The Dew on Mount Hermon

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When you see dew, do you think of people dwelling together in unity?  King David did.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity...it is like the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion.

What on earth made David think of people dwelling together in unity when he observed the dew?


Dew is gathered together from the unseen moisture in the air when the humidity is high and then the temperature drops to a certain point. The conditions have to be just right; normally all that stuff just evaporates and we don't see it.

Dew usually comes in the morning, after the dark of night and the cool temperatures of the evening.

Dew refreshes the earth, quenches thirsty plants.

Dew is beautiful; it reflects the light.

Dew falls; it descends, it must go lower.

When God's people dwell together in unity, we are gathered together under just the right conditions.  The unseen Spirit draws us together to form a cloud of witnesses, a rain of refreshing, each drop a small church, as it were, with its own parched ground to fall upon. It is only when we live among the dark and cold of unbelief around us, that we coalesce and appear as the light of day, reflecting the True Light.  God makes us beautiful to a world that craves beauty; He makes us water to a thirsty world; He makes us fall onto the unrighteous in a glory of humbling.  Just as Jesus descended from heaven to humble Himself as a man, so we must go ever lower in imitation of Him, and in submission to His will.

And when we refuse to assemble together as His people, or when we squabble and fight, all that heavenly dew just evaporates.  No one will see it and no one will care.

And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.  

1 Corinthians 10:24-25

Blessay

I've been thinking about the word "blog," which of course is a condensing of the words "web log." When I think of a log, I think of Star Trek: "Captain's Log, Stardate blah blah blah..."  A log is a factual report, which is more likely to contain longitude and latitude than it is to contain mental meanderings.  In fact, here's the definition I found for log: an official record of events during the voyage of a ship or aircraft.  I'm not sure the essays that I write bear much resemblance to a "log," so I've decided to coin a new phrase: "Blessay."  I had to cheat a little bit to get there, because it actually should be a condensing of the words "web essay," but "bessay" isn't nearly as euphonious as "blessay," which carries with it the connotation of a blessing in essay form.  So, I took three words and shoved them together: "web log essay."  Besides, I do like the idea of a log being in some way a record of a journey, even if there's nothing much "official" about it.  

When I started this blog - er - blessay - my stated intention was to combine thoughts about photography with thoughts about life.  That sort of ran its course and eventually got stuck on a sandbar somewhere.  I haven't been very disciplined about learning and practicing good photography for over a year.  And I found that I was hampered by the idea of having to have a photograph upon which to base my thoughts, although I have to admit it was sometimes a good way to jump start creative thinking.  Recently, I decided to making writing a "blessay" a weekly discipline, a weekly adventure.  I might still use a photograph as inspiration for a topic, but I might just as well just let myself go where my thoughts for the day lead me.  Ultimately, I still want to go "Further Up and Further In."  

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way."  

Psalm 139: 23-24

Don't Worry, Be Happy

There's no doubt about it: worrying is completely illogical.  As the Good Book says, "Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" So, why is it so common?  Why is it so hard to stop?  I've contemplated this a lot over the years.  As a Christian I have often been ashamed by how much I worry and fret.  I've confessed it as sin, accepted it as a weakness that God knew about when He chose me, and prayed that He would give me the peace that passes understanding. Along with David, I have prayed,  "Search me O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way."  But did I really mean it?

Being tried by God has been like a scourging, in a way. Pain has been involved.  Loss and limitation have come to call.   Having recently re-read the book Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, I have appreciated anew this allegorical story that seems uncannily like a telling of my life.  The two sisters "Sorrow" and "Suffering" have been holding my hands, taking me, little Much Afraid, on this journey.  And like Much Afraid, I am regularly harassed and bullied by Craven Fear and Self-Pity.

But in the last couple of months, something surprising has happened.  I came to the end of my worry rope and surrendered it all.  I laid my body on the altar and said, "It's yours - do what you must to make me more like You."  When Craven Fear shows his ugly face and taunts me, I know what to say. When Self-Pity starts whimpering, I choose not to listen.  This does not mean that they no longer harass me; indeed, there are regular skirmishes, and I am still weak and vulnerable.  But to all the dreadful scenarios they parade before me, I say, "It's true, those things could happen.  But my Sovereign Leader is incapable of making mistakes, so if they do, it's all a part of His perfect love for me.  He knows what I need."  And there, at last, is peace.

"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, 

will he not more clothe you, O you of little faith?"  

Matthew 6:30

Who Made the Lantana?

Is there anything we can create that is half so beautiful as this lovely lantana?  

We fool ourselves if we think any of our art as original.  

We are only imitators at best.

Look, ye, upon this tiny riot of color, and marvel.

Every good thing bestowed
and every perfect gift
comes down from the Father of lights
with whom there is no variation
or shifting shadow.
James 1:17

Lavender

Isn't lavender gorgeous?  I took this photo in Moscow, Idaho, where the stuff was growing carelessly in absolute heaps, as if it were a particularly prolific weed.  I've tried growing it, but it seems to sense my potential for neglect and simply refuses to cooperate.  The difference between reality and what happens in my mind's eye is often quite stark.  I've done the most amazing things in my mind as I've planned extensive herb and flower gardens in which I harvest and dry things, extract essential oils, make home remedies from wildflowers and weeds, create healing tinctures and teas.  Every time I read something about that, it sets my mind in motion, but the motion seems to stop there.  Because I can't grow lavender.  Not only that, but I've discovered that thinking about work is considerably easier than actually working.  And I can't grow lavender.  You know what?  That's absurd.  I'm taking the Lavender Challenge.  This is the year that I shall overcome the blackness of my thumb!  I will have fields of lavender, bushels and bushels of the stuff.  I shall become the Lavender Queen!   I'll start my own business selling lavender essential oil, lavender scented soap (homemade of course), lavender infused hot chocolate, lavender mosquito spray, everything lavender!!

And now you know how my mind's eye works.  It doesn't take much for me to get carried away.  I think I'll stop now, mostly because (forgive me for repeating myself) I just can't grow lavender.  Sigh.

Cool update: I wrote this a year ago but never published it.  Last summer I successfully grew lavender!

These two photos represent pretty much my whole lavender crop, but I consider it a fine start. And here's something else cool;  I did a little research about lavender in the Bible and came up with this:

Lavender is often mentioned in the Bible, not by the name lavender but rather by the name used at that time, spikenard. In the gospel of Luke the writer reports: "Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment."

The name "lavender" is a definite upgrade from "spikenard," in my opinion.  Apparently the Romans had something to do with that:

The Greeks and the Romans bathed in lavender scented water and it was from the Latin word "lavo" meaning "to wash" that the herb took its name.

At any rate,  the Lavender Challenge has been met!  Can lavender infused hot chocolate be far behind?  I'm going to catch up with my mind's eye yet, you'll see...

For the beauty of the earth

For the triumph of the skies

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies

Lord of all, to Thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise!

Reminiscing

Thinking back...21 years ago I was in the hospital lying flat on my back recovering from a C-section and suffering spinal headaches that were excruciating.  My newborn twins were preemies, so tiny and entangled with tubes and wires that it was a major enterprise to try and hold them.   My other two boys were at home and I wondered if they felt abandoned by me.

I asked my doctor how long the spinal headaches would last and he speculated that they could last up to a year or more.  "But the anesthesiologist told me that they'd probably not last more than a week!"  "That's because it was his needle," was the cold reply. He left and I collapsed in a frenzy of angry tears.  When the nurses came in to figure out what was going on, I told them what the doctor had said.  "Oh," they said, "We call him 'Dr. Doom.'  He's always saying things like that."  "Well, I'd like to punch him in the stomach!" I said with a great deal of feeling. Somehow this made all of us laugh.  It was such an unlikely sentiment coming from someone like me that I'm still rather shocked that I said it.  It tells something about the extremity of my emotions at the time.

Alone in my bed, still fretful and disturbed, I turned my anger on God.  How did He expect me to take care of my four children, including these two little ones, if I couldn't even sit up without having a hammer pounding in my skull.  It was untenable!!  Slowly, His presence infiltrated my overwrought heart and I began to remember His amazing love.  It dawned on me that He wouldn't give me these children without making a way for me to care for them.  "I will never fail you nor forsake you."  "I will never fail you nor forsake you."   Never!!!  Ever!!!  

No wonder the psalmists often reminisced, as it were, about God's faithfulness in the past and His promises for the future.  Sometimes in the midst of the storm, it's good medicine to remember sunny skies and rainbows.  

The headaches disappeared shortly after I left the hospital.  (Coincidence? I think not!).   And now those two babies that got such a shaky start in life are strong and healthy young men who are on their own journey with God and faithful in the assembling together of the saints.    

He did not fail nor forsake me then; He will not do so now; He will not ever fail me or forsake me in the future.  

Reminiscing.

Doodle

When I was young and obliged to sit through church services, I would pass the time during sermons by doodling.  One of my earliest doodles was to draw an outline of my hand and fill it in with hundreds of little jelly bean-type shapes. Hey, it kept my hands busy and my mind focused, often even on the sermon, believe to or not.

Doodling became a habit of mine.  I doodled my way through phone conversations, classes, meetings, seminars...anytime when I was a captive audience, so to speak.  I doodled in the margins of my notes, on napkins, on bulletins, on scraps of paper, sometimes even on my skin.  Naturally, these little meaningless scribblings weren't permanent or noteworthy; they certainly weren't what one could consider art...or were they? 

I just discovered that there's a thriving art form out there based on DOODLING!  Be still, my doodling heart!  It's called Zentangle and I've suddenly found a home for my aimless and wandering pen.  Doodling with a purpose. Ahh...I'm on my home planet on this one. A wild idea just occurred to me. Jesus stooped and wrote something on the ground with his finger in John 8. People love to speculate about what He was writing, but what if He was just doodling?  Doodling while the people chewed over the words, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone."  Doodling while the Holy Spirit did His convicting work on their hearts. Doodling in the dirt while exposing the dirt in people's souls. Don't worry; I'm not going to place a lot of weight on that somewhat absurd speculation, but it makes me smile.

So here are my first two Zentangles.