February 2012
2 posts
What is Love?
“Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more.”
That’s a pretty well-known little ditty. But let’s think about this for a second… what IS love? The way we tend to view love, that song’s actually not too far off. Don’t hurt me. Me. ME! As my favorite comedian Brian Regan once sagely advised: Beware the Me Monster.
But we do this all the time. I...
“He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand. And if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy’s will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished,...
January 2012
2 posts
“To one on a mountain road by night, a glimpse of three feet of road may matter...”
– C. S. Lewis
10 tags
"What if I tell them?" The New Testament Gamble
What if I tell them who they are? What if I take away any element of fear in condemnation, judgment or rejection? What if I tell them I love them, will always love them, that I love them right now, no matter what they’ve done, as much as I love my only Son, that there’s nothing they can do to make my love go away? What if I tell them there are no lists? What if I tell them I don’t keep a log...
December 2011
4 posts
6 tags
“A God too large to walk in human shoes
Has outgrown every hope of human use....”
– Calvin Miller, The Finale
I had a dream last night that I feel like I need...
First, a bit of back story. I had a massive Mexican dinner of chicken and cheese several hours before this dream. I think that might be the cause.
Anyway, so there I was, in this giant library. It was quite an awesome library full of dusty old relics, and I found several large ancient tomes that I wanted to check out. The problem, however, was that the books were so big that I got weary of...
“You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live...
4 tags
November 2011
8 posts
Quote Blog
“If you can’t see very far ahead, go ahead as far as you can see.” — Dawson Trotman
“Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off your bowlines. Leave the still waters of the harbor. Catch the trade winds with your sail!” —Mark Twain
“God provides the wind, but man...
“The unaffected heart leaves a legacy of Disney World paraphernalia and a...”
– Brennan Manning
If you want to climb mountains, you must be willing to descend into valleys. If you remain stranded on one peak your whole life, the view might be nice, but you will never go anywhere or see anything new.
So when you sink into those miserable, swampy lowlands, keep your heart trained on that next mountain, and think what joy it will be to climb it.
“The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all...”
– Larry Hein
The gates of Hell will tremble when love becomes the anthem that we sing; Sickness will be silenced when this all consuming power fills our streets, my love, so come quickly; When love comes to the nation, justice will bow; When love comes to the nation, all dividing walls will come crashing down; When hope shines on the nation, the darkness will flee; When hope shines on the nation, every...
“Maybe … the voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness. What can we do that leaves us with a strong sense of sailing true north and of peace, which is much of what gladness is? … I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad, then it is a good thing and it...
October 2011
13 posts
4 tags
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless...
Word Trails: from: Rule for a New Brother →
jessforde:
Here the deeper meaning of any rule in the spiritual life becomes visible. Instead of giving us methods to control and direct and determine our own life, a spiritual rule wants to offer an open and free space within and among us where God can touch us with God’s loving presence. It wants to make…
I was born into a system constructed for failure ...
3 tags
“What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy… Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection.”
— Len Sweet & Frank Viola
“So here I stand, looking at the ground, smelling the faint fragrance of God. Never once did it occur to me that when I found God’s trail again, it would ruin my life forever — for once you feel the breath of God on your skin, you can never turn back, you can never settle for what was, you can only move on recklessly, with abandon, your heart filled with fear, your ears ringing...
Two Seasons
The wind is howling. The winter is cold.
Deep in the woods, someone is waking up. He opens his eyes, but he cannot focus. He is still groggy from his long sleep. His head aches and his body is stiff.
Inside his home, it is dark and warm.
But outside, it is winter, and it is a bad time to awaken.
Snowflakes fall from the hazy sky, but their journey is hindered by the blanket of...
5 tags
Perspectives on Release
Nothing this world offers is eternal or lasting, and nothing earthly can offer the hope or security of knowing life eternal.
— Teresa of Avila
When I can slowly detach myself from this need for human affirmation and discover that it is in relationship with Jesus that I find my true self, an unconditional surrender to him becomes not only possible but even the only desire.
—...
“You are blessed when you are out of options, and all you can do is lean on God. Because when you realize your need for God, it is only then that you tap into His immeasurable greatness and goodness. You’re blessed when you’ve been stripped of that which is most precious to you. Because only then can you be tenderly embraced by the One most precious to you.”
— Eric...
7 tags
What I'm Reading:
A few days ago, I found this book at a used book store in Asheville, in the vintage sci-fi section. It’s from 1978, and the cover and title snagged my full attention. I was highly intrigued, so I bought it and read it.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected. I think I initially believed it would turn out to be incredibly blasphemous. But I was pleasantly surprised. It’s very...
I have drifted down a ways along the shoreline, I just watched these ropes give way where they were tied. I could have reached out quick when the ropes first slipped, if I had tried, but I was wondering where the wind was trying to take me overnight, if I never did resist, and what strange breezes make a sailor want to let it come to this, with lines untied, slipping through my fist.
It...
6 tags
“His melody fell upward into joy And climbed its way into spangled rhapsody. Earthmaker’s infant stars adored his boy, And blazed his name through every galaxy.
‘Love,’ sang the Spirit Son and mountains came. More melody, and life began to grow. A song of light, and darkness fled in shame Before a universe in embryo.”
-from The Song by Calvin Miller
5 tags
“Death cannot be to those who know The Troubadour of Life. He gives A crown to every man who shows By dying that the Singer lives.
So give the breath you cannot keep To gain the life you cannot lose. Before the Axman never weep, But sing with joy the Singer’s truths.
The prince of dragons soon must fall Before the Prince of Planets.”
— from The Song by Calvin Miller
September 2011
10 posts
Man of devotion,
Run towards the Ocean!
Flee towards the Sea,
Towards your Calvary.
Deep calls to deep,
So dash, diver, leap!
Sun calls to soul,
and inverts the black hole.
So run,
Jump the gun.
Be undone.
It’s begun.
©2011 Daniel Sellers
3 tags
Skydive
4 tags
6 tags
“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him.
And as Elijah...”
– 1 Kings 19:11-12 (NLT)
10 tags
4 tags
I wrote this song yesterday (except for the...
2 tags
5 tags
“Why did you come?”
“The Invader led me to you because the Singer loves you.”
“Are the Singer and the Invader one?”
“As water and ice are one — or heat and fire. The Singer came to be a man, then came again to be in man. The first time he came he was the Trabadour and the next, the Wind Song.”
— from The Song by Calvin Miller
August 2011
21 posts
7 tags
To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him. Yet how He eludes...
Who wouldst not fear Thee, O Lord God of Hosts, most high and most terrible? For Thou art Lord alone. Thou has made heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth and all things that are therein, and in Thy hand is the soul of every living thing. Thou sittest king upon the flood; yea, Thou sittest king forever. Thou art a great king over all the earth. Thou art clothed with strength; honor and...
I am addiction, wrapped in a blanket of self control
That’s worn so thin and tattered that the air seeps through the holes;
I am admission, to a history of falling short,
A past that’s held me captive from accepting I am Yours;
But I am Yours, underneath;
I am perfectly created with imperfect operation;
I’m sure to steer myself somewhere that I do not belong.
I am perfectly created with...
4 tags
What will it be like to walk into eternity?
I imagine it will be somewhat akin to how the astronauts feel when they finally touch back down on our planet after months in space, only multiplied a hundredfold.
It will be like coming back home after a long trip, only a thousand times better.
It will be like waking up to a world of marvels that you always knew deep inside (but scarce could believe)...
6 tags
The Wax Museum
A slight, slivery sunbeam wriggled through a gash in the roof to reveal dust motes dancing and swirling in its wispy light. These motes, I knew, would frolic their way into a lazy drift that would brush them right across and into my soft skin. Their residence would be permanent; standing immobile in my corner of the museum for years piled on years, I already bore a veritable winter coat of the...
6 tags
A Hymn:
I feel the winds of God today; today my sail I lift, Though heavy, oft with drenching spray, and torn with many a rift; If hope but light the water’s crest, and Christ my bark will use, I’ll seek the seas at His behest, and brave another cruise.
It is the wind of God that dries my vain regretful tears, Until with braver thoughts shall rise the purer, brighter years; If cast on shores of selfish...
1 tag
I'm not trying to impress you or anything but I...
baloneyfudgingmustard:
2 tags
Clockbroom
The clockbroom of dusty eons
Sweeps moments and millenniums under the timetable,
Shakes loose the fragments of forgotten foundations,
Sets awhirl the wind, towards waiting, wistful wings,
Yet answers only to the Most High, the Ageless One.
Here, we dance with time for but a breath, a gasp,
Then whisper away into deep, immortal woods,
There to spend our time-told fortunes,
Or mourn our...
9 tags
An Excerpt
“I see the force of [atheist’s] arguments. Events occur that seem so meaningless and harmful that doubt can be cast on either the goodness or power of God.”
“The only way for all events to be meaningful would be if we ourselves were God.”
“So am I to just struggle along?”
Vero shrugged his shoulders in a miserable fashion. “I can’t give you...
1 tag
