When Beauty Rocks Your World

Sometimes the world can be breath-takingly beautiful – as it was last night under a bright full moon. A silver halo, an unusual lunar corona, framed the moon over the waters of Lake Norman in North Carolina. Some days – and nights – the world feels like paradise itself.

But the news reminds me that others are digging out from fierce winter blizzards, that scud missiles are falling in Syrian neighborhoods, thugs attacked Christmas worshippers in Nigeria and the families of Newtown face a grief that can’t be spoken.

On Christmas Day Tiffany and I went with thousands of others to the opening of the new movie of Les Miserables. What an uplifting story of hope against

Souvenirs of Eden

Yesterday I went for my morning run with eyes wide open – and I found myself running amid bursts of glory.

Rimming the bank of our storm-water pond, the first splash of splendor was a stand of sumac, radiant with burnt-coral bronze leaves in the morning sun, seed-pods nutmeg-brown and bursting with plans for next year’s harvest.

The Caller's Spring

Samson was legendary, renown for exploits of incredible strength – killing a lion with his bare hands, slaughtering a thousand assailants with a donkey jawbone, ripping apart the city gates of his foes, and cracking apart the pillars of a pagan temple destroying his captors at their own victory party.

But the other day I discovered a different kind of Samson tale that had escaped my notice – even in my three years of researching biblical water stories.

Wonders of Water at the Olympic Games

The past twelve days it has been exciting to watch the best swimmers in the world compete in the London Olympics, setting at least nine new world records. And the most decorated Olympian in history made his emphatic mark in the pool.

These athletes make it all look so easy, but, in fact, they have to exert tremendous energy propelling their bodies through water that is 784 times more dense than air. The same is true for the synchro-swimmers, sailors, rowers, kayakers and those tigers of the pool, the water-polo players.

The Discipline of Spiritual Thirst

This is the final discipline on my list of 'Ten Disciplines for living downstream from Eden' - a proposal for a personal and global water ethic - or what I call a 'Manifesto for Action' at the end of my book.

Eight hundred million people in our world suffer with severe water scarcity; their need is physical and very real. Often, the water they do collect serves them badly and makes them chronically sick. Click here for a short but powerful 3-minute video from Charity: Water that tells this story.

Physical thirst is a painful but eloquent mirror to us of the spiritual thirst deep in human souls and human communities – a thirst and a soul-sickness found not only in drought-stricken deserts and ghettos, but in affluent suburbs and tropical resorts as well.

The Discipline of Repentance and Renewal

Here is #9 of my "Ten Disciplines for Living Downstream from Eden" –

The Discipline of Repentance and Renewal

A young man from Pakistan sat down beside me on a plane last night. Intelligent and interested in talking, he had serious questions about the Christian faith. He is very convinced and serious about his own faith which requires him today to fast from sunrise to sunset.

We discussed the month-long ritual of Ramadan which begins today. My friend explained that for him it is a kind of personal jihad against pride and selfishness, a public recognition that we are all sinners and a spiritual discipline designed to help him become a better person.

Children and Water

This week my oldest grand-daughter turned nine. She was very excited about the bike she got from her parents, the notebook she got from her brother and the seashell souvenir I send her every year to mark her birthday.

I love exploring with her the tidal pools on the rocky shoreline near her home on the Atlantic coast. As an artist she loves the colors; as a story-teller she can imagine the drama of the snails and mollusks and other creatures competing or cooperating in their tiny biomes only inches across.

The Discipline of Compassion

Before I get to today’s theme … here is this week’s exciting news. After three long years in the writing, revising, editing and publication stages, the soft-cover proof copy of Downstream from Eden finally arrived at my door.

With some visiting friends and family, Tiffany and I celebrated with champagne and a prayer of thanksgiving. After a quick inspection I gave the green light to the publishers, and in a few short days both hard-cover and paperback editions will be available from this site. Watch for exact details.

For those who can’t wait, the e-book version is already available on Kindle, fractionally priced at $3.99 which is less than a penny a page, or even better at $3.49 from Kobo Books.

Now, for today’s theme from my list of disciplines for living in the most fully human way in our less-than perfect world --

“The Discipline of Compassion”

There’s a lot of pain in our world – and tears give that pain a poignant human face. Tears are perhaps the most exquisite form of water in the world – tears of suffering or loneliness, tears of grief or lament, tears of sympathy or of regret. And the frequency of tears in the Bible is a clarion call to compassion.

The Discipline of Seeking Justice

In the past several posts, I have explored five disciplines for living richly and creatively in our less-than-perfect world. Here is #6 . . .

the discipline of seeking justice.

Despite the intrinsic beauty and joy of our world, nations and societies are rife with injustice. The clever and the powerful have always been adept at seeking their own advantage even at the expense of the poor and the weak.

But one of the foundational stories of our culture asserts that we are inextricably inter-dependent and that each of us is our brother's and sister's keeper. Ignoring the welfare of others is not an option. Living ethically in our downstream-from-Eden world means seeking justice not just for ourselves, but also for our neighbors.

The Discipline of Community

Prospective Cover

I haven’t been blogging lately – instead, I’ve been furiously proof-reading the publisher's galleys of my book – which I hope will be in your hands by the end of May. Keep your eyes on this site for the details as soon as they’re available.

But today I want to resume the series I started back in March – Ten Disciplines for Living Downstream from Eden – principles for living creatively in our less-than-perfect world. These disciplines are ways to respond not just to the gift of water – but to all the lavish natural resources of the created world.

The discipline of reverence, worship and awe and the discipline of gratitude orient us to God as our Creator and Provider. The discipline of responsive stewardship orients us to both God and the earth – to our physical and spiritual environments. The discipline of generosity opens our hearts and hands and minds in response to all we’ve been given.

The Discipline of Generosity

Two previous posts - on Gratitude and on Stewardship - lead to today's on the discipline of generosity. Generosity flows out of a glad heart, a world-view of abundance, and trust in God’s providence rather than the fear of scarcity and a spirit of greed.

Generosity is the responsive overflow of people who have experienced the goodness and extravagance of God.

The Discipline of Responsive Stewardship

This week my wife and I saw the movie 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen', an improbable story that can still reel you in. It’s romantic comedy and political satire, not an environmental film, but one of the sub-plots contrasts a vision for developing a barren landscape against antagonists who would rather destroy the environment to advance their political ends. The downstream results are devastating (though, since the film is a comedy, not ultimately terminal).

That’s a light-hearted backdrop for the weighty and timely theme of ecological stewardship. In previous posts we’ve looked at two important disciplines for living joyfully and responsively in our flawed but wonderful world: the discipline of reverence, worship and awe and the discipline of gratitude. These disciplines focus our outlook and attitude towards creation and instill a sense of wonder and privilege. The discipline that I want to highlight in this post is

The Discipline of Gratitude

Today is World Water Day – a United Nations celebration of the vital importance of water for our lives and for the planet.

Here’s a quote from my upcoming book Downstream from Eden:

"Biologically, our bodies are about 60% water; newborns are closer to 75% but by their first birthday, they’re down to about 65%. Our brains stay around the mid-70’s and blood is 83% water. Every cell in our body contains water and every cell membrane has a meticulous arrangement for allowing water in and keeping it out so cells don’t just disintegrate. Water is the crucial mechanism for transporting nutrients to our cells and shipping away the waste."

The Discipline of Reverence, Worship and Awe

This afternoon my wife and I walked with some friends in the woodlands above our home. We live on a protected moraine, vital to the re-charge of groundwater for our area. The past few weeks have been extraordinarily warm, so the snow is long gone, and the ponds are now a raucous chorus of frog songs. Moss on stones and rotted stumps virtually were glowing in the shafts of sun beaming into the still drab-brown woods waiting for spring.

Kairos Moments

I thought of calling this post “the ambiguity of time”, but what I really want to notice is the rich opportunity that every moment of life brings.

In Greek mythology, Chronos was ‘Father Time’, the personification of time in minutes, hours, days and years. But the wise Greeks also recognized that within the flow of time some moments are more momentous than others. There is a timeliness to things.

So they used a different word, ‘kairos’, to describe the right moment for something. Aristotle identified the point in an argument when the proof should be presented as the ‘kairos’ moment. Chronos is the quantity of time; kairos is the quality of time – time pregnant with purpose.

A Leap of Faith

Less than one in a thousand of us has February 29 for a birthday. This date comes only around every 4 years.

It takes 365 days plus almost six more hours to make a full orbit around the sun, so we get a quarter day behind every year. Back in the time of Julius Caesar (46 BCE) astronomers added an extra day to the calendar every four years to catch up. But that extra day actually gives us more time than we deserve,

Suffering and Hope

Today my wife and I hung a new painting on our wall.

With bright acrylic colors it depicts a brown rocky landscape, green hills and a bright blue river rushing out of the hills towards you. Its title is 'Ceaseless Hope'.

I love it for the colors and the title and the story behind the painting.

On Being Loved

There isn't a day of our lives when love doesn't matter. We are relational creatures. We flourish by love, giving and receiving it, by loving and being loved.

Many poets have woven words to express the exquisite gift of love. Among my favorites are  -
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's How Do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways.
• William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116,
• Sara Teasdale's "The Kiss" and
• Rainer Maria Rilke's "Along the Sun-Drenched Roadside"

But for my beloved on this our sixth Valentine's Day here is a selection of lines from the Song of Songs -

On Becoming A Grandfather

Ten years ago today, Justin did something very special for me.

He made me a grandfather.

Becoming a grandfather is one of life's significant milestones – at least it was for me. It marked a mystical moment.

On Being a Father

A few years ago, a grateful son wrote about his father,

A dad have I who is not perfect, never played for Yankees strong,

Feats and features cannot measure what it takes to be a man.

Fosbury’s bar will yet be raised by hopefuls and by champions

Yet ‘tis Redmond’s race that I remember

The father running to the son.

Redmond, of course was Derek Redmond, Britain’s record-holder in the 400-meter sprint. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he was favored to win gold. But half-way through his semi-final race
Redmond snapped his hamstring and collapsed to the ground as the competition raced past him.

On Being a Pastor

When my wife’s friends heard that she was planning to marry a pastor, they cringed. They feared she would lose her vibrancy and relevance. In fact, I think her zest for life has made me a better pastor.

I love being a pastor. It challenges and stretches me and brings me deep joy. I would be a pastor even if nobody paid me to do it; it’s what I’m wired up to be.

The term 'pastor' comes from the world of sheep-herding, from biblical prototypes like Moses and David who made their living tending sheep and later became effective national leaders. Some pastors I know are kingdom-builders, dynamic visionaries, mobilizers and history-makers; others guide and shape souls one-by-one. Like teachers we’re largely catalysts in the God-energized growth of others.

For Such a Time as This

When Queen Esther got the news she was stunned. An edict of genocide against your race will do that. A nation-wide holocaust was scheduled, but she was powerless to do anything about it. Or so she thought.

She was a woman in a man’s world, a world with strict laws against interfering with government policies. She may have been called Queen, but barging into the imperial court was punishable by death. Asking questions about tyranny was equally off-limits. The women of the harem of the court of King Ahasuerus were pretty playthings in this no-nonsense political world. And the King had not called to play with her for over a month.

Like many of us, the first thing Esther saw in this crisis was her own powerlessness.

Overcome by Awe

Some years ago I was cradling my new-born daughter in the middle of the night when I wanted to sleep and she didn’t. I passed the time by reading aloud from Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. It’s a tough story about the darkness of colonialism and of the human heart in general, not exactly bedtime reading for infants, but I needed to finish the novel for an assignment. She had no choice but to listen.

A better river story for children would be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – equally insightful into the human condition, but not quite as dark.

Today I'm pondering a river scene in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

New Beginnings

After a four-week silence this blog is back – with a new name and a fresh focus. For the past 18 months I blogged about the Wonder of Water – 210 posts exploring references to water in the Bible and what they have to say to us about life today. You will soon be able to read many of these reflections – and more – in my new book Downstream from Eden.

In the last post I wrote before Christmas I used the phrase ‘downstream from eden’ to describe the less-than-ideal circumstances of our life journey in the real world. Yesterday was one of those, a milestone marker for me and my children.