Yet Another Moment of Peace

Serenity and peace can be found in the most obscure places.


It doesn't need to make sense for the Divine to interrupt.


Much like chaos can be evident within you during, what would be seen as, a quiet, silent moment; a peaceful core can erupt when there is much chaos all around you.


It really is a spiritual thing to feel that calm contentment and restful soul within you.
It is the very being of God consumed in you.
And most things in the spiritual world don't make sense in the physical.

We have become so desensitized and used to noise that we shrivel at the thought of silence.

We have rejected the sounds of silence for so long we no longer see them as the beautiful gifts they are.

The flap of wings, the gravel under our feet, the buzzing of heat. 

Soak it in. Feel the peace. It is God.

That Place

I was blessed. I was able to experience such a beautiful childhood being a part of the community on Manitoulin Island.

I will never forget the feeling of one of those sunsets in the backfield, the emotion of running around in freedom with people I loved, the sight of the sun gleaming through the trees, or the truths that I realized in that small tabernacle that now live deep within me.

This will always be my home.

Remember all the things of this childhood place?

The peace of the presence; the organic embrace

This is the home I will always hold dear.

Death, What sting do you bring?

What is this idea of pain, grief and loss in our lives?
It is often the hardest question to answer as a Christ follower.


Why would a God full of love, grace and tenderness allow a world of heartbroken people go unanswered to?
If you say God's heart breaks along with our humanity, who's hearts shatter daily, than why doesn't He intervene?


I was reading the Clive Staples blog and came across a post on Lewis's thoughts on why we are (what feels like) subscribed to experience such pain.


"While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interest but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?" -Lewis


"God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full- there's nowhere for Him to put it." - Augustine


Our perspective is skewed. Our view on beauty and true happiness is flawed.
We so constantly fill our lives with these things that we believe will bring us purpose, will bring us depth, will bring us happiness. Things that in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, but they are shallow and meaningless in the big picture of what God has intended. 
We expect God to give us all that we ask for, and question him when we feel he doesn't, but in the mean time we are distracted with filling our hands with as much as we could possibly carry, and remove any room He would have to reach us. 
We can all admit to wanting something greater for our lives, to belong to a purpose, and to give reason for our existence. So than what do we do to surrender those things so God may shape our lives into what He intended? What does it look like? 


I heard an interesting thought as I sat in on a lecture at Augustine College yesterday ..."If your job or your ambitions are going to keep you from the Sabbath, quit that job and give up those ambitions."
This thought is so completely counter cultural. Everything in our culture tells us to have purpose we must produce something, we must strive for something, we must be something.
But what does it mean if we gain it all, but lose our time with the Divine?
If your job gets in the way of you spending time with the Divine...quit.
Really? ...
Why not? ...

There really is no Meaning, no Beauty, and no Peace outside of Him...so what do our lives consist of if we exclude Him? 


Lewis actually suggests that if we don't voluntarily surrender, He may allow us to experience things that will bring us to a place of surrender and dependency. 


We have to be careful with this thought though. This doesn't mean that God just takes away fro those that are getting it wrong in life and are filling themselves with distractions; if that was the case those distracted with wealth wouldn't get richer and the wicked wouldn't prosper, but that never seems to be the case. No, the truth is that God allows a universal perspective alteration to a global community that is distracted and who's perspectives are on all things apart from Him. We need to change our mind frame. This is not punishment; this is an act of love. It occurs so we may see the truth with clarity and find pure, real happiness.



It is true that with the limited perspective of fragile humanity it is nearly impossible to explain why. Why these things happen in our lives and in the world around us. But life, faith and the journey is about trust. Trusting in the promise God made that all would be restored in the end, and that the pain we carry is for a greater cause. Our happiness is so shallow and so weak from one moment to the next, and God is trying to fill our spirits with his infinite Joy and remove the extra, so that our contentment isn't based of our ever-swinging human emotions. 


I will chose to trust that I will be well pleased in the end, despite the things that I now do not understand. 

Narnia

I’ve been thinking a lot about a place of complete peace.

Peace has been a constant theme in my life over the last two years.  It has been something I had found I lacked and something I continued to strive and pray for.

I always loved stories that were about some magical place. A place of beauty, clarity and peace.
Among those stories that I treasured growing up were the Narnia series.
I wanted to live in Narnia, and would find myself day dreaming about being there.

LeeAnna and I have talked about what we envisioned heaven would be.
She saw the gates with a giant water park behind them, which makes me smile because it is testament to how she views beauty.
My vision was a place like Manitoulin. I give that earthly picture because it is what I know. I see myself walking the sun lit streets, laying amongst trees or on a dock, and feeling so connected that I am experiencing wholeness, clarity and peace overwhelming me. 

There is something to be said about untouched, pure God made beauty.

God placed something in His creation that allows us to be amongst it and feel Him.

I like to escape to this place sometimes.

In moments where I feel too plugged into the world around me and unable to quiet myself, I pretend I am already there. I am lying on a forest floor, it seems bare around, except for the great trunks. It could almost be seen as illuminating and scary to some, but for me I look up to the sun through the tops of these great trunks and can almost feel the Divine lying beside me, meeting me, like He does, with warm acceptance.

It works. You get to a place, I have learned from my early days of C.S. Lewis as well as in my more mature ones, that fairy tales can be for those that are older. What Lewis would define as “fairy tales” allows you to picture a life beyond this one, and maybe one we were even created for. Our “home.” Of course we can’t live in this home yet; it is for the future, but we can get glimpses of it here on earth, and we can strive for the things of that world and for that world to be brought to others.  

I wrote this post about a month or so ago but never posted it, and it was this picture (which I saw tonight) that made me come back to it. It seems too suitable to ever pass it up now.

Your Narnia may be completely different from my own, but sometimes radical things need to happen within you and you need to escape to keep you from distraction, even if it is just for a moment. 

Fairly self explanatory. Just shows Lewis's belief in "fairy tales."