Longing for more beauty

"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from." C.S. Lewis

I remember the first night that we camped in the mountains in Utah, I was kept awake almost the whole night by the beauty of our surroundings. The moon was just shy of full and made the place bright. The white aspen bark glowed. The reflection of the brightness on the lake and the millions of stars shining was more beauty than I could soak in....even staying up most of the night.

Each evening as we prepared and ate dinner around the fire, up to 15 deer would gather in the field between the water and our site. They were gracefully eating and interacting with one another. Their beauty was also captivating.

These things always serve as a reminder to me that God is big, living, and the master artist. I will forever long for more beauty and long for the originator of this beauty.

"As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?" (Psalm 42:1-2) and another Psalm that has been working on me: "O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." (Psalm 63:1)

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

In the last few weeks, Will and I have attended many different sorts of churches in many different places. From an indepedent-almost-charismatic, United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Free Methodist...they were all fascinating and offered something nutritious for the soul. Particularly interesting was that almost every one of them sang this wonderful hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

As we have been wandering and discovering strangers turned into friends all along the way, I found these words resonating with my soul. My prayer in the last few days has been that more than anything God would allow me to be bound to Him. That our time of wandering would be directed toward God and that our foot steps would be envoloped in God's grace and goodness.

The picture is from one of the trails that we took. The trail went along side a creek and was packed with Aspen trees. Yet, every so often, there would be a clearing that was just packed with these wild daisies. Such beauty tucked away. One more spot along the way that calls out praise to God, the greatest artist of all!

Here is the version of the hymn by Robert Robinson that is printed in my prayer book:
Come thou fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount - I'm fixed upon it -
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I'll raise mine Ebenezer,
Hither by Thy help I've come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.

More pictures from Utah

Today is actually our first day back in a city. Moab didn't have adequate internet juice to publish my blog. So, I actually wrote that blog on Saturday and worked with no success for at least two hours to publish it. Now, we are in Denver. But, I still have many things to blog about Utah and our other wilderness experiences.

The large arch picture actually has something hidden therein. You may have to zoom! It's like the game where's Waldo, but now, it is where's Willie? Let me know if you find him.

Canyonlands

Will and Basil and I have been in the Canyonlands region on Utah for almost a week now. That seems like a long time (for us to stay in one place anyway). Yet, in order to see and do all that there is here, it would take weeks.

We have spent a couple of days at an inn in Moab that is small but sweet. They allowed us to store this computer monitor that Will purchased at the local thrift store for $5. They are also very accommodating to Basil as long as we do the poopy scooping.

Three nights we camped at one of the most unbelievably gorgeous spots in the country (though I am prone to exaggeration and often say "this is the pretty place on the planet!" I am really not, here. Look for yourself at the picture. We pitched our tent there! That was the view from our tent's front flap!

We hiked a lot of trails. Some were short, for instance Burro Pass was only 3.4 miles. It was rated a "D" for difficult on our trail map. Another one we ventured onto was also rated a "D" but once we were up the first ridiculously steep incline with a breathtaking view on the mountains and canyons, we realized that the trail disappeared. It was no where to be found. Even Basil, the great trail blazin' dog that she is was unable to locate it. And we then couldn't really find the trail to go down! WOW, getting back down that mountain was something to write home about....except I would never tell my mother because she has a severe agoraphobic side and I can just hear her now saying "don't you know you could have gotten yourself killed!" It was an amazing experience. One that I am grateful to have lived through, but do not relish repeating!

Rising from the Ashes

"You take this big, barren, chunk of wood that doesn't look like its good for anything except maybe to cut up and burn for firewood, and you start chiseling away at it, and, little by little, something starts forming. And in the end, something beautiful is made out of something that other people might see as worthless. I feel like our lives are shaped that way."

Immediately, I thought of these works of art being a parallel for our lives. The most wounded, brused, and seemingly useless human material.....us, God chooses to transform into beauty! I see this same thing happen over and over. God's main business is transforming the hurt and grief in our lives into something else. Our lives are shaped by God. Yet, sometimes it feels like fire that burns away everything that we hold dear. Sometimes, it feels like a chainsaw at work on us, removing the things that are diseased or unhealthy. Sometimes, it is the gentle hand of God shaping our hurt, smoothing over the rough places and giving us a story that we can share in order to bless others. Whatever the case may be, God calls us to be his handiwork so that the world will know what God has done for us.

The chainsaw artist, Mark Chavez, spoke these words in an interview with a reporter from the Albuquerque Tribune. He was one of the firefighters that helped put out the fire that happened in the bosque in the summer of 2003. There are now four carved sculptures done by Mark at Pueblo Montano. The cottonwood trees that were part of the fire and now beautiful beacons in the Bosque that will bless many for generations. (see more at: http://www.cabq.gov/openspace/pdf/305.PDF )

What amazing beauty can come where there was once only damage and destruction!

Man Cannot Live on Green Chiles Alone

McDonald's features the double green chile cheeseburger for only $.99! What a steal! So, even after we had that great ball park food, we couldn't resist splurging for some distinctively ABQ burgers.

Only in ABQ

Having been away from here for many years, I am enchanted by things that are distinctively New Mexico.

Sunday evening, we saw Albuquerque Isotopes (albuquerquebaseball.com) get absolutely slawtered by the Memphis Redbirds (ironically an affiliate team of the St. Louis Cardinals). The mascot is so adorable. One ABQ distinctive feature is the race around the bases in which the red chile, green chile, and taco see which can make it to home plate first. My sister says that the two chiles are mean to the taco, but she cheers for green chile anyway. It just so happened, that Will and I had gone to get some food right before this race. "I cannot believe they have posole at the ballpark" Will kept saying as I ordered a bowl and proceeded to enjoy it and accidently spill it down my leg and onto my sock and shoe. (Posole is a traditional New Mexico stew containing a hominy type corn, chile, pork, and spices) The red chile reminants on my leg and sock became quiet a treat from Basil later on that evening. When we returned to our seats, the chiles and taco were running the bases and I felt compelled to root for the red chile because I was in the midst of consuming some of the most tasty ball park cuisine in the country....red chile posole. Can you believe that they have it at the ball park? Only in the Land of Enchantment!

Another thing that is so distinctively NM is the tumble weeds. See the one that my sister is displaying, it is huge but not at all the biggest that I have seen.

The Land of Enchantment

Will, Basil and I drove to New Mexico on Wednesday. We left OK City in the morning knowing that out of all the drives in the country, this may be the most dreadful. I am typically "enchanted" by most scenery and enjoy road trips because of this. But the drive from OK City to Albuquerque, NM is less than enchanting. Also, that day was particularly dreadful because of the 50 mile per hour winds. Our Toyota Corolla was not staying on the road and Will has been suffering with some of the "ear, nose, chest" crud.
I even remember this drive from my childhood.

My family used to travel to Oklahoma a lot when I was growing up. One of the things that usually occupies my mind when driving this stretch nowadays is all those early road trips. We would visit in the winter and one time, we got caught in a huge snow storm in Amarillo. A few other times, we went and visited a sick and then dying aunt in Pampa, TX. That road takes me back to those days.

So,we are now in Albuquerque and have been spending time with family. Today is a special day in that my nephew Tristan is graduating from pre-school.....cap and gown and all!

I will post pictures later cause there are lots of enchanting people and things here.

BIG NEWS

"I alone know the plans I have for you...plans to bring about the future you hope for." Jeremiah 29:11

After many days, weeks, months of praying and waiting on God, we finally have an idea about what our future holds. Just as this scripture says, God does promise to bring those things we hope for. We have had to believe this against many odds. Today, we heard that we will be moving to Vandalia, IL. I will be the pastor of Parkview Free Methodist Church beginning in August.

We visited the church and met some folks there on Saturday. The Leadership Summit of the Gateway Conference inspired us. It was amazing how many people we knew there and we felt very welcomed.

So, once again, we went into these situations feeling like strangers, but found that we were really among friends. We happened upon saints....notorious and respected Free Methodists that we had only known previously in history books (such as Bob Cranston)....and some other ordinary yet no less respected saints such as Eric Watterson.

The saints that housed us were Karl and Deb Somerville. I like to call their house that was built circa 1915 the "Somerville Resort." The woodwork that is typical for that time period was gorgeous. They also showered us with great hospitality including Starbucks coffee. The picture here is the scrumptious "Strawberry Shortcake" made with the old fashioned Bisquick recipe. It was modified and made with Splenda just for me. OUT OF THIS WORLD good.

I do feel blessed to have such a great assembly of saints surrounding us. I think of those who have blessed my life in the past and those who I have recently encountered that have blessed my life, and I even feel blessed in knowing that God will bless us with even more new saints in the future.

Pictures from OK

Here are a couple pictures from Oklahoma. I spoke of that strange dirt and this is a great picutre of how red the dirt is. Also, the clouds and sunset are amazing. We have put hundreds of miles on our car in the last week.