul as one takes the time to sip and contemplate. So does grace do something to help in and through our lives, to give the soul hope and release to lurch forward in life? As Anne Lamott has commented, “I’m lurching forward in my life again, and it feels as if someone finally cracked open a window that had been jammed.” I feel something like this as well this today.

Grace in the Divine Milieu...A Kiss from Trinity - Back to Life!

Grace in the Divine Milieu...Born to Run...

"I want to know if love is wild,
I want to know if love is real..."
- Bruce Springsteen

“Grace abounds in contemporary movies, books, novels, films, and music. If God is not in the whirlwind, He may be in a Woody Allen film or a Bruce Springsteen concert. Most people understand imagery and symbol better than doctrine and dogma. Images touch hearts and awaken imaginations. One theologian suggested that Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love album, in which he symbolically sings of sin, death, despair, and redemption, is more important for Catholics than the Pope’s last visit when he spoke of morality only in doctrinal propositions. Troubadours have always been more important and influential than theologians and bishops.”
-Brennan Manning, A Ragamuffin Gospel

My Place Today

Snowing in St. Paul and I am sitting at Bethel University working on some "stuff" but mostly thinking and listening to music (Bono at this moment singing "Bad" - great older U2 song) and drinking some Caribou Coffee! Thinking that I would like to be at the Seminary library talking about theology, philosophy and life with a friend that is "...as good as spring itself" as Hemingway characterized some of the special people in his life. It is wonderful to have some "...cool quiet and time to think..." as so often the distractions and noise drown out the true voice of God that is so often bidding you to a new adventure on the journey of your life. Augustine said that, "A friend is someone who knows everything about you and still loves you" and when you have friends like this to be with, to walk with, on each others shared journey it is a divine blessing. These friends bring a grace into your life!

Here is a dream of mine:

Go to Europe to study,
Contemplate philosophy, theology and life itself.
Teach, think, write, wonder...
Go slow.

Watch the sun rise and set,
Sit near the ocean.
Walk in the mountains,
Sip coffee in a Paris cafe.

Walk amongst the ancient ruins,
Make poetic memories,
And sleep until I wake!