Living Tree Poetry

“God is not a static thing—not even a person—but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.”
C.S. Lewis

“I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love.”
Wendell Berry

“Love, love, love. And hurry as fast as you can along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.  Then, go to sleep.  Give up your body heat, your beating heart.  Then trust.”
Mary Oliver

“A billion stars go spinning through the night, glittering above your head, but in you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Col 1:27

My PRAYER today is for awe.  Someone asks us to dance, each day.  A dancing partner for life.  Someone we have not seen, or touched, but who we know in some deep part of us, loves us.  Walking tonight (delivering circulars in the dark for my son), the trees, and the night sounds, and the clouds skimming across the stars, gave such a sense of otherworldliness, that one could be forgiven for thinking thoughts deep as the stars, hanging so close in the milky way. Yes, at times like these, if we allow them too, our thoughts can wind back to those most elemental, fundamental questions of life.  ‘Why are we really here, is there truly a God, a God who made us and loves us and has promised us eternity?’.   As Christians, we believe and feel God’s love and existence, but at times, we almost want to test it.  And the more we come into the mystery of God’s presence and the wonder of his omnipotence and our existence, then the more we feel we’re no longer standing on solid ground.   This is not the ground we know and understand, this is not the tangible world we touch, and the comforting world of ordinary things – this is an entire galaxy of mystery, and the spread of eternity both backwards and forwards.  I think at times like these, when the mystery is too much to comprehend, we have to, again and again, give up what we think is our right to know, and take in trust the hand that is offered out to us.  Shifting carpets require that we dance.  It’s the only way to keep our balance.