after tasting wonder

Do you know what it's like to be 'ruined for the ordinary'?

It's when you experience something so great that everything else is flat in comparison. I live trying not to compare much. Sometimes the presence of God is so wonderful, so complete, it's like dipping your hands in heaven. But not every day can feel that way. So it goes. The regular days come along, but a new wonder can be found; how to live through each regular day with Jesus' spirit in our lungs, when the simple things become a worship. When everything counts; the words we speak, read, or listen to, how we spend the time we're given. Jesus tells us to be holy as he is holy. Peel off the layers this world puts on you. Life is Sacred.

It is almost impossible to see this beautiful depth when we're alone. Others don't understand...
But we are not alone, all who have met Jesus are bound together by his Spirit. We are His kingdom of Heaven on earth. Linked in Faith, Hope and Love.

What Men Live By

Leo Tolstoy, retold by Solomon M. Skolnick


As the shoemaker conducted her out, the room became bright with light. They looked at Michael. He was sitting with his hands folded on his knees, he looked upwards with a smile, and there was a light about him.
Simon went to him. “What is it, Michael?” said he. Michael stood up and put down his work. Then he took of his apron, bowed his head to his host ad hostess, and said: “Farewell, my host and hostess, God has forgiven me; you must forgive me too.”
And the shoemaker and his wife saw that the radiance came from Michael. So Simeon stood up and bowed low to Michael, and said to him:
“I see, Michael, that you are no mere man, and I am not able to keep you, nor am I able to ask you any questions. Tell me, nevertheless, this one thing—why, when I found you and brought you to my home, were you so sad; and why, when my Matrena gave you food that first night, did you smile, and from then on brighten up? Then again, when the great gentleman ordered boots, you smiled a second time; and from that time forth you became brighter still. Now, when the lady brought these children, you smiled a third time, and grew exceedingly bright. Tell me now, Michael, whence is this light, and why did you smile these three times?”
And Michael said: “Light comes forth from me, because although I was punished, God has now forgiven me. I smiled three times because God sent me to learn three divine lessons. I learned the first divine lesson when your wife had compassion on me, and then I smiled the first time. I learned the second divine lesson when the great man ordered his boots, and so I smiled a second time; and just now, when I saw the children, I learned the third divine lesson, and I smiled for the third time.”
Simon said: “Tell me now, Michael, why did God punish you, and what are those three divine lessons—so that I too may learn them?”
And Michael answered: “God punished me because I was not obedient. I was an angel in Heaven, and God sent me to take away the soul of a women. I flew down to earth, and saw there a woman who lay sick. She had just given birth to twin girls; they moved weakly beside their mother, and she was too weak to be able to put them to her breasts. The woman saw me, and understood that God had sent me for her soul. She burst into tears, and said: ‘Angel of God! They have only just buried my husband; he was struck dead by a tree. I have no one to bring up my poor children. Do not take away my poor, wretched soul, let me but feed and nourish my little girls till they can stand up on their feet. How can the children live to grow up with neither father nor mother?’ And I listened to the mother. I laid one child on her breast, I put the other child in her arms, and I ascended to the Lord in Heaven. I flew up to the Lord, and said to Him: ‘I cannot take the soul away from that poor mother. The father was killed by a tree, t mother has born twins, and she prayed me not to take the soul out of her, and said: “Let me but feed and nourish my little children till they can stand up on their feet. How can children live to grow up with neither father nor mother?” And so I did not take away the soul of the poor mother.’ Then God said, ‘Go and fetch hither the soul of the mother, and learn three lessons. Thou shat learn What is given to men, What is not given to men, and What men live by. When thou hast learnt these things, thou shalt return to Heaven.’ And I flew back again upon the earth, and took away the soul of the woman. The little ones fell from her breast. The dead body fell upon the bed, pressed upon one of these little children, and broke her leg. I rose above the village; I was carrying the soul to God. Then a blast of cold wind caught me, my wings drooped down and fell off, and the soul went alone to God; but I fell to earth.”
And Simon and Matrena understood who it was they clothed and fed, and who had lived with them, and so they wept for fear and joy. Then the Angel said:
“I was alone in the open field and naked. Never had I known before the needs of man; never before had I known hunger and cold, and what it is to be a man. I grew more and more hungry; I was freezing, and I knew not what to do. I looked about me; I saw in the field a shrine made for God; I went to this shrine of God; I wanted to shelter myself in it. But the shrine was locked; there was no getting into it. I sat down by the shrine to be sheltered from the wind. Evening grew on. My hunger grew; I was freezing, and racked with pain. All at once I heard a man coming along. He was carrying boots, and talking to himself. It was the first time I had seen a human face while feeling what it was like to be a man. I had a horror of this face, and turned away from it. And I heard how this man was talking to himself, and how he asked himself how he was to protect his body against the cold of winter and provide for his wife and children. And I thought to myself, ‘Here an I perishing from cold and hunger; but this man can never help me because he can only think of how he is to clothe himself against the winter and provide his family with bread.’ The man saw me and was troubled. Then a still greater fear seized him, and he hurried by. I was in despair. Suddenly I heard the man coming back. I looked and could not recognize the man I had seen before. There had been death in his face, but now he had suddenly become a living soul, and in his face I recognized God. He came to me clothed me, took me with him, and led me into his house. I entered his house. His wife came out to meet us and began to speak. The woman was even more dreadful than the husband had been. The spirit of death came from her mouth, and I could not breath in the air around her. She wished to drive me out into the cold, and I knew that if she drove me out, she would die. Then all at once her husband reminded her of God, and a great change suddenly came over the woman. And when she gave me some super she looked at me, and I looked at her, and Death was no longer upon her—she was a living soul, and I recognized God in her.
“And I remembered the first lesson of God: ‘Thou shalt learn ‘What is given to men.’ Then I knew love has been given to men, to dwell in their hearts. And I rejoiced that God had begun to reveal to me what he had promised, and I smiled for the first time; but was not yet able to understand everything. I did not understand what is not given to men, nor what men live by.
“I began to live with you, and a year went by. And the man came and ordered boots—boots that would last a year and neither loosen nor split. And I looked at him, and suddenly I saw behind him my companion, the Angel of Death. No one but me saw this Angel, but I knew him; and I knew also that before the sun went down he would take away the soul of the rich man. I thought to myself, ‘This man plans for a year, and he knows not that he will die tonight’; and I remembered the second lesson of God: ‘Thou shalt learn What is not given to men.’ What mankind and given I knew already. Now I knew what is not given to mankind, It is not given to men to know their own needs. And I smiled a second time. And I rejoiced that I had seen my companion Angel, and that God had revealed to me the second lesson.
“But I was not able to understand everything. I was not able to able to understand yet what men live by; and I lived on and waited until God should reveal the last lesson to me. Then in the sixth year came the woman with the twin Children, and I knew the children, and I knew that they had been kept alive. I knew it, and I thought: ‘The mother begged me to spare her to save her children, and I believed the mother; I thought that without father or mother is was impossible for the children to live; and lo! A strange woman has nourished them and brought them up.’ And when the woman wept with joy over another’s children, I saw in her the living God, and knew that God had revealed the last lesson to me, and had forgiven me, and I smiled for the third time.”
And the clothes fell off the body of the Angel, and he was clothed with light, and he began to speak more terribly, as if his voice did not come from him, but from Heaven. And the Angel said:
“I learnt that man does not live by care for himself, but by love for others. It was given the mother to know what was needful for the life of her children; it was not given to the rich man to know what was needful for himself; and it was not given to any man to know whether by evening he will want boots for his living body or slippers for his corpse. When I came to earth as a man, I lived not by care for myself, but by the love that was in the heart of a passerby, and his wife, and because they were king and merciful to me. The orphans lived not by any care they had for themselves; they lived through the love that was in the heart of a stranger, a woman who was kind and merciful to them. And all men live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, but by the love for them that is on other people.
“I knew before that God gives life to men, and desires them to live; but now I know far more. I know that God does not desire men to live apart from each other, and therefore has not revealed to them what is needful for each of them to live by himself. He wishes them to live together united, and therefore has revealed to them that they are needful to each other’s happiness.
“I know now that people only seem to live when they care for only themselves, and that it is by love for others that they really live. He who has Love has God in him, and is in God—because God is Love.
And the Angel sang the glory of God, that the house trembled at his voice, and the roof opened, and a pillar of fire shot up from earth to Heaven. Simon and his wife fell down with their faces to the ground; and wings burst forth from the Angel’s shoulders, and he rose to Heaven.
And when Simon raised his eyes again, the house stood there as before, and in his house there was no one but his own dear family.

What will we do?

In the face of overwhelming conditions around the world, we look on from our warm bedrooms and living rooms, feeling completely disconnected. We cannot from our couches raise the wages in Indonesia or slow the AIDs crisis, but we don't need to. Just help someone. Learn something. Choose to buy products that help the people who make them. It seems small, but helping people live isn't small.

The Journey Back

The first steps back into my family home is like stepping into a dream. A very warm dream. My Mom's kitchen is the cosiest of all, and it twinkles at night. My life growing up here was maggical (well, most of the time), and that is always the sense I return to when I come back from a travel; how my family loves me, and how I love them... Such love is so often lost. My parents and my family are too wonderful to have gotten to this point on their own steam, there is so much more happening here, the Spirit of God's love is real in this home.

I watched some TV on my flight back from Vancouver. Beware of television. It will squotch your brain out. If you don't know what I'm going on about you are in great danger!

And to my very special friend, perhaps one of, or the only one reading this: I miss you.

Life is wonderful when little things can make you smile.

A wandering ramble to begin with.

A space for me to rant is a drag strip opened to a sputtering rat-rod. It will go, once she's warmed up and the timing is right. Some will love the sound and smoke, others will hate it. 10:30pm comes with a stride, and I was exhausted four hours ago. I should wait, but I won't. Words are cold and stiff but I'll open the throttle anyway. Perhaps malarky will become cohesive and form into coherence. Perhaps not.

Life is to be lived, but it appears that people think dying is living, yet living is dying. Why is it that our consumer world view doesn't make us happy? It should, in essence it's all about us. Shouldn't it be that the more we think of ourselves, the more we give ourselves, the merrier?

...So it is not about us, but it still is, only we get fuzzy feelings by helping others. Ah ha. Tricky. That's the Christmas spirit. (You must forgive my sarcasm, I'm well aware it is difficult to hear.) Close, but it's my feeling that we mistake the meager spoonful for the feast.

Joy does exist, I've held it closely, and seen it valiantly in the lives of those where it intensely contradicts circumstance. Those are the people who throw a monkey wrench in our system of thinking; while in our eyes they have every right to wail in sorrow, but can still sing and laugh.... (more later)

Comtemplate. Action.