See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all,
and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy:
for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: many are lying
dead by the way, slain with security.”


--Samuel Rutherford

Lake District, UK

Cumbria,UK

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and
rivers, the mountain and the sea, are
excellent schoolmasters, and teach some
of us more than we can ever learn from books.

--John Lubbock


photo taken at Wast Water, Cumbria, UK

Lake District, UK
Wast Water
Cumbria,UK

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly,
assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all
patiently, defends courageously, and continues
a friend unchangeably.
~William Penn


photo taken in the Lake District, UK

Lake District, UK
William Penn, UK
friendship, UK

Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest,
Far did I rove, and found no certain home;
At last I sought them in His sheltering breast,
Who opens His arms and bids the weary come:
With Him I found a home, a rest divine,
And I since then am His, and He is mine.

photo taken in the Lake District, England

Lake District, UK

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went,
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and ah! bright wings.

... Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889
 
photo of Lake Windermere, Ambleside, UK

Lake Windermere


Ambleside, UK

The Prayer of St. Brendan

Help me to journey beyond the familiar into the unknown.

Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with You.

Christ of the mysteries, I trust You
to be stronger than each storm within me.
I will trust in the darkness and know
that my times, even now, are in Your hand.

Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,
and somehow, make my obedience count
for You.

--Prayer of St. Brendan

photo taken in Cambridge, UK

Prayer of St. Brendan


Cambridge, UK

For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined
 in our hearts, to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.


--2 Corinthians 4:6

photo taken at Lake Windermere, Ambleside, UK

Lake Windermere
Ambleside, UK

The Desire to Rule is the Beginning of Heresy

"The desire to rule is the beginning of heresy."
--John Chrysostom

photo taken in Colorado Springs, CO

Deep Inside: E. Stanley Jones on Conversion

The conscious mind determines the actions,
the unconscious mind determines the reactions;
and the reactions are just as important
as the actions. Many Christians are Christians
in their actions--they don't lie, steal, commit
adultery, or get drunk; but they react badly to
what happens to them--they react in anger, bad
temper, self-pity, jealousy, and envy...
When the depths are held by the Holy Spirit,
then the reaction is Christian.

- E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), "Conversion"

photo taken in Worcester, England

Oswald Chamber on the Uncertainty of Faith

" It has not yet been revealed what we shall be"
 —1 John 3:2


Our natural inclination is to be so precise—trying
always to forecast accurately what will happen next
—that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing.
We think that we must reach some predetermined
goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life.
The nature of the spiritual life is that we are
certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we
do not put down roots.

Our common sense says, “Well, what if I were
in that circumstance?” We cannot presume to
see ourselves in any circumstance in which we
have never been in.

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life
—gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual
life. To be certain of God means that we are
uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what
tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed
with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an
expression of breathless expectation.

We are uncertain of the next step, but we are
certain of God. As soon as we abandon
ourselves to God and do the task He has placed
closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with
surprises. When we become simply a promoter
or a defender of a particular belief, something
within us dies. That is not believing God—it is
only believing our belief about Him.

Jesus said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little
children . . .” (Matthew 18:3 ). The spiritual life
 is the life of a child.

We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what
He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our
 beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness,
become overly critical, and are limited by the view
that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when
we have the right relationship with God, life is full of
spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.

Jesus said, “. . . believe also in Me” (John 14:1 ), not,
“Believe certain things about Me”.

Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and
graciously uncertain how He will come in—but you can
be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.


From My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

The saint knows that to find oneself outside of the
 flame of God's love  means annihilation and  death."
--Catherine of Siena

photo taken at Smith College

A Easter Gift for Jesus

'If a man love not his brother that is seen
how can he love God whom he hath
not seen?"

Between ourselves and those about
us there is almost always going on
an open competition, or at least,
a secret comparison.

In that comparison others sink
as we apparently rise. To disparage
a rival is a selfish advantage; and
to selfish natures every neighbor
is a rival! Other people stand in our
way, or we fancy that they do, in
business, reputation, popularity,
etc. By that meaner disposition
that allies us more closely to devils
than angels, we try to drag others
down by uncharitable judgments.

To attack uncharitableness we need
to start with envy and pride! Or the
process may be subtler and
craftier yet. One form of self love
is self-complacency. By passing
severe denunciations on other
men's faults, we compliment the
delicasy of our own moral
discrimination and the keeness
of our sense of right. This is
how Pharisees are made! Three
crimes are committed
in one: we condemn our fellows;
we screen our own sin, we flatter
our own self-esteem.

Another part of uncharitableness is
the pleasurable exercise of unjust power.
Characters are torn to pieces, good
names tarnished, faults are exaggerated,
nor always with obvious gain but for
the sheer joy of seeing the blow take
effect. Men like to expend their
strength and this is what happens.
It is like a cat killing a mouse for sport.

You have seen two uncharitable talkers
in private get together over a drink
and rip someone up one side and down
the other. Then they will each go their
own ways and do the same thing
with someone else but this time
the victim will be the first person
they gossiped, or was that murdered,
with?

Lacking the finer ability to satirize
the failings of systems, they attack
individual men and women. Perhaps
it would be better doing good and
going about God's business than
finding what is the matter with everything.


Third, we must see that the pride
we have in our opinion, and the
impatience and disdain we have
with anyone who disagrees with us
is another monster. God created
us with a certain amount of healthy
diversity. We are not all going to
see it alike. Truth has many sides.


Narrow minds take the colored
refracted rays of God's great
heaven-filling light as insults to
their own vision. Don't argue
over non-essentials! We are
all confused about how far our
loyalty to truth and virture forbids
us to tolerate people who seem
to us to have departed from the
truth. You can see the tremendous
obstacles that beset our growth
in Christian grace.


So how shall we proceed?

First, we must distinguish
between the error itself and
the person who holds the error.
Hating the sin and loving the
sinner it is said, but hating the
sin because it has made someone
its victim is probably better.
But is this just playing around
with words and still making
excuse for ourselves?


We despise and wrong each
other for sheer neglect to
understand each other. Our
natural differences are great
and without Christ, we might
as well count the hope of
overcoming our entrenched
self-focus as impossible.

But do consider this: how
suddenly and completely
many of our most unqualified
condemnations would be silenced
if the whole early history of the
wretchd subject of them could be
laid open to us. Then, instead
of condemning, we would be
thanking God's providence
that those events that caused
such chaos and destruction
had not been dealt out to us.

We must also remember that
even though men do awful things
we do not know how much
more awful their deeds might
have been. Each of us is
fighting a terrible battle.

We are told that charity will
go on where all other exploits
will cease: Tongues, prophecies,
earthly knowledge--all will pass
away, but charity will go on
forever! Hallelujah!


In these days of tender commemoration
of our Lord's loving sorrow let us
multiply our acts of devotion, confirm
our faith, renew our hope. Are we
doing anything to enlarge our
hearts? Empty and profitless
before God will be our prayers if
we harbor enmity, uncharitable
grudges, unforgiving hatred,
and a heart unreconciled to any
child of God.

Why don't you give Jesus a
present this Easter? I think
He would love a heart that
is ready to let go of all this
hateful garbage and be ready
to love. Don't you?


New Helps for a Holy Lent, 1882
Abridged and Adapted

Palm Sunday

The beginning of Holy Week finds Jesus
in the family of Lazarus. He is a Man and
He knows what lays before Him. From
here on in we are able to follow,
step by step, the unfolding Passion.


He travels south toward Jerusalem
from a retired spot on the borders
of Samaria where He spent several
solitary days in prayer preparing for
all that was to come. He passes
along the wild and dangerous
Jericho Road (where the story
of the Good Samaritan happened)
and comes late on Friday to Bethany
which is about 3 or 4 miles from
Jerusalem. Here he enters the house
of His friends, one of whom He had
raised from the dead a few weeks
before!

There Simon makes a feast for this
Divine Guest, knowing the human well,
but the Divine, not so much. Here
Lazarus sits with the mysterious
experience of the grave, and of
the resurrection, hidden in his heart.
Martha is serving because that is
what Martha does. One of the Mary's
annoints His head for a burial that
awaits Him.

You don't need a fertile imagination
to feel what happened that evening:
a happy group in the shadow of
the Cross, the tender communion,
the thankful remembrance, the pledges
of eternal fidelity too touching to
spoil with words.

The next morning He moves towards
the Temple with its sacrifices, with
the companies of pilgrims, driving
sheep to the altar, One of them
the Lamb of God--the One final,
perfect and sufficient sacrifice.

The Hour is drawing near. He will
enter as a King, a different kind
of King. The donkey is brought;
the crowd grows large. Suddenly
as they raise to the top of the crest
where the City in its historic glory
breaks forth into sight: the familiar
words of prophecy come to pass:

"Tell ye the daughters of Zion, Behold
thy King cometh."

Soon a thousand voices mingle
together: "Hosannah to the Son
of David." But the King is to become
a Sufferer. All our humanity, with
all our moods and conditions is
known to Him, interpreted by Him,
mastered by Him. All the rooms
of the human house are for Him to
inhabit. It is not all one-sided.
He knows all and is with us in all.


The Saviour sighs for us that we may
not sigh forever. Imagine a pretend
Christ who demands our faith chiefly
on the score of His interest in us
when we are happy or brave or good.
How like the world that would be!
How unlike Christ! Without His suffering
Passion He cannot command the
souls of His people. "For it became
Him, for whom are all things, in bringing
many sons to glory, to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings."


Our truest self emerges more when we
suffer than when things are going well.
When all is well your soul is not proved,
it is not prosperity that refines your soul,
but adversity. Our deepest eternal
choices are born in the dark night
of the soul.

However fortunate your present lot
in life is, do not trust yourself to
Anyone but the Man of Sorrows. His
death is not a mechanical transaction
stamped cooly at a distance for our
sins. Oh not this! His suffering
redeems our own; His life and death
determine our life and death. We
know His crucifixion only as we are
crucified with Him. We will know
resurrection only by abiding in Him.

"So let us bear about the dying of
the Lord Jesus, so that the life
also of Jesus might be manifested
in these mortal bodies."


"New Helps for a Holy Lent" 1882.
Frederick Huntington, (abridged and adapted)



Palm Sunday
New Helps for a Holy Lent

Without Him, what a dreary, lonesome wilderness
would this be! But with Christ in the heart, and the
heart resting in Christ- He in the center of our souls,
and our affections and desires centering on Him- the
desert loses its solitude and its desolateness. To have
the eye resting on Jesus- all our heart-springs in Him-
the spirit in frequent excursions where He dwells in
light and glory- to lean upon Him and converse with
Him as though He were actually walking by our side,
sitting at our table, associating with us in our callings-
this, this is heavenly-mindedness.

--Octavious Winslow

photo taken at Smith College, Northampton, MA

Stop Complaining and Fault-Finding

"Do all things without murmurings"

A subtle snares lays in the sin of
excessive fault-finding.Self-knowledge
is rare, we rarely see our sins and
our shortcomings. But let me tell you
something: complainers make even
less progress in this area.

It is doubtful whether one person
in a hundred of those who are always
looking at the bad side of things,
always pointing fingers, always
trying to pick apart what other
people say will be found to be
in any degree aware at how far
their own hearts lay away from God.

They view themselves as spiritual,
as without major defect, having
a sweet tongue, and think they
are easy to live with. What a joke!

The clever critic has a bitter tongue
and a hard heart. God searches
within and none of this kind of thing
is pleasing to Him. Whatever
happened to "love thinks no evil
but suffers long and is kind?"

Critical people disturb the very
air in a room, they provoke
people to argue, make virtue
difficult, exasperate children,
degrade the testimony of
the Church as a gentle people
given to love. Do we forget
how much mercy Christ has
shown us?

Even if we are trying to be
"good Christians" we can be sadly
unaware at the ceaseless dribble
of ill natured comments and
antagonizing accusations
coming from our tongues.

A school child can be quick
to hurt with hateful, jealous,
unkind remarks. Even a
woman who stays at home
can speak poorly of those
that come to serve her. A mother
can mean well but tear down
rather than build up. She may
expect her children to go
astray and so they do.

If you find yourself caught
in this disastrous bondage
take heed to these four things:

1) One day a week keep a strict
account of EVERYTHING you say.
Ask yourself how much of this is
complaining, and present the sad
score to yourself and to God at
night for reckoning.

2) Dare to ask a trusted friend to
keep you accountable and to
tell you when you start to fall into
bad talk.

3) Count your blessings, they are many.

4) Ask God for strength to make
the changes you need to.

If you follow these four simple
things, you can begin to change
the ugly habits that make you
...well, ugly.


"New Helps for A Holy Lent"
F.D. Huntington
adapted and abridged

criticism
complaining
F.D. Huntington
the tongue

Oh that I was lowly in heart! Honor and dishonor, good report and
evil report would then be alike, and prove a furtherance to me in my
Christian cause.

—George Whitefield

photo taken at Smith College, Northampton, MA

Be inwardly still, Friends, and wait patiently
 upon the revelation of the living flame of love
 that burns in the hidden depths of our hearts.
Place your hope in the purifying, enlightening,
 and liberating working of that Holy Flame,
and rest in that hope, and trust that the secret
life of Christ within us is itself the answer,
ineffable but sure, to the unutterable longing
of our souls.

--George Fox --Letter to Lady Claypole

photo taken at Smith College, Northampton, MA

Smith College
George Fox

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.-- Jonathan Swift

photo taken at Smith College, Northampton, MA
"Spring Tulip"

A Burst of Hope

"Ah, the hope found in a
single bloom of spring."


photo taken at Smith College,
Northampton, MA

In Patience Possess Your Souls

In patience, possess your souls.


Patience is the endurance of tribulation out
of the love of God, and being willing to see
God in all circumstances. The offices of
patience are as varied as the ills of this life.

We need patience with ourself and with
others; both with our authorities and those
 that we govern, not forget with our own
equals. We need it with those  who love us
and those who do not. We need
it with big things and small things, against
the sudden inroads of trouble, whether it
be from the weather or a broken heart.

We need it when our body is tired and
when our soul is tired, when we have
failed others and others have failed us,
when we are sick and as we get old;
in disappointment, loss, injury, reproach;
when our hopes are delayed and even
we are tired of the ever present struggle
against sin.

All of these things are endured by
patience because we love God and
want to be found to be pleasing to Him.

All other virtues have need of patience
to perfect them. Patience puts herself
between every dart that the Evil One
throws at us. Patience is the root
and guardian of all virtue.

Impatience is like waves troubling a smooth
pond, hindering the perfect image
of Christ from being seen. It makes
the soul either outrun or fall short of
the perfect will of God. Impatience
will not listen, heeds nothing, fears
nothing, hopes nothing, judges nothing
correctly, does not persevere, except
in being restless! It shakes every
virtue and enters into almost every
sin. Impatience made Cain a murderer,
and Absalom a father-killer and
Judas a Christ-killer.

How does impatience shake one's faith
and cause one to be impatient
with the world, the church or one's own
self! It chills love and extinguish's hope.
It blights humility, quenches long suffering,
mars gentleness. Impatience of bodily
wants, leads people into drug, drink,
illicit sex, and leads them to lie,
cheat, and steal.

"In patience," our Lord says, "possess
your souls." What does this mean?
It means to lead all our emotions,
decisions, and needs to the grace of God
so that He can command us.

In the world, when someone is
disciplined and has a clear, steady
commands of things, we call him
"self-possessed." We have need
of that same single-mindedness but
not fueled by human will power but
by the Spirit of God. "It is not by
might nor power, but by My Spirit,"
says the Lord. So let patience
have her perfect work in you
and you shall be found pleasing
in the sight of God.

adapted and abridged from
"New Helps for a Holy Lent"
by Frederick D. Huntington, 1886