O Holy Spirit, As the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water, Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of thee. Vain are all divine purposes of love and the redemption wrought by Jesus except thou work within, regenerating by thy power, giving me eyes to see Jesus, showing me the realities of the unseen world. Give me thyself without measure, as an unimpaired fountain, as inexhaustible riches. I bewail by coldness, poverty, emptiness,…
Ryan and I are working our way through the podcast series “Seeing White.” I’m impressed with the quality of the podcast, captivated by the storytelling, and appalled at the history I’ve only partly known. A few thoughts/notes from Part 4, “On Crazy We Built a Nation”: John and Chenjerai discuss the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr., specifically his use of the Declaration of Independence to claim promised, but as yet undelivered, rights for African Americans. Chenjerai expressed concern for…
Our temptation is to presume that the work of the Cross in history is finished, that having completed that work, God has now left us to get on with fixing a broken world. But the Cross is not only the means of our salvation, once-and-for-all, it is the means and manner of our salvation at every moment, for all time. As noble as we might imagine coercive power to be, “if only used wisely and rightly in a good cause,”…
Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary is on the bay, close to our house. Most of the bay coastline from Melbourne down to Point Nepean is sandy beach, but at Beaumaris beach, right at the beginning of the smooth curve down to Frankston, rocky shore replaces sand. The rhythm of high and low tides covers the rock, and then exposes it, leaving a small amount of water behind in rocky pools. This harsh environment of wet and dry, protected and exposed, far…
The days are too long and the nights come too early. My legs waver and my arms droop and my feet ache. This labor of love, this daily ritual of care: a cross-marked life that seems a far cry from the glory of that tree My house looks different than it used to. Scattered toys and gummy floors — remains of breakfasts, furtive snacks stollen in secret. There’s chalk on my window screens and crayon on the wall. These and…