Snow Like Wool

Psalm 147 links the wonders of creation with God’s providence and grace. The previous post focused on the first part of the psalm, especially v 7-9 that urges us to sing our thanksgiving to God for the gift of rain that sustains all living things.

The closing verses of this psalm swing to the opposite season with a sharp reminder of winter – the irresistible onslaught of cold winds, frosted windows, drifting snow and ice-pellets.

He sends his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.
He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes.
He hurls down his hail like pebbles. Who can withstand his icy blast?

Well-spring of Life

The Book of Proverbs is more than just a collection of witty observations about life. It is a passionate plea to adopt the best path – and that begins at the source. “Above all else,” the teacher says, “guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23. The heart is a deep aquifer from which everything flows, my motives, my speech, my actions, passions and decisions. As these ‘waters’ flow out of my heart they have the potential to aggravate or enrich the people around me.

For a fully embodied wisdom, the teacher urges us in this text to guard my ears, eyes, lips and feet, all of which express externally what the heart devises.

To Infinity and Beyond

Yesterday we had a brush with infinity. My wife and I were hiking along the Skógá River above Skogafoss, one of Iceland’s most striking waterfalls.

The falls are post-card perfect – an impressive 60 meter sheer drop (higher than Niagara) into a thundering pool (often with a double rainbow effect). The rugged rocks on either side and the jet-black sand on the flat plain along the river below the falls give a dramatic framing. No wonder legends of buried Viking gold grew up around this place; no wonder tourists shoot a zillion photos.

Climbing 380 steps to see the falls from above drew us into an adventure of discovery. A stile over a fence at the top beckoned us further up and further in. Little did we know the wonders that awaited.

Icelandic Geyser

Last week I promised regular posts from Iceland on the wonder of water, but unfortunately the wonders of technology failed me.

Now that I’m back on-line, here’s a glimpse of one of Iceland’s most famous landmarks – a hot-water spring in the town of Geysir. That name comes from the Icelandic word for ‘gush’ – and gives its name to all geysers on earth.

Geysers occur when geo-thermally heated water becomes trapped in narrow fissures deep in the earth. Cool surface water flows down on top of this hot water and pressurizes it. The super-heated steam builds to the bursting point and then gushes upward, blasting out whatever volume of water lies above it.

Song for Africa's Newest Nation

Tomorrow Africa’s newest nation will be born.

During my visit to South Sudan in 2008 I saw the ruins of schools and churches destroyed thirty years ago at the hands of their own government. I met young people born in refugee camps and listened as grand-parents spoke of their dreams of a re-building their nation.

Now thanks to international efforts, and a referendum in support of independence they have a fresh opportunity for peace and growth.

They need our prayers.

From Sea to Sea to Sea

With oceans on three coasts, Canada proudly celebrates her 144th birthday today from coast to coast to coast. Back in the days of confederation, Canada’s leaders chose a Biblical reference as a motto. In the words of the King James Bible, Psalm 72:8 says,

He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

It was a vision that Canadians would recognize God’s authority in our laws and life together – and that God would extend his blessing upon every corner of the nation.

Water Cycle

Round and around it goes, steaming up as vapor and then falling as rain or snow. It’s the hydrologic cycle and it goes on endlessly day after day, night after night all over the world. A billion tons of water every minute - up and down. Every day about 12% of the vapor in the atmosphere falls to the earth and is replaced by a fresh supply.

And everywhere this enormous gift of rain or snowfall accomplishes a variety of essential services for our earth by cleansing the air, moderating the temperature and, most obviously, nourishing the plants and animals on the earth.

Baca - You Can't Skirt This Valley

Life is a journey. For some it's an exciting adventure, for others a plodding task, lonely and futile. For people of faith like the singer of Psalm 84, life is a pilgrimage, a journey towards God.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty ...

My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God (v2).

The singer yearns to be in God’s presence and can’t wait to arrive at her destination, but her song is about the journey itself – the rigors and rewards of the road.

Learning to Trust - or Distrust God

At the end of forty years, God told Moses that the years of Israel’s deprivation in the desert had had a purpose. 'My design', God said, was ‘to humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart” Deuteronomy 8:2. 'As a father disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you’ (v.5) ‘to do you good in the end’ (v.16).

Hunger and thirst are powerful tests – and God wanted Israel to internalize deep in their consciousness a conviction that they could trust their covenant Partner. Experiencing God’s provision of water and food in God's time would lay a foundation of trust in other areas of life. But Israel never seemed to pass the trust-test. They were habitual whiners, constantly grumbling against God, testing God’s patience.

Getting Water from Rocks

Back in November I wrote come comments reflecting on the Exodus story -

Deserts are relentless – and humans are not well-adapted to desert demands.

As the Israeli tribes travelled deeper into the wilderness of Sinai toward their promised home, their principal need was water.

Once, in Exodus 17, when the need was especially acute, God told Moses to smack a nearby rock. To everyone’s astonishment, water gushed out. God knows the map-line of every underground aquifer and how to provide for his people.

Unseen Footprints

In the exodus, God’s path led through the sea, not around it or over it, but through it. I prefer to avoid obstacles; but apparently God does not. In Psalm 77 we read -

Your path led through the sea,

your way through the mighty waters,

though your footprints were not seen.

Psalm 77:19

Yahweh does not normally lead his people away from difficulties, but through them. And that is reinforced by the next line, ‘your path led through … the mighty waters’.

The painting on the left was made by a 13-year old Haitian child. Haitians understand the concept of going 'through'. There is nothing trivial about the ordeals God requires of his people, but the gigantic fact is that God remains present with us no matter how overwhelming they may seem to us.

Writhing Waters

Israel’s miraculous liberation in the Exodus was seared into their national consciousness. God intervened and they escaped into freedom through the Red Sea – and that deliverance defined Israel as a free people. In later years whenever they faced crisis, they went back to their founding story to get their bearings.

Psalm 77 is one of those times. Life in the real world seems to bring one crisis after another. Friends turn hostile, disease threatens, money runs out and debts pile up, plans go south and family peace disintegrates over-night. Life can get really scary sometimes – and faith doesn’t insulate anyone from distress.

Terra Firma

The famous Tower of Pisa began sinking by the time the second floor was being built. The cause – a weak foundation and unstable subsoil.

By contrast, the Golden Gate Bridge withstands enormous tides and currents and survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake unscathed in part because it sits on solid foundations, at one end on a bedrock ledge and at the other on a massive pier the size of a football field.

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

Guilt is a terrible thing.  But if there is something worse than guilt, its name would be Denial.  Denial is the paralyzing refusal to come to terms with the monster that is destroying you.

Helen Rynne as Lady Macbeth

A grim scene in Macbeth illustrates the destructive power of repressed and unacknowledged guilt:  Lady Macbeth sleep-walking the halls of her castle with a candle, trying in vain to scour the damning blood-guilt from her hands.

Yet here's a spot . . .

Out, damned spot! out, I say! . . .

Who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him? . . .

What, will these hands ne'er be clean? . . .

Here's the smell of the blood still:
All the perfumes of Arabia will not
sweeten this little hand.

Oh, oh, oh!

Her façade is cracking; denial is hard to sustain. 

The Invisible but Vital Resource

A recent report by the C.D. Howe Institute on protecting Canada’s groundwater reserves calls them ‘the invisible but vital resource’. That phrase perfectly describes the theme of today’s Wonder of Water post about a fiery Spanish nun.

In her early years as a nun Theresa of Avila (1515-1585) was bored with prayer and luke-warm towards God. Yet she longed to be spiritually alive and to know God in the core of her soul - and eventually came to a place of passionate love for God.

In her autobiography, The Book of My Life, she tells how she grew in her experience of prayer, how God’s love became for her ‘an invisible but vital resource’. Using the imagery of water, she illustrates four stages of this journey.

Extreme Stress

A few months ago the L A Times carried the good-news story about a 30 ton gray whale that had become tangled in a thick snarl of fishing net.

For two days it labored in a Southern California harbor until a marine rescue team was able to set it free.

It took them four hours to soothe the distressed whale and cut away the ropes that had knotted around the whale’s tail and head. It’s hard to imagine such a huge majestic creature held prisoner to a braid of nylon cord. It’s hard to imagine a 40-foot whale helpless and drowning.