Does God Inhale?
The screaming child upstairs: gasping air into her lungs then propelling it out in heavy bellows of anger. The gusting wind beyond the pane of glass: deporting rubbish from other neighbourhoods into the bushes and drifts along my house.
The words she and I speak, long and thoughtful, in the space of Saturday indoors.
Both we and nature exhale, breathing out as a result of life and heat energizing us, stirring the systems around and within us to fulfill their purpose, however warped our misuse of the resource.
But the Maker of screaming children, billowing Chinooks, and dreaming women, He is different. He too breathes out: but He has the breath of life, making a living soul. He exhales, and ice is given. Stormy wind fulfills His word. He thunders from heaven. Sea’s channels, earth’s foundations are laid bare and exposed at the blast of the breath of His nostrils.
His quietest commands outstrip our loudest hollering, revealing His omnipotence and our frailty in one fell swoop. His exhales leave us bare and exposed.
But the source of our exhalations carves the ultimate chasm between human and divine. We breathe in because He breathes life into us. But He does not need to breathe in. He does not need inspiration. He is life. Because of Him, we exist, but He is His own first cause.
So, melt in wonder, my soul, at the thought of a God-breathed, God-spoken story given me to believe and to tell others. Marvel to consider this all-powerful, self-sustaining, all-encompassing breath of God sighing out long and labourious through the chasm between us. He speaks the Incarnation—word made flesh—revealing the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person as God-Man. Immanuel, God with us. Logos, the cause of all physical and ethical life, spoken in Christ.
To cry as an infant, Christ breathed my air. To buy me back from hellish slavery, He exchanged lives, and deaths, with me. He exhaled His last breath in triumphant purity. To fill me with His life, He overpowered death, and breathed again. To seal His possession, He breathed heaven on me, into me, by the Holy Spirit.
He breathes life into me so that I might breathe His life.
Worship breathes His breath back to Him.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Vault of diamonds
Vault of diamonds: 6 February 2011
Weighty steps echo through the corridor, rebounding authoritative and pedantic. The massive form thrusts air from its sentry stillness, sending it singing and swirling beside, behind, and around. The song overwhelms, daring to blow me over, then it quiets to a whisper, and I wonder if it has returned to its stationary post.
Towering doors—impossible in size, devastating in substance—stand vigilant at the corridor’s end. The master stops and faces the entrance, breezes around him swaying to a halting stillness. He has arrived. To possess this vault-filled passage is to own supreme sway, the dominion of influence over all life. But only the master can bear the weight of the keys, and wield the doors from their locks.
The jangle of golden authority sounds like bells from a tower. He lifts key to latch, and wind follows his arm. Decisive power hurls faithful teeth and gears from their holding grip. He leans into the door. Thunder groans as hinges bear down under their burden. Stones shout for the grinding shove against their faces.
Then, all is silent, except for the faint sigh of wind, who exhales in wonder at the sight. He steps in, turns all around, and gazes at his treasure. Wind follows him in silent grandeur, stirring loose bits of wealth from the floor, and scattering them in swirls of feathery brilliance. This is the storehouse of diamonds.
He smiles, and breathes, a deep, powerful breath. His exhale harmonizes with wind’s song, propelling a burst of luminous gems into the air. They seem to expand, twirl, suspended in dance, gazing on the master. His eye twinkles. They sparkle, then tumble in whirling arcs to new niches in the heaped wealth.
He reaches down, gathers a handful of jewels, while wind scatters loose gems with his echoed movement. He gazes up at the domed room, now gleaming with pure light, then out the iron doors into the corridor. He looks beyond, past all framing and space, and smiles.
He turns, and strides out the vault. Wind ripples his gestures through the room, glinting, sighing, singing, till every particle of treasure sparkles under his passing light. He closes the doors, locks them. They will hold till he returns to the treasury. He knows, because He designed them.
Out, out, out the corridor, into his quiet resting place. Wind sings a high-pitched melody as he sits by his dearest invention. He turns the sphere round and round, finding the perfect spot. He lifts mighty hand, and sprinkles diamonds onto the orb’s surface. He blows a soft breath, warm and cool air spiralling his command. The place on the globe turns white. He smiles. It sparkles.
Wind giggles for joy, sending the diamonds into mounds and drifts. Clouds of diamond dust hover at the surface, then eventually settle, glimpsing over sparkling shoulders to catch the glint of his delight, and reflect it back to him.
Have you entered the treasury of snow?
He sends out His command to the earth; He word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes; He casts out his hail like morsels; who can stand before His cold? He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.
Weighty steps echo through the corridor, rebounding authoritative and pedantic. The massive form thrusts air from its sentry stillness, sending it singing and swirling beside, behind, and around. The song overwhelms, daring to blow me over, then it quiets to a whisper, and I wonder if it has returned to its stationary post.
Towering doors—impossible in size, devastating in substance—stand vigilant at the corridor’s end. The master stops and faces the entrance, breezes around him swaying to a halting stillness. He has arrived. To possess this vault-filled passage is to own supreme sway, the dominion of influence over all life. But only the master can bear the weight of the keys, and wield the doors from their locks.
The jangle of golden authority sounds like bells from a tower. He lifts key to latch, and wind follows his arm. Decisive power hurls faithful teeth and gears from their holding grip. He leans into the door. Thunder groans as hinges bear down under their burden. Stones shout for the grinding shove against their faces.
Then, all is silent, except for the faint sigh of wind, who exhales in wonder at the sight. He steps in, turns all around, and gazes at his treasure. Wind follows him in silent grandeur, stirring loose bits of wealth from the floor, and scattering them in swirls of feathery brilliance. This is the storehouse of diamonds.
He smiles, and breathes, a deep, powerful breath. His exhale harmonizes with wind’s song, propelling a burst of luminous gems into the air. They seem to expand, twirl, suspended in dance, gazing on the master. His eye twinkles. They sparkle, then tumble in whirling arcs to new niches in the heaped wealth.
He reaches down, gathers a handful of jewels, while wind scatters loose gems with his echoed movement. He gazes up at the domed room, now gleaming with pure light, then out the iron doors into the corridor. He looks beyond, past all framing and space, and smiles.
He turns, and strides out the vault. Wind ripples his gestures through the room, glinting, sighing, singing, till every particle of treasure sparkles under his passing light. He closes the doors, locks them. They will hold till he returns to the treasury. He knows, because He designed them.
Out, out, out the corridor, into his quiet resting place. Wind sings a high-pitched melody as he sits by his dearest invention. He turns the sphere round and round, finding the perfect spot. He lifts mighty hand, and sprinkles diamonds onto the orb’s surface. He blows a soft breath, warm and cool air spiralling his command. The place on the globe turns white. He smiles. It sparkles.
Wind giggles for joy, sending the diamonds into mounds and drifts. Clouds of diamond dust hover at the surface, then eventually settle, glimpsing over sparkling shoulders to catch the glint of his delight, and reflect it back to him.
Have you entered the treasury of snow?
He sends out His command to the earth; He word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes; He casts out his hail like morsels; who can stand before His cold? He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Bombardier Tales Volume II
Bombardier Tales Volume II
I step and slip my way down the laneway. If I can get past the slick packed snow of the yard, I can make my way on the open road.
A motor revs in the distance, siblings on the ski-doo. I told them to go without me, that I would clog up the fun by weighing down the machine, that I’d go for a walk by myself instead. The toboggan passengers aren’t fifteen and five anymore; muscled young people replace rubber-limbed children. The ski-doo pulls up alongside me, my brother driving invites me to jump on behind him. I hesitate. I’m afraid: of not being fun anymore, of diminishing their fun, of making them feel obligated to ask me. But they all affirm that I am welcome, so I climb on, ashamed of my own silliness, and glad in a girly way to be wanted.
The machine groans as we embark, the smooth packed snow compensating our combined weight by making toboggan glide effortlessly. Our passengers grit and sway and balance with arm outstretched, attempting to stay on the sled. Someone’s rear end slips off, deadweight against the motor’s pull. Swerving the other direction arights the load, and we head to the open fields.
Agility, not speed, is the new game we siblings play. Swirls and curves and meandering lines scratch the field as we progress into the unknown. The riders grunt and crunch core muscles. Littlest brother loses his footing, and boots bigger than mine flail and flap beside, then behind the toboggan, as he falls off and rolls in the snow.
We turn a big curve and pick him up, him waving his finger in playful warning. Now he takes the front, and sister locks herself behind him. Off we go again, driver and I laughing at the antics of the riders. I let out a great whoop, throwing my legs into the air, and driver bellows in surprise. He did not know that I was holding the strap and thought I too was falling off. Poor fellow.
Round and over and through we go, skidoo exhaust filling our lungs, soaking our clothes, permeating our skin. Light fades and we head towards the house, just in time to see oldest sister, now a Mummy of two, daintily treading down the drive, about to walk on the road. This is our cue. Younger sister and I hop off our respective vehicles, find our land legs, and join sister, as planned. New freedom and zest empower the men, who head off for a wild last ride before dark. Down into the dugout, capsizing the sled, twisting and turning and speeding along, the last gust of boy-man energy echoes like a final hurrah through the fields. The sound follows us as we walk and talk into the setting sun.
How much has changed these past few years! How different, and how the same, we became, home is, fields are. Ever-changing, ever-constant, our lives ebb on and on, twisting, turning, scratching the fields, marking the years. And the journey marks us, changes us, makes us different. And in our combined, separated stories, we hear the echo of a grand and glorious story, one told by our Maker, shaping us into His glory, telling His legend to us and through us.
Glory haunts our silliness and simplicity, and makes sense of our meandering trails, and that is the happy ending of bombardier tales.
I step and slip my way down the laneway. If I can get past the slick packed snow of the yard, I can make my way on the open road.
A motor revs in the distance, siblings on the ski-doo. I told them to go without me, that I would clog up the fun by weighing down the machine, that I’d go for a walk by myself instead. The toboggan passengers aren’t fifteen and five anymore; muscled young people replace rubber-limbed children. The ski-doo pulls up alongside me, my brother driving invites me to jump on behind him. I hesitate. I’m afraid: of not being fun anymore, of diminishing their fun, of making them feel obligated to ask me. But they all affirm that I am welcome, so I climb on, ashamed of my own silliness, and glad in a girly way to be wanted.
The machine groans as we embark, the smooth packed snow compensating our combined weight by making toboggan glide effortlessly. Our passengers grit and sway and balance with arm outstretched, attempting to stay on the sled. Someone’s rear end slips off, deadweight against the motor’s pull. Swerving the other direction arights the load, and we head to the open fields.
Agility, not speed, is the new game we siblings play. Swirls and curves and meandering lines scratch the field as we progress into the unknown. The riders grunt and crunch core muscles. Littlest brother loses his footing, and boots bigger than mine flail and flap beside, then behind the toboggan, as he falls off and rolls in the snow.
We turn a big curve and pick him up, him waving his finger in playful warning. Now he takes the front, and sister locks herself behind him. Off we go again, driver and I laughing at the antics of the riders. I let out a great whoop, throwing my legs into the air, and driver bellows in surprise. He did not know that I was holding the strap and thought I too was falling off. Poor fellow.
Round and over and through we go, skidoo exhaust filling our lungs, soaking our clothes, permeating our skin. Light fades and we head towards the house, just in time to see oldest sister, now a Mummy of two, daintily treading down the drive, about to walk on the road. This is our cue. Younger sister and I hop off our respective vehicles, find our land legs, and join sister, as planned. New freedom and zest empower the men, who head off for a wild last ride before dark. Down into the dugout, capsizing the sled, twisting and turning and speeding along, the last gust of boy-man energy echoes like a final hurrah through the fields. The sound follows us as we walk and talk into the setting sun.
How much has changed these past few years! How different, and how the same, we became, home is, fields are. Ever-changing, ever-constant, our lives ebb on and on, twisting, turning, scratching the fields, marking the years. And the journey marks us, changes us, makes us different. And in our combined, separated stories, we hear the echo of a grand and glorious story, one told by our Maker, shaping us into His glory, telling His legend to us and through us.
Glory haunts our silliness and simplicity, and makes sense of our meandering trails, and that is the happy ending of bombardier tales.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Bombardier Tales, Volume I
I’m waiting for siblings to dress in overalls, boots, and scarves so we can hit the fields with bombardier and toboggan. But he’s waiting for me. I step out, fill the interim with some movement, and he greets me, “What took you so long?” He’s been waiting a while. And I thought he was taking those short spins just for his own pleasure, but really, he was waiting for me.
“I don’t want to drive,” I say as I approach. He’s perched on the back. What girl wants to drive when there is a man with you? So he takes the driver’s seat. I grab the strap with one hand and his waist with the other.
We go: him, the retired Mountie, a man grappling with aging, a man so alive, with ever-increasing constraints and limitations on his life. And me, the girl-woman, coming home for Christmas to a place crammed with memory. Each activity thrusts another ream of “remember when” across my mind’s eye. Old pains, joys, fears, and hopes surface in the simple pleasures of a Christ-tide holiday.
So we travel on, south. The open fields crusted by Chinook winds, the stubble-preserved snow, the mild calm before the storm. “Should we go all the way to those mountains?” he asks, the revving motor matching his rising excitement. No matter that the Sweetgrass Hills are in Montana: soul and mind have space, and can dream fabulous, hilarious ventures.
We swerve and turn and drive over the wind-carved jumps, laughing and whooping our way through the fields. Back into the yard, he asks, “Enough?” and I answer, “Sure.” But he’s not ready to quit. He needs to taste it again, that freedom of wind in your face, cold air freezing your skin, thumb vibrating with throttle’s heartbeat. “How ‘bout over that way?” So we head West, pinking sky ahead.
We swerve and meander to the standing rock, our own “Ebenezer,” where we stop to look. “I’ve never been out to this rock,” he says, and we’ve had it standing more than seven years. So I show him the cultivator indentations on the upper face, where shovels bounced and scraped and jabbed year after year. Flying geese, a flock of jagged “Vs,” travel across Ebenezer’s face, weathering it with their rusty wrinkles. But he stands unashamed, unmoved. The rock towers over our heads, though we can reach the top and brush off the hawk and osprey lime left on his crown. We talk about how Dad drug Ebenezer to this high spot in the field, pulling him with borrowed cable and our strongest tractor, from down in the dip to up on this ridge. People we’ve never met drive by and can see the rock, and we, sitting round our kitchen table, can see it through French door, beyond barn and shed and granaries, there at the swell in the field.
I restart the machine, and we head back, exploring, cheering, laughing, riding the bumpy ridge in the shelterbelt.
We come into the yard the front way, and siblings pour out of the house, ready for their own adventure. He isn’t ready to stop, to concede, to quit. I tell him to go, so he straddles long limb behind the younger man, and they take off, pulling a toboggan of fun-loving adventurers.
We remember, and live truly. We recall the past, and thrive instead of exist in the present. We re-visit, and explore history for the first time, and come away ready to live. Looking back, we see glimpses and glimmers of what makes us fully alive. And our hearts yearn with happy sorrow to be more than we have been, do more than we have done, love better what we have cherished little, and aspire for our true destiny.
He returns a hero, laughing and triumphant. And that’s just how he should come home.
“I don’t want to drive,” I say as I approach. He’s perched on the back. What girl wants to drive when there is a man with you? So he takes the driver’s seat. I grab the strap with one hand and his waist with the other.
We go: him, the retired Mountie, a man grappling with aging, a man so alive, with ever-increasing constraints and limitations on his life. And me, the girl-woman, coming home for Christmas to a place crammed with memory. Each activity thrusts another ream of “remember when” across my mind’s eye. Old pains, joys, fears, and hopes surface in the simple pleasures of a Christ-tide holiday.
So we travel on, south. The open fields crusted by Chinook winds, the stubble-preserved snow, the mild calm before the storm. “Should we go all the way to those mountains?” he asks, the revving motor matching his rising excitement. No matter that the Sweetgrass Hills are in Montana: soul and mind have space, and can dream fabulous, hilarious ventures.
We swerve and turn and drive over the wind-carved jumps, laughing and whooping our way through the fields. Back into the yard, he asks, “Enough?” and I answer, “Sure.” But he’s not ready to quit. He needs to taste it again, that freedom of wind in your face, cold air freezing your skin, thumb vibrating with throttle’s heartbeat. “How ‘bout over that way?” So we head West, pinking sky ahead.
We swerve and meander to the standing rock, our own “Ebenezer,” where we stop to look. “I’ve never been out to this rock,” he says, and we’ve had it standing more than seven years. So I show him the cultivator indentations on the upper face, where shovels bounced and scraped and jabbed year after year. Flying geese, a flock of jagged “Vs,” travel across Ebenezer’s face, weathering it with their rusty wrinkles. But he stands unashamed, unmoved. The rock towers over our heads, though we can reach the top and brush off the hawk and osprey lime left on his crown. We talk about how Dad drug Ebenezer to this high spot in the field, pulling him with borrowed cable and our strongest tractor, from down in the dip to up on this ridge. People we’ve never met drive by and can see the rock, and we, sitting round our kitchen table, can see it through French door, beyond barn and shed and granaries, there at the swell in the field.
I restart the machine, and we head back, exploring, cheering, laughing, riding the bumpy ridge in the shelterbelt.
We come into the yard the front way, and siblings pour out of the house, ready for their own adventure. He isn’t ready to stop, to concede, to quit. I tell him to go, so he straddles long limb behind the younger man, and they take off, pulling a toboggan of fun-loving adventurers.
We remember, and live truly. We recall the past, and thrive instead of exist in the present. We re-visit, and explore history for the first time, and come away ready to live. Looking back, we see glimpses and glimmers of what makes us fully alive. And our hearts yearn with happy sorrow to be more than we have been, do more than we have done, love better what we have cherished little, and aspire for our true destiny.
He returns a hero, laughing and triumphant. And that’s just how he should come home.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Elusive Treasure
Elusive Treasure 13 July 2010
Space, time to enjoy, this notion of savouring life, haunts and taunts the mind; its mysterious nature bids us subside our activity, while it simultaneously whisks the prize out of our reach, making us rouse and chase it once again.
Flitting, floating, darting in graceful swoops, it flutters in and out of our periphery. Pursuing, calculating, manoeuvring, we try to outwit, anticipate, and capture the treasure. Gasping and desperate, we tumble headlong, tripping over our weary feet. Sprawled and pretzled, our winded gaze skyward, the refocusing eye catches glimpses of moving colour. The quested object lands on our nose, smiling down at us.
Or perhaps we do not stumble. Perhaps precision and endurance gain us advantage, and we capture the fluttering trophy. But what do we do now? It tickles our clasped palms, then stops moving. Have we suffocated it? Cracking cupped hands open, light rays reveal the reward, placid and peaceful. No signs of exerted breathing, no damage incurred from the chase. Palms unlocked, sun shining, the world stops for a moment, and we try to understand what we have attained. Then the prize walks decidedly to the end of a finger, and flies comfortably away. And we are none the wiser.
The elusive dream delights and crushes. In all the activity and projects and deadlines and needs, my heart is haunted with the prize. I suppose it’s like someone running a race, who can’t just stop once they cross the finish line. They must stagger and sway and lose rhythm and flay arms while the heart slows and adrenaline tapers. Desires actually accomplished leave me feeling, what next, what now?
And in the silence of the moment, the horrible indeterminate pause where we inhale, exhale, and wait, the prize comes, but in a form we never expected.
And so it was today. I lit candles, I dabbled on the piano. I ran errands. I did research. I boggled my mind and overwhelmed my heart with all the new to-do lists and all the possibilities of an unborn tomorrow. I tried to calm, tried to trust, tried to preach truth to myself. I tried not to do what I can’t help myself from doing: worry. Circumstances seem too simple to warrant worry, but too unknown to navigate without it. I want to be busier, but yet, can’t find the time for the things I really might like to do.
And in the music, and the moment, it comes. It washes over me, engulfing me in a moment. Rest.
“And He said to them, ’Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’“ Mark 6:31
The place is deserted and quiet. I have been brought aside. My heart must now come aside. I cannot come, or rest, or stay a while; I can do nothing without Him.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the treasure after all. Maybe it’s not even in holding the prize of rest. Maybe it’s knowing that He is holding me.
Space, time to enjoy, this notion of savouring life, haunts and taunts the mind; its mysterious nature bids us subside our activity, while it simultaneously whisks the prize out of our reach, making us rouse and chase it once again.
Flitting, floating, darting in graceful swoops, it flutters in and out of our periphery. Pursuing, calculating, manoeuvring, we try to outwit, anticipate, and capture the treasure. Gasping and desperate, we tumble headlong, tripping over our weary feet. Sprawled and pretzled, our winded gaze skyward, the refocusing eye catches glimpses of moving colour. The quested object lands on our nose, smiling down at us.
Or perhaps we do not stumble. Perhaps precision and endurance gain us advantage, and we capture the fluttering trophy. But what do we do now? It tickles our clasped palms, then stops moving. Have we suffocated it? Cracking cupped hands open, light rays reveal the reward, placid and peaceful. No signs of exerted breathing, no damage incurred from the chase. Palms unlocked, sun shining, the world stops for a moment, and we try to understand what we have attained. Then the prize walks decidedly to the end of a finger, and flies comfortably away. And we are none the wiser.
The elusive dream delights and crushes. In all the activity and projects and deadlines and needs, my heart is haunted with the prize. I suppose it’s like someone running a race, who can’t just stop once they cross the finish line. They must stagger and sway and lose rhythm and flay arms while the heart slows and adrenaline tapers. Desires actually accomplished leave me feeling, what next, what now?
And in the silence of the moment, the horrible indeterminate pause where we inhale, exhale, and wait, the prize comes, but in a form we never expected.
And so it was today. I lit candles, I dabbled on the piano. I ran errands. I did research. I boggled my mind and overwhelmed my heart with all the new to-do lists and all the possibilities of an unborn tomorrow. I tried to calm, tried to trust, tried to preach truth to myself. I tried not to do what I can’t help myself from doing: worry. Circumstances seem too simple to warrant worry, but too unknown to navigate without it. I want to be busier, but yet, can’t find the time for the things I really might like to do.
And in the music, and the moment, it comes. It washes over me, engulfing me in a moment. Rest.
“And He said to them, ’Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’“ Mark 6:31
The place is deserted and quiet. I have been brought aside. My heart must now come aside. I cannot come, or rest, or stay a while; I can do nothing without Him.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the treasure after all. Maybe it’s not even in holding the prize of rest. Maybe it’s knowing that He is holding me.
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