relating

It amazes me how we tend to allow our relationships to define our truth.
This should be a good thing, but tends to unleash lots of trouble. Perhaps the reason we allow our relationships to define our truth is because of an inherent insecurity that fuels a fire to belong and resonate with people who we believe "agree" with us (or so we hope?). This seems to be often at the expense of good reason and sound perspective. Once we experience what we believe to be a resonant relational orbit it seems to so enamour us that we quickly start redefining our values in order to sustain this alliance. This is very seldom a premeditated conscious action but nevertheless, a very real and present potential danger. Perhaps that it is mostly unconscious is what makes it so perilous. Much like the proverbial "moth circling the flame" metaphor.
The seeds of deception?
Is it because we so desire to belong, to resonate with significant others and have a mutual witness to our lives that we fall prey to this so easily? The harmony of another in resonant orbit with us is such a desirous thing.
Perhaps we so want to believe that we somehow close our eyes to what is in the shadow of our infatuation with what we hope could be. It is usually only when the relationship is really tested and found wanting that we are first able to painfully re-enter a (hopefully) more reasonable perspective on the truth as we see it.
Could this be why the feelings of perceived “betrayal” are so devastating when relationships hit the rocks in some way?
Relationship and truth - strange bedfellows indeed.
If we were more circumspect about our relational contexts might we avoid these pitfalls and forge better, longer lasting relationships?
Truth refines relationships but relationships cannot be allowed to exclusively define truth.

the end and the beginning

in the beginning it was you
you told it what to do
you started, you began
you made the first move

you spoke out into nothing
the nothing spoke back
you hovered, you divided
light divided the black

a being, a word, a god, a man
a breath, some dust, and life began
life in the middle, light on all sides
everything to show, nowhere to hide

you breathed, it obeyed
it shifted, it lifted
the deep kicked back
it shuddered, it moved

you are below and beyond
you’re beneath, you’re above
you are the one
enthroned in love

the words

the words of the spirit are alive and active, ever advancing in all directions, incisive, divisive, binding, separating, discerning, exposing, energizing …….. not rolling off the recitational treadmill of human tongues driven by passionless religion ....... not locked up in industrial printers ink or fenced in by numerical grid references and impaled indelibly on strips of mashed up, dried out dead trees

ion quest

The intimacy of Your detail
Is painted with bold sweeping strokes
The broadness of Your truth
With the fine point of the pen

The flow of your thoughts
Cascade in a trickle
The object of your attention
blends into focus
When will we ever get to truly know?

what fool

what fool would tear down

and humble what god has exalted?

what fool would exalt what god has torn down?

what idiot would brazenly grasp at crumbs?

the scatterings from beneath the table of the poor,

whilst there is a banquet spread

elaborately, generously and purposely prepared for those called to partake.

not by human stature

but by wisdom, grace and truth

lest any should gloat . . . .

lest any should bloat . . . .

oh lord, i can only humble myself

i am but a man

and always shall be.

but in the hand of god

may i prove faithful.

may i prove silent in my speech

and bold in my silence,

productive in my rest

and empty in my own efforts

standing under love

I had a discussion the other day with some friends and the interpretation of “love” came up in the conversation.
Perhaps we have been clouded in our understanding of what love is. Perhaps we have been bombarded with Hollywood’s portrayal (or should we say betrayal) of love. What if we saw love as simply being the resonance with things? What if love really means harmony? The love of or for someone else would then be seen as the way we harmonise or flow with them. The way we accommodate them into our world, making space for them and flowing together?
When we feel a connection with someone whether it is romantic or not we tend to want to make space for the person, for the relationship, for what resonates between us. We make space to flow with them.
Maybe this is real love?
To extend this to greater things like the universe, peace, life, and death, even God, perhaps we can say resonance with life is love for life. Maybe love for God is the way we are able to resonate with the finely tuned creation around us. People, the earth, animate and inanimate things, all these are the manifestation of a creative act and are all good and in harmony (at least that is what is recorded as God’s declaration of the creative act in the Genesis account). Perhaps it’s when this is contradicted that the trouble begins? What if the judgment of God were not an act of personal attack on the created order or on individuals but a direct consequence of the created order being violated? Could it be that when we violate this perfect order we personally reap the consequences of our actions?
It also says that God cannot be mocked and that we will reap what we sow. Selfish, self-centred actions are contrary to harmony and resonance. Could the distortion of our environment as a result of intentional or unintentional deviance from this God created order be the tangible judgment of God?
Perhaps the dissonance we feel is linked directly to the domain we occupy? We can either occupy our space legitimately or illegitimately. If we are to live in harmony with ourselves, others and our environment we are in need of being respectful of the space we occupy. If this is violated we are automatically in disequilibrium. And we clash with ourselves, others and our environment. One could possibly even say that we become a cancer in that space.

Maybe love is being ecologically aware and respectful?
“ecology” in the dictionary is defined as 1. a. The science of the relationships between organisms and their environments. Also called bionomics.
b. The relationship between organisms and their environment.
2. The branch of sociology that is concerned with studying the relationships between human groups and their physical and social environments. Also called human ecology.
3. The study of the detrimental effects of modern civilization on the environment, with a view toward prevention or reversal through conservation. Also called human ecology.
The origins of the word are given as: [German Ökologie : Greek oikos, house;  German -logie, study (from Greek -logi, -logy).]

Could this suggest reference to the “house” of God? His dwelling place, his order?

If God has set in place a divinely ordered creational expression our highest response would be to understand (stand under) this reality and resonate with the purposes of God. If we deviate from this we ‘miss the mark’ (sin)

Maybe love is not a feeling but an understanding?

In his mind he had been there – he was sure he had, but he hadn’t

The travel agent never really left his office. He devoted himself to the study of all the possible destinations available. He was a busy man. He spend virtually all his time going through glossy books filled with glossy pictures of wonderful, glossy places. He constantly read through reams and reams of detailed information. He devoured the details published in text about every conceivable angle on all of the most amazing trips. He read through the many different ways one could get to these destinations. He became an expert in all aspects of the travel experience, the best available routes, all the possible connecting points, even the costs structures of each journey with all the necessary travel documents needed to cross each and every border. He had indexed all the significant places of interest. It was a huge and time consuming exercise. Many who had traveled before had taken pictures of their journeys. Many of these records were in glowing colour, some even in hi-tech 3-D, many had even taken detailed video footage sometimes even with recorded commentary included as they journaled their delightful experiences. He had even developed a photographic memory of the photographs he had studied.
He loved his job and it captured his passion. His mind was filled with details of so many possibilities. He so wanted to encourage as many as possible to go. In his mind he had been there himself – he was sure he had been there himself, but he hadn’t. …… isn’t he a bit like you and me?