(xaris and shalom)

Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of.  One joy was expected and another is given.  But this I had never noticed before that at the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or a setting aside.  The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you.  And if you wished -- if it were possible to wish -- you could keep it there.  You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got.  You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other. ]( Perelandra , C. S. Lewis) One joy was expected and another is given. Really, the whole book was a perfectly-timed read last week, dealing as it does with themes of joy and obedience.  But that line in particular resonated with my heart and life. It is so true.  My inclination is to want to hang onto the joy that I expect (and believe me, I always expect.

( photo by Adrian Moran ) I am a hypocrite of hypocrites, Having mocked you for your honest doubt But now I see. I see how you can see and not Still doubting because -- Dead men don't come to life. It contradicts the laws of physics and All common sense. You were the practical one, so When they came running back from the tomb, Tripping over themselves -- When the others said: We have seen Him -- You said, "I will never believe," But there was a comma, a caveat: Unless I see Him in the flesh, Unless my own skin touches His. Which, to be honest, was perfectly fair And an end befitting John 1 With its unbelievable news of logos made sarx. He showed up, of course, And you hesitated not at all to proclaim Him Your Lord and your God. Grant me such faith, Lord.

Creativity fills me with joy. vacation = time for playing with new creative media As I’m sitting in this Greyhound bus, rolling along the highway back towards Indy, the last stop before being home in Bloomington, I’ve had abundant time to think about the vast wealth of creativity manifested in my friends.   And I am overwhelmed, overcome at the complexity and beauty of it.  Some of them are creative in ways similar to me — crafting words and stories and seeking always to translate meaning, to cross space through narratives.  Some of them are creative in ways that I certainly am not; I hang out with a lot of musicians now and their conversations are often a foreign language. I love it.  I love the diversity, the ways that they each reflect the good, creative joy of our Creator.  It makes me imagine what it will be like in a world-made-new.  It makes me worship God. Here’s a glimpse of what’s been going on within the hours since this bus pulled out from the station

(One of the best Dr. Who quotes) Late last night, I was thinking about faith and hope and love, and community. And I wondered: what if the greatest of these is love  because love sustains faith and hope through what otherwise feel like impossible circumstances? I'm not yet done thinking about that, still just wondering and pondering.  But it seems reasonable, with 1 Corinthians 13 coming right between chapters where Paul hammers the importance of community and unity within the church. It feels true right now as I see and experience the importance of friendships, of family, of church, in encouraging each other and being in the trenches together.  As we say in a thousand ways to each other,  I will do the breathing until you are able to come up for air  (to steal a line from Matt the Electrician.)  We eat together and cry together and laugh together.  The ways that life has been going recently are not ways I would have chosen for myself or for my friends. But G