Monday, March 28, 2016

The Miracle Within - Part 2

We have just celebrated Easter - Jesus!  the Resurrection and the Life.  What does this all mean?  Far from the Cross, we are quite familiar with the traditional easter bunny, decorated eggs and baskets of sweets that awaits on Easter morning.   Easter became a merging of legend and spring equinox with the Christian celebration of a new era heralding the resurrection of Christ.  

Out of the dark violence on Golgotha with the torture of the cross and death, came an explosion of Light that has resonated for over 2000 years.  In the Christian faith, the cross became a symbol of victory - the Risen Savior, the Christ.  His arms were outstretched on the Cross, nailed to beams in constrained pain.  These same arms in the power of Resurrection, seeks to hold us - for us to know His embrace of Love that revives and restores to new life.


There is another dictionary definition of easter, which means a wind from the east.  This is significant as the root of the physical life of Jesus is located in the middle east of this world.  His death and resurrection occurred in the east and by the power of His Rising, there came a spiritual mighty wind from the East.  You cannot see wind but you can see the effects of wind upon the elements of earth and feel its presenceThis mighty wind is symbolic of the Holy Spirit - as a sixth Sense referred to in my last post, "The Miracle Within".  The force of the Spirit - pulsating in power to move and shake and yet can be as a gentle breeze upon our spiritual landscape If we take our arms and with hands held upon our chest - the miracle lies beneath the tissue of skin, marrow of bone and muscle of heart.  Our hands rest upon a union with the Spirit of God.  He is not a far off God!  We need not look to the heavens or to a church building to find Him but look within to touch Eternal Life, our Source to whom we belong, where we live and move and have our being.
 
I end today's post with another quote from Helen Keller.  It is short and simple and yet, profound... "What I am looking for is not out there, it is within me."


Until we meet again at The Turn-Up Patch on Monday, April 11.



Monday, March 14, 2016

The Miracle Within

Everyday miracles in beauty are all around us and we are exposed to them through our human senses in sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste.  Who can argue how the scent of fresh rain or the fragrance of a flower or even food cooking in the kitchen, can be a miracle in smellWith food, there comes the miracle of taste as flavors abound that passes through our palateThere is the miracle of touch in wonder of softness and texture in the created world around us, from the feel of velvet to soft kitten's fur.

I often think of Helen Keller, a great woman who overcame her inability to hear or to see and go on to live a productive live in her contributions to society.  How could you ever phantom God's palette of colors from a glorious sunrise to a bouquet of flowers without sight.  How could you envision the blush in a baby's cheek to a majestic mountain towering into the sky or to ocean waves that crash upon the shore, leaving a puddle of foam.  In the absence of hearing, how can you conceive that same sound of the wave as it reaches shore and of the ebb and flow of the tide.   How can you conceive the sound of laughter, of music, of the noise of nature all around us.  

I propose, using Helen Keller as an example, that she tapped into a sixth sense that not only compensated for her disabilities but enabled her to see and to hear in a richer dimension beyond the five outward senses.  It is available to us all but few of us are aware since we are cognizant only of  the physical.  It is the miracle within.

Mark Batterson in his book, Primal, gives an excellent analogy.... "The Holy Spirit compensates for our sensory limits by enabling us to conceive of things we cannot perceive with our five senses.  Think of him as a sixth sense.  The revelation of the Spirit gives us extrasensory perception.  He helps us to see the invisible and hear the inaudible.  But that sixth sense has to be cultivated much like our five senses.

Before our spiritual eyes are opened, the world is only 13 inches in diameter.  It's like we live in a low-definition, two-dimensional world.  Then the Holy Spirit gives us depth perception.  He opens our eyes to see the ordinary miracles that surround us, the ordinary miracles that are us.  It's like spiritual cataracts are removed to reveal a reality that was always there.  Slowly yet sovereignly, the soul takes on width and breadth and depth as it is filled with wonder.  It expands to the size of our God-given imagination and beyond."
 
A double rainbow at the arena outbuilding

The end of the Rainbow

Recently, my camera and I were witness to a miracle in "catching a double rainbow" as shown in the above photos.  It was prevalent in strength and beauty, which hit at the roof of the arena building and ended in the opposite pasture behind the house.  Sorry! No gold at the end of rainbow; just an old ranch truck and a few pieces of farm equipment.  The rainbow was so close, I was caught in its aura, which I still can't quite define.  If you can imagine walking through a rainbow, gripped in its hues that clouded the immediate scenery in an unworldly color.  It was an awesome moment - a blessing in sight and in heart. 

A Helen Keller quote defines a rainbow moment and the miracle within.... "I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of the flower - the Light in my darkness and the Voice in my silence."


Until we meet again at The Turn-Up Patch on Monday, March 28....