The Celtic Monk

While visiting St. John's last fall, I purchased a beautiful handblown glass orb called "The Tree of Enchantment." It's a crystal clear softball sized sphere with deep jeweltones blown into the very top portion. When you look inside, you see several different glass channels that look very much like the trunk of on old tree. They are the vehicle through which the colored glass flowed to the top. It's artful. It's stunning. While taking it out of its box this week, as I've done several times, for the first time I noticed the very bottom of it. Where the glass blowers pipe connected to the bottom of the piece, it looked like a gnarled blemish. It was reminiscient of a scab I had on my knee in 8th grade after a bad fall on some rough concrete! But even as I noticed it, I knew that without this scar... my precious purchase would have none of the beauty inside and out, that drew me to it in the first place. It would be plain, uninteresting, unable...

Okay, so I know I should pay attention when speeding down an interstate at excessive miles per hour. And I do. Or I think I do. Or I am trying to do so. But sometimes a "God-thing" as my friend John would say, interupts. Like on Wednesday morning this week... It was early enough in the morning for the sun to be rising on my left just coming over the tops of the trees in the distance, a sphere of ginormous proportions. It was so wonderful a sight that I wanted to stare. Yet when I looked back at the road in front of me, all I could see from even that first peek, were green circles. It made me laugh, first the looking and then the circles... none of it conducive to driving. When I looked back a second time (once is never enough when gazing on splendor) the golden-orange glistening ball had made its way into a cloud bank that acted as a veil. It was enough cover to dim the shining, but not enough to obliterate the magnificence. There it was in all its glory behind an organz...

This week as I drove to Moorings Park to lead morning worship, I had one line from my text stuck in my mind. The passage was from the Gospel of John where Jesus is telling his disciples that just as God has loved Him, He is passing that love along and we should remain in His love. Remain in His love; the phrase kept coming back to me over and over again. What does it mean to 'remain' in Christ's love. How do we 'remain' in a love that is the continuation of God's love for His Son? I don't remember anyone teaching me what it means to 'remain' in God's love. Is it important to our life of faith... why won't these thoughts go away? I was driving down I 75 south at 70 miles an hour (the posted speed limit) as these thoughts came to me faster than I was driving. Remain in my love. NPR was on the radio and I managed to focus for a moment as a woman began talking about being a friend of Dian Fossey and visiting her a decades ago ...