Easter Changes Everything Monday, Apr 13 2009

It’s amazing, really, how one single event (or at least one single culminating event) can forever change the course of history. And not just history; it can also forever change a single life. My life, in fact…and, I hope, yours. How can this be true, you ask?

Because Jesus died on the cross and rose again three days later, all of our relationships have changed!
The point of Easter was for God to change the world.

We can talk to God directly; no more veils or earthly intercessors.
The blood of Jesus gives us leave to enter the throne room of Heaven.

We can join together regardless of race or class or culture into the unified body of the church.
And it is an eternal family. My friends will have to listen to my questions literally forever!

We are no longer slaves to sin, but dead to it!
Praise Jesus, who conquered death so that we might benefit. Oh death, where is thy sting?

And best of all, we believers are even now alive in Christ.
How should we then live?

Heady stuff indeed. Happy Easter to all. May we never forget that Jesus’ death and resurrection has made us free to live, free to love, and free to experience the real joy of purpose. God is good. I picked the last half of Philippians chapter 3 as my favorite Easter passage this year because in it, Paul describes the life we should be living, now that we are indeed alive in the blood of Jesus.

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ,
the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect,
but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

~Philippians 3:7-14

Happy Easter!

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Blindly (or: Inspired by a Lonely Astronomer) Wednesday, Apr 8 2009

Life is merely a matter of
Balance–
between pressures from within
and the gravity of
Life without.

Hydro-static equilibrium
of the mind
keeps the heart from exploding
or crushing under the
Force of
the Universe.

Forces incomprehensible
in Blackness
shapes stars and galaxies into
Curves of intellect
and reason.
On what curve do we travel
through the
Chaos Void?

All existence is merely measured
as relative luminosity
within the great deep
black Field–
Perspective limited by
laws of Time
and Love.

We see one curve, one
spark of Light, and then
we dream of nebulas
And gaping holes of
Hope in
the fabric of Reality.
It is a moment’s infatuation
with Eternity.

We are on a blind date with
the Universe.

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Watching the Sunset Friday, Apr 3 2009

Out in the desert, that last hour between day and night can be really spectacular. Some things are just so beautiful that you have to try and catch them on paper, even though you know that you’ll never get it quite right. This is my feeble attempt.

The sunset sets the long red-brown desert on fire. Massive purple clouds drift and layer, reflecting deep rose-gold colors in their underbellies, as if they’ve been dipped in the molten, dripping sun. Darkness begins closing at the edges of the sky, turning the far-off lavender mountains to shady shapes and eating up the blue-and-cream streaked expanse.

The clouds deepen as the sun sinks beneath the horizon, behemoths of purple-deep shadow soaked in crimson at the edges. The sky becomes that calm, quiet periwinkle that always comes just before night sets in, as if the heavens, now purified by the red-gold spills of the sun, are refreshed and prepared–a baptism of fire that leaves a canvas for the coming night.

In these last moments, when the day is still in the heavens, chasing the sun behind the horizon, there is a deep feeling of tranquility–even peace for the soul.

The night, with its fresh moon and softly budding stars, is the more beautiful when it comes but gently on the last fragile wisps of day.

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