39

April 7, and the temperature is 39F.  61F in the house.  I wanted to stay in the comforter all day.

I think I will.  I will stay in The Comforter.

One real comfort.  One real source of comfort.  One place to find satisfaction...and He DOES NOT MIND.

You don't tug on Superman's cape, but Our Father does not mind at all.  In fact he encourages it.  One of his favorite stories is about a woman who tugged on his cape and was instantly healed from a chronic debilitating disease.  

He had the psalmist write that there is one human desire that has a place above all others.  The ONE THING of Psalm 24:7.  One thing have I desired...You.  To stare in awe.  To weep at your beauty.  To be speechless in the face of your grace.  Dumbfounded...at the most fundamental level, unable and unwilling to say a thing because all expression is expressed in You.

I will stay in You today, Father.  Comfort and heal me.  Be glorified in us today.  Manifest your Kingdom in and through your bride today.  Rest your presence in great weight on the places where we call upon your Name today.  Shekinah Chabod.

Resting in Christ is proving to be flawless. Running through the dark city streets being beaten by the watchmen but continuing to seek the Lover of my soul is the only right course. When my companions doubt my sanity;

Have you met my good friend Maria
The craziest girl on the block?
You'll know her the minute you see her
She's the one who is in an advanced state of shock
She thinks she's in love
She thinks she's in Spain
She isn't in love
She's merely insane
It must be the heat
Or some rare disease
Or too much to eat
Or maybe it's fleas
Keep away from her
Send for Chino
This is not the Maria we know
Modest and pure
Polite and refined
Well-bred and mature
And out of her mind! (Stephen Sondheim)

I know I am on the right track. I continue to be devoted to sitting at His feet when there is work to do.

Thank you for continuing to teach me to serve You in the manner which you desire. Please continue to make this passage available, and transforming our feet to conform with your path.

There Are No Secrets in The Secret Place

When I got to this town six years ago I met a man who loves Jesus and lives to sing praises to God. He found me a copy of an out of print CD recorded by Clint Brown. I think the title is, "Alone." It has the theme that The Lord desires and rewards the attention of one of His children. Though He appreciates that they gather for Him, He appreciates no less the individual attention of a child crawling into His lap.

I have not listened to Pastor Clint's recording for several years, and forgot what I had been missing. That was changed this morning.

My message of the moment is that the music agrees with what I have been writing over the last month or so. Maybe if what I have been writing is not working for you, you might find a more effective connection with the message by listening to this music. When he wrote the music, Pastor Clint was living out here in the Holy Wild.

There is Love longing to embrace the love need that you have. If you think you do not need Love, he will wait anyway, and will hug you and hold you when you do, and you turn to Him.

Thank you, Father for giving me love and teaching me to give it away. Say hello to Jack for me, please.

Nothing like a great worship song.

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M
M M M My Lord . . .

PLEASE take hold of my hand, that
I might understand you

Won't you please
Oh won't you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M
M M M My Lord . . .

Won't you please
Oh won't you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul
Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me, Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M
M M M My Lord . . .

George Harrison

Poetry

I am not a poet, but my Father is. I am not a song writer or a painter or a play-write. But my Father is. Last night I was surprised by poetry that came from my fingers, so surprised that I posted the line on facebook. It resonated with some friends and they said so.

There is so much in the depths of exploration, in insisting on clinging to the bosom of the King. I don't expect that my Father is making me a poet, but I am sure that His poetry is saturating me as I dream upon His breast. I hope for the day when it is the perfume of His Presence coming from me that brings someone home. And that day I will have been so near to the aroma for so very long that I will not smell it on me, and I will wonder what has drawn them.

One thing have I desired. One thing have I been granted. One thing have I rejoiced in and given thanks for.

Loud

It takes a deliberate effort to face Heaven, to look into the face of God. It has to be on purpose, intentional. Getting lost in Love is not an accident.

The process of making it possible was not an accident. Father sent Son on purpose. To make a way home for those who would go. But the radiance of Love just on the other side of an intentional turning is the anchor. I do not know why everyone is not skinny from forgetting to eat. There on the point of a turn is the answer to every question. There is the fountain of all that is good. There on a turn, a purposeful turning toward Light, and consequently turning away from dark.

Oh, how sweet is the face of Love, how perfect the YES in His eyes. He has and is what I need. I look, and can not explain what it was that I had turned to instead. Father, forgive me for my habit of pride.

I am tempted in this process to respond to the world around me. Not what the Spirit reveals of the Kingdom advancing, but just the things that happen around me in the name of anyone but Christ.

I am in training here in the Holy Wild to be entirely about gazing into the face of Love. Life apart from love just serves as contrast, part of the darkness that calls for more light. Whatever happens in the darkness is simply a result of Lovelessness.

I do not need to leave Love to pour Love out where He is needed. In fact, I have to stay leaning on my Beloved so that I am able to pour Love out. Love never fails. Love Wins.

Father, I am your vessel. Fill me or don't fill me. Pour me or don't pour me. Break me or leave me as I am. I do not want to touch what you are doing with any part of my pride. It has to be you. I will cling to you and you will lead me where you want me to be.

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What a delight to talk to my boy. Family contact is not as distracting as non-family contact. Dad likes family, and He says that there is good when we look away from One Thing, when we look at family. He made family a picture of the Kingdom.

The draw of One Thing never lets up. It takes deliberate choice to turn from adoration. You'd think I was saying that I am there all of the time, but it is so far from true. I can imagine a time coming when I stay lost in there for days. I used to think that required circumstances, like going for a week or a month to Kansas City. Now I know that nothing is required beyond faith. I do not depend on intimacy, it just means I am putting my faith somewhere else. When I am not lost in Love, when I am looking up the path and guiding myself with my own eyes, rather than leaning out the arm of my beloved, gazing lost upon Him, and depending my movement on His, then I am a proud adulterer or idolater.

Father, you have helped me in my earth life so much today. You have given me victory over my enemies, and you shown me how to love and pray. I keep missing...and you keep on encouraging me. Thank you.

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Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Absolutely worthy of total trust. I do not know what the future holds, but I know Who holds my future.

Deeper and deeper. No worthy answer but Surrender. Free falling becomes soaring. The moment of soaring becomes the only moment that matters. There is the thought that the soaring will stop some time, in some fashion. The greater the focus on the wind beneath, the less the change to a new mode is even considered. There will be a new mode, and a new wind, a new provision for that moment and that circumstance. The promise of love never fails. There is a wind, a breeze for every mode.

Thank you, Father for your Holy Spirit.

Even surfing has too many control issues.

I think there is a dying squirrel in the attic.

My ceiling fan is moving a plastic sack.

Based on the sound and the sound two days ago of a running squirrel somewhere above me, a squirrel is dying.

Based on turning around and looking for a movement that matches the sound I hear now, the fan is moving a bag.

It does not mean that a squirrel is not dying. Maybe just not in my attic.

All of this is the evidence of my physical senses. The response in my mind is the question of what action I will take to change, no, control what I am sensing. The control of my environment, so that what I sense is no surprise, so that what I sense is always pleasant, so that nothing that I sense tempts me to fear. This is one of my great addictions.

The really kicky thing about the whole bit is that the addiction is a counterfeit and a distraction from what is available. For what has already been made available to Father's kids.

Even surfing has too many control issues.

Out here in the Wilderness, nothing of my humanity has any effect. I can not control the God Wild because nothing from earth works here. My will, my intellect, my endurance, my terror, my rage. None of it works. I can not control my environment. Only worship, surrender, leaning, trust are even interesting here. And no employment of them, making holy things into human tools, has any effect. As soon as the things that are, always have been and ever shall be about and for the King are turned to be about me or anyone else, they lose what they had, become perverse in a place where perversion can not survive, and they flee from the presence of Holiness.

Father, thank you for you Holy Wild. Thank you that you like company. Please continue to teach me to lean everything, to rest everything.

Water of Life

In "civilized" places there are so many sources of water and other forms of moisture.

In opposition, the Wilderness is, by definition, a place with only one Source of all. So it is a training ground out here.

If you go look at Frank Herbert's Dune, you will see some echoes of the walk in the Wilderness, but my recollection is that survival and thriving depended on science and community. Community and it's rules to teach you how the science of your stillsuit would keep you alive in the wastes.

Here in YHWHs Wild Place, even community and science fail. One Thing works. Just One Thing.

Staying very near. Apart from the Spirit, there is only desolation. Very near, the desolation all around becomes a proper setting.

I think I am okay...so I wander away to look at something. I have forgotten that there is nothing else worth looking at. I awaken to the fact that I am parched, seared by the dry place I have gone to. So I turn back. The distance back is nothing, because He is running to me. It is what He does, Who he is. There is no question of His welcome for me.

When I am back in my Father's arms, I am refreshed and healed. In my Daddy's lap there is no lack of any good thing. There is water for my dryness, to restore my ability to weep with joy.