“As I make my slow pilgrimage through
the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery
seems to gather."

--Arthur Christopher Benson

photo taken on the road to Abiquiu, New Mexico

I would rather live in a world where
my life is surrounded by mystery than
live in a world so small that my mind
could comprehend it. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick


photo taken at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico


White Sands National Monument
wonder

Psalm 46

There is a stream, whose gentle flow
Supplies the city of our God;
Life, love, and joy still gliding through,
And watering our divine abode:

That sacred stream, thine holy word,
That all our raging fear controls;
Sweet peace thy promises afford,
And give new strength to fainting souls.
... Isaac Watts (1674-1748),
Psalms of David Imitated
[1719], from Psalm 46
_____
Psalm 46 (New King James Version)


To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons
of Korah. A Song for Alamoth.

1 God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried
into the midst of the sea;

3 Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its
swelling. Selah

4 There is a river whose streams shall
make glad the city of God,The holy place
of the tabernacle of the Most High.

5 God is in the midst of her, she shall
not be moved; God shall help her, just
at the break of dawn.

6 The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved;
He uttered His voice, the earth melted.

7 The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

8 Come, behold the works of the LORD,
Who has made desolations in the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariot in the fire.

10 Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

11 The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

photo taken in Pecos, New Mexico,
of the Pecos River


Psalm 46
Pecos, New Mexico

The Cross: God's Signature

Behold your Suffering King--a cross the symbol
of His glory. A great mystery is hidden there--
the cross itself is a symbol of love extending
itself without defense--hands and feet tied
down and no way to protect the heart from
being broken.

Do you think that as you completely surrender to
Me that you will not feel total helplessness?
Dear child, look at the cross. Inquire as to
what it means for I am showing you something
about the way things must be.

Helpless trust and uncompromised love are
present there as a sign not just to men but
to principalities and powers. Do you think
that the cross was a humiliation my Father
turned His back on? No, it is His signature--
signed with My blood, stretching across
heaven and earth.

I am the LORD and I dwell in the hearts
of the meek and lowly. Come and know Me
at the cross and see just what it is that
your adversary opposes.


the Cross of Christ
Easter

Come All Crosses, Welcome, Welcome!

Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so I may get my
heartful of my Lord Jesus.
... Samuel Rutherford, letter, Feb. 20, 1637

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than
me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son
or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and anyone who does not take his cross and follow
me is not worthy of me.
-- Matthew 10:37,38

photo taken in Galisteo, New Mexico

Kind Christ, You are my only Hope!

Kind Christ, you are my only hope. Come to me.
Don't be slow to visit my heart, which desperately
needs your love. Fill it with divine grace. Join my
mind and soul. Make them burn in You who are
flame without smoke always, wholly resplendent.
- Umilta of Faenza, "Sermons"


Umilta of Faenza founded an order of nuns in the
1600's. She was also an anchoress and lived for
12 years as a hermit.

photo taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Umilta of Faenza
Christian hermits

Oswald Chambers: Bitter or Better? Fiends or Saints?

God is not concerned about our plans; He does not say -
Do you want to go through this bereavement; this upset?
He allows these things for His own purpose. The things
we are going through are either making us sweeter,
better, nobler men and women; or they are making us
more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon
our own way.

The things that happen either make us fiends, or they
make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship
we are in to God.--Oswald Chambers


photo taken at Pecos Monument, Pecos, New Mexico

Oswald Chambers
God's plan
positive attitude

Martin Luther on the True Gospel

If our gospel were received in peace, it wouldn't
be the true gospel. --Martin Luther



This photo was taken, hand held, in Pecos, New Mexico with available light during the exact moment of a lightning flash.

Martin Luther
the gospel
resistance

Healing: Do The Things You Still Can Do

There is healing
and a different kind of Life,
different from what you have known:
God's Life
that comes in those times when you
cannot see the way,
cannot make sense,
cannot work.
Cannot.
In those moments,
Unseen Hands carry you.
Invisible arms embrace.
In those days,
Do the things you still can do.
Breathe.
Pray.
Love.
Cry.
Worship
Change.
Especially change.
God is with you,
closer then ever.
Overhead, the sky is blue
and God is reigning in His Heaven.
In your heart, He wants to do the same.
Rest in that peacable reign.



(This photo was taken in a church
cemetary in New Mexio. The angel,
in a jail of iron bars, still praying
even though the world is a-tilt.)

hope,
endurance,
new beginnings,
failure
difficult times,
life,
faith,
healing,
change,
grief,

An Infusion of Love

[Eternal life is] nothing else than that blessed regard
wherewith You never cease to behold me, yes, even the
secret places of my soul. With You, to behold is to give
life: It is unceasingly to impart Your sweet love to
me so that I might love You; ‘tis to inflame me to love
You by love’s imparting, and to feed me by inflaming,
and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by
kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by
drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing
to make it increase and endure.
... Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), The Vision of God

Sunset over White Sands

"Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal.
Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world
which passes like a shadow. Do not let the false
delights of a deceptive world deceive you."
-- Clare of Assisi -

Waiting for God

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes

...and is completely dependent on the fact

that the door of freedom has to be opened

from the outside, is not a bad picture of

Advent. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in letter, 1943

Advent
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
hope,
waiting for God

The Holiness of God

"The holiness of God makes the angels cover their faces, and crumbles Christians,when they behold it, into dust and ashes." --John Bunyan

Afire with God!

Earth's crammed with heaven,
and every bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Cross, Beginning and End, Galisteo, New Mexico

Christian
photography
New Mexico

Santa Fe Sunset