Once more, I find myself living in the words that confusedly but euphorically ask what wondrous love is this, oh my soul?

The account of Joseph in Egypt, one of the most studied and documented stories in religious history, is the classic go-to for Christian narrative in forgiveness and faith. “The Lord works everything for good.”

I wonder how reading Scripture through a different cultural lens would revolutionize our understanding of the Bible? What would happen if we comprehended Hebrew oral and written literature the way we so readily fall to our own forms. Grant us new eyes, Adonai.

I returned to this passage and was struck by the grace of the God on the situation in these later chapters of Genesis. Truly, Joseph walked a hard, distressing road and the messages to be gleaned from his account are numerous. What a beautiful illustration of God’s grace.

For his brothers.

The grace measured out for those men was more controversial, incredible, and unbelievable, I contend, than that of Joseph’s.

In full acknowledgement of the colossal tribulation Joseph blessed the Lord through, I cannot help but stare dumbfounded at God’s treatment of the “lesser sons.”

Joseph had evil done upon Him; his brothers brought the evil.

And yet they found favor with God.

At the end of the passage, the brothers, unknowing of Joseph’s identity and finally forced to confront their wickedness head on, realize and beg and repent for mercy; not for their own sakes, even directly, but for the sake of Jacob and Benjamin.

The Lord covered the transgressions of men who were nowhere near Joseph in stature, power, faithfulness, devotion, wisdom, compassion, forgiveness; indeed, who afflicted Joseph in unspeakable malevolence. Dirty and broken men just trying to survive through famine (of all sorts) just like the myriad of other nameless faces in Egypt and Canaan.

And still He forgave. Still He blessed. Even such as these, still He loved.

Fixating on the star of the story, I missed one of the most remarkable and humbling narratives ever communicated about the grace of a most Holy God.

What a powerful corollary this worked on my heart. Stunned, all the more-so, with the mercy I find at Heaven’s feet.

My exceptionally gifted sister, Sarabeth, spoke a simple and powerful truth in this regard. She quoted the one-versed parable that has been my favorite since the early days of my adolescence.

⁴⁵ Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, ⁴⁶ and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. –Matthew 13

How often it’s utilized to question what we’re willing to relinquish for the Lord’s sake. She collected my attention when she spoke her doubt that this was supposed to be the standard for our desire.

“Lydia, we’re the pearl.”

How shall I repay the LORD for all His benefits to me? What shall I return to the LORD for all His goodness to me?

Bless the Lord, oh my soul. All that is within me, bless His Holy Name.

Begets Ebenezers.

Consecrated to luminosity

the wrought promise of Favor

Inexplicable love.

Hiding curses in hollow spaces.

Fount of sonnet

 is said to assassinate silent tongues

Arcane love.

Expanding into itself.

Stringed release

from dark cumbering cares

Wondrous love.

Rescues in equitable subtlety.

Peculiar in multiple spheres of one

where listening is primitive.

Satisfied.

Pilgrimage.

My very dear friend, understanding so well the color of my heart, took it upon himself to make sure I read this excerpt.

The desert is the environment of revelation, genetically and physiologically alien, sensorily austere, esthetically abstract, historically inimical. … Its forms are bold and suggestive. The mind is beset by light and space, the kinesthetic novelty of the aridity, high temperature, and wind. The desert sky is encircling, majestic, terrible. In other habitats, the rim of sky above the horizontal is broken or obscured; here, together with the overhead portion, it is infinitely vaster than that of rolling countryside and forest lands. … In an unobstructed sky the clouds seem more massive, sometimes grandly reflecting the earth’s curvature on their concave undersides. The angularity of desert landforms imparts a monumental architecture to the clouds as well as to the land. …

To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.

[[Paul Shepard, Man in the Landscape: An Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature.]]

This explains, perhaps better than I ever could, the profound ache which obliges me to dream in Saharan language; explains my acute fascination with a Middle Eastern ethos; explains why I want to be a cloistered Bride of the Church.

Allow me to elucidate.

It has always been easy for me to find God in nature. Blissfully wandering amid plants and animals, singing the prayers of my heart, I have enjoyed an intimacy with the rocks and trees which cry out.

Offered benevolently for my amelioration is that uninhibited, raw, living communion with El Shaddai which could only be found in nature.

Accelerated to the next level of this liberty is the Vast and Powerful wilderness; the desert. The Negev.

Oh, to be Moses, and journey to the Mount. What siren music seduced John to such harsh, untamed, breathtaking milieu? Or Christ Himself?

Forty days. Feral lands. Floundering seekers.

Undeniable is the earth-moving power of standing beneath an endless sky and hunting for Something far grander than your own confined self.

Grander than self. Widening beyond “me.”

Honey and Locusts.

Contemplative worship has been releasing my spirit in ways too large for narrative.

Ironic or just what was expected?

Perhaps it’s my love for words and language that causes Liturgical prayer to gasp so vividly before me. Words sculpted by ancient poets, those ones who were desperately trying to eulogize a God too extensive for comprehension.

Great beauty walks the stone labyrinths of a Contemplative tradition. Life and worship being redeemed back to Simple. Every small task, every prayer, every silence… each has oceans of meaning..,

If one only has eyes to hear … or ears to pray. Or hands to see.

I desire to live in the Rhythms of Sand.

For instance, praying the hours not for the sake of ritual but instead attempting to mirror the life practice of the man Jesus Christ. The man who so often snuck away to pray, who denied sleep and bread for an outpouring of spirit, instead.

Wisdom lies in understanding and operating within the rhythms of the day in that for each hour, the morning hour of Lauds or midday or Vespers, one might stop and actively shifts focus back to God. This, to me, is prayer without cease. Walking in a prayer rhythm throughout the spirit of each hour of the day so that prayer is as natural and necessary for me as breath.

I am a beggar, desperate for a Burning Bush.

But this is what I fear, for I know it to be true in my own life: we have not found hallowed ground.. . Our corporate worship is disconnected.

We “praise and adore” without ever removing the sandals from our feet.

I find myself seeking a structured, archaic observance in worship because I have grown weary of what I’ve known to be “Christianity.” I am hungry for deeper texture and dissatisfied with the careless flippancy I’ve lived thus far.

Some of us were recently fortunate enough to hear an excellent sermon on the consumerism of Christianity. This talk approached the idea of coming to our churches, our times of worship, our encounters with the Divine, with an {{terrifying}} expectation of entitlement; using “faith” to fill whatever it is we want or need and never really living beyond our own benefit.

What is The Fear of God?

I’m afraid we lost it. Closed eyes and raised hands are the social, normal rituals we perform. Bible studies and World Vision babies and Sunday morning communion are our sacrifices for the altar… perhaps even the altar itself. So little is required of me.

Bondservant of Christ, Paul?

My brilliant brother and I were struggling through this concept this other night, and he commented on the inappropriate language we’ve adopted. He lamented that we speak in terms of “inviting Christ into my heart” and thereby sanctioning help from a Higher power to live the best life possible, try to get better, and grow until we reach Heaven where we can sing and sin no more.

In actually, it is Christ’s invitation to us. Subtle, yet vastly opposing our understanding of the “salvation process.”

A God of Love, yes, but not for my own end. In His mercy, He stopped and offered the invitation to realize “look, I am doing this huge and intricate and complex thing, and out of My benevolence I invite you to partake and be part of that; I offer to redeem you moment by moment if you chose Me just one more time.”

Because He loves perfectly, we experience provision and growth and happiness and grace, but the point was never to give those things for the sake of themselves. Salvation isn’t a magical change– We are graciously and mercifully extended the invitation to live in something so greatly bigger than our own lives and offered a daily redemption from our filthy, sunken state.

Funny, how this humbles me, makes me feel loved to an infinitely greater degree, than when I focus so intensely on being wooed and acknowledged.

Surely the LORD loves like no other; He seeks to woo and cherish and pursue our hearts; but that is not the end of the Story. It’s one dimension of it.

I am speaking from the place of extremity. He has liberated us from the law… and we’ve grown lazy.

We’ve lost sight and understanding – reverence, Fear of God.

We’ve no longer any understanding of “The God of my people;” We speak only in the limiting terms of “my personal”

We have abused the liberating gift of Grace He offers. He is my personal Savior, absolutely without question- and He’s also the Transcendent Most High.

I seek the desert because it has grown too Loud for my soul and I long to murder the Noise; I desire not to escape but to find reality; to learn to practice silence not merely for a special worship service or a random quiet time, but to daily practice silence…

..Quiet and still the divided heart that has been ransomed at far too Great Price and listen for a Voice I could never hope to deserve yet still Speaks regardless.

“What wondrous Love is this, oh my soul– Oh, my soul.”

Contemplative worship… a pilgrimage: an earnest and desperate pursuit of a Great and Mighty Heart. God have mercy, Christ have mercy.

I cannot find rest until I’m barefoot on Holy Ground.

There is a very deep-rooted belief, encompassing many different cultures across the span of time, which warns of the soul being lost inside photographs. Many Native American tribes refused to be photographed because one’s reflection was actually his soul.

(Interesting tidbit, this has much to do with why mirrors were once covered after a person had died: so the soul wouldn’t be trapped in an “in-between” on earth but could find its way to the afterlife.)

Crazy Horse, even on his deathbed, adamantly denied his picture taken. Naturally, if one’s soul or reflection is captured in a photograph, then that part of his soul is trapped.

In a 4 X 6 mockery of life, the pure spirituality of the soul is compromised; a one-dimensional representation of color and movement holds captive the ethereal essence of the human body.

And thanks to the time in which we live, the plastic rectangle housing the smiles of my family and me is tacked to the bulletin board of the couple who work for New Tribes Mission and live in Brazil.

I wonder… could this be the reason for my spirit’s tremors? Pieces of my soul divided and spilt in classic horcrux form and scattered across miles and miles of earth and life. Is that framed me sitting on Sara’s computer in Mongolia screaming for release?

Is that surreal feeling I sometimes get just the me trying to see out of eyes of the sketch my brother illustrated? How carelessly I sent my image off to Scotland on that study abroad application where it will spend the rest of its physical days.

Very much in opposition to the colloquial sense, I am longing to go and “find myself.” How can I miss the Mediterranean breeze I’ve never felt on my face but courts my senses with such ardor?

A favorite movie quote of mine says “I want to know, not just believe, that the world is round.” My soul knows things I’ve never seen and I’m desperately trying to catch up with myself.

Hunting for pieces of my soul.

I’m homesick for my future… because I’ve already been there.

Perhaps that’s why I’m tired sometimes, feeling as though I’ve lived a lifetime—already grown old and yet stuck in a twenty-something’s body.

This wanderlust destroying me is the only thing holding me together.

Nostalgia, in vogue for the season, trussed out a favorite memory of mine the other day: the summer I started mowing lawns for my brother. We had moved from our favorite house (and the greatest five acres on God’s green earth, in my opinion) up to the “big city,” and that was the initial movement in my mind towards growing up. Lots of boring details later, I had secured a position in trimming the verge every Saturday. I remember that first glorious and liberating morning so vividly that I can still feel the heat on my skin.

This particular day was still and heavy, laying an oppressive thickness on the labors of the morning. With unsatisfying gulps of weighty air, I pushed the mower across the dry lawn, trying to avoid suffocation; palms protested against the metal bar, promising calluses and blisters later. But for all you could tell, I had just discovered Beulah Land .

I can recall stagnant silence of the morning, where the low buzzing of the lawn mower came in a muted tone. The world seemed too sweltering for sound to reach clarity; all noise was blended together in one pulsating drone. I found a rhythm and kept time around the yard’s perimeter, up the length and back down again, retracing my path with gradual inward turns, pleased with my newest source of independence. I know well the sensation of small clips of flying grass clinging insistently to my calves (and the sting when the occasional twig or pebble pelted a telling imprint on the flesh.)

These sights and sounds and smells crowding my recollection are familiar as old friends. The colors of the modest neighborhood homes, almost too bright in the harsh light of summer sun… standing in contrast to the browning grass … The dryness of my throat punctuated with the vibrations from the mower… those vibrations which throbbed up my arms and made my teeth rattle… An acute sense of pride in myself and hope for an older brother’s approval… A headache pricking about the crown of my head, never fully committing to fixed pain… Thoughts of running through the sprinkler and riding bikes to 7-11 for icees intoxicating my imagination… Mama’s sweet iced tea… I ask you, could there ever be a better feeling than when you earn a cool drink of iced tea after a grueling morning of sweat-drenched work?

I softy hummed a church hymn to myself; watched as a faintest breeze picked up the edges of the table cloth decorating a neighbor’s clothes line. I only had a few more revolutions around the shorn path before I would be done. I was hot, tired, and so prodigiously happy.

Imperceptible almost, I can see next the colors gradually grow dimmer- see low clouds assembling on the western horizon, draping a grayscale tint over me and my mower. I can hear thunder growling behind me and the colors around fading into a duller, hoary version of themselves. I feel my hands let off the machine but the buzzing still beats against my ears for a moment in the fresh silence. I find a sort of limbo between fragrance and noise. Impending Tempest.

The smell of rain and fresh-mown grass mixes a most refreshing cocktail.

I can perceive in clarity how the clatter of the wheels rolling over the parking lot gravel sliced through the hazy morning: everything was now clearer, sharper. Thunder was sneaking closer… And then, a fervent gust blew across my face, caught the sweat and cooled my blushing cheeks. All I could do was sigh and close my eyes against the scent of coming storm, Awake and Alive.

One small memory, arguably insignificant, drowning in a considerable reservoir of reminisces; but I’ve been reliving this one over and over as of late.  There is quite an extensive list of things to NOT miss about Oklahoma. But I’ve stumbled into things resurfacing in my heart which I had assumed were long deceased.

Fireflies, humidity, chain link fences, heat indexes, miles of nothing but grassy fields, peanuts in coke bottles, bubble gum, running barefoot and feeling earth beneath you, playing “war” after the sun went down, bottle glass gems glittering on the parking lot, mowing lawns, tornado sirens, jumping in the water, racing siblings everywhere you went, wildflowers, 50’s western music, weather vanes, Wonderbread sandwiches at Gran’s house, wind chimes, hammocks, fire ants, sandboxes, crickets in the house, losing power from yet another tornado, playing catch with Pop in the field of Blue Bonnets and Indian Blankets, hospitality, black and white movies, hand-me-downs, sitting in the pear and peach trees and having an afternoon snack, fishing from muddy banks with a big brother, chasing bees, playing “pioneer women” with sisters, pulling weeds in the garden, listening to stories of lineage, picking strawberries, sunburns, spiders, standing underneath a prairie sky and seeing that horizon stretch into forever…

Spare me a moment to grieve over a relinquished life.

Tomorrow, I will look again to the future with eyes bright in ambition and hope, dream at the places to behold and worlds to conquer… But tonight, I quietly remember where I first wrote my name in the dirt: that beautiful, terrible Prairie.

Gallantry didn’t die: we murdered it.

Has the church self-taught a rhetoric of the crowns of creation? A vocabulary of feminine idolatry? Where to be a godly young lady is to behave superior and demand a Dream when she herself has cultivated little to deserve said honor?

The church to blame?… Or is it just our own swollen idealizations of our “beauty…”

Ouch.

Today I listened, again, to another long-winded lament over the lack of godly men out there in the single’s pool.

Maybe the modest showing of godly ones is tacked onto the wrong gender.

Perhaps finding security and satisfaction in the true Source of Love gives us the eyes to behold all the admirable sons raised up by that Love– praiseworthy humans who fight and fail and triumph just as often as we do.

God doesn’t deal in double standards.

I challenge my sisters with facing a pretense which asks something we ourselves fail to live up to on a daily basis; to appreciate how hard they are trying and understand when they stumble like we are so prone to do.

It’s true, he no longer sits in the parlour on Wednesdays nights. But then again, she doesn’t quietly blush behind a hand-held fan, either. Those times are past.

“Courteous” and “Demure” wear different faces these days.

It’s unfair to live in this age whilst leaving one foot planted in Victorian projections of a righteous man.

It’s time to start using the eyes of our hearts and see what the Spirit sees.

We can romanticize a past cultural structure but it becomes erroneous when we no longer honor the men who deserve it– merely because our own individual romances are not what we fantasize them to be.

It becomes criminal when the misguided reveries extend to the fighters of the Kingdom of Heaven and deny tribute to their beautifully-flawed pursuit of God.

Champions don’t often wear sparkling capes.

It’s okay to acknowledge an earnest man of God without requiring or needing his affections. They do exist and they do need our prayers and encouragement.

I’ve made judgments before; I’ve been harsh and cold and unwilling to see. But the more I am shown of the wickedness within my own heart, the more I can respect the incredible strength our guys live out moment by moment.

“He who has been forgiven much, loves much.”

Let’s revive our understanding, appreciation (and maybe even deservedness) of true Chivalry.

Cheers, gentlemen.

Safekeeps my Life and hope in his multifaceted Face.

Cinnamon, breathing on the air, envelopes me

Tucking me in its comforting Fragrance.

The sturdy Trunk, blossoming handsomest Foliage,

Invites protection from foulest wood beasties.

Memories dipped in raspberries and saccharine Honey,

Hold my hand as I walk through gentle Meadow.

Wooden delights crafted by Noble Arbors

Are reminiscent of a Nazarene design.

For this Mount takes his cue from Heaven-

Stalwart Rock yields abundantly Fluid rivulets.

He crowns my head with marsh Marigolds

And clothes my heart with ancient Clover.

I am taught of a goodly Heritage by these hills;

Prodded to Affect by their feral Beauty.

I fear no distant Horizons, for the fierce Slope

Birthed tender Flowers and loved me well.

I will conquer lands afar and all the while

Sing of the Mountain to whom I belong.

But Morning Breath sanctifies foul pinions

Item Two: If you must insist on reoccurring, I would ask you avoid days I feel ill or am straining under a mountain of responsibilities.

Item Three: Tenacity doesn’t look well on you.

Item Four: I would love to negotiate a mutual parting of ways should you care to sit down and discuss the requisites for termination.

Item Five: Lastly, I grudgingly extend a “thank-you” for keeping my pride in check and elucidating the sizable chip my heart wears on its shoulder. A poignant revelation is never enjoyable in the moment but always beneficial regardless; thus, I concede some usefulness to your subsistence.

*Note: don’t let this admission inflate your sense of self-importance*

If you have questions or comments, please hesitate to contact me

When Gentle Wind seduces dancing Spark.

The Explosion, in all his angry violence,

Is birthed from gently urging Wind.

Oh Tempest, are you not called into being

By the breath of Soft Wind?

The thunder of Arabian Steed racing savage

Is in answer to the quiet call of Gentle Wind.

Innumerable Creatures give wing, abandoning known life

When Meek Wind blows her way.

The Mightiest of Hull and Stern is rendered powerless

When Good Wind withholds gentle Favor.

In an instant, the very face of Life may be

Altered by movement from Wind Sensitive.

Raw Power—Transformation—is bound deep

Within the heart of Gentle Wind.

Harsh valleys of blistering Dunes are conquered

When Still Wind sings her song.

Oceans of fragrant Color on yonder slope

Are enticed to flourish by Tender Wind.

Mountains shake and Seas tremble

At Smooth Wind’s faintest sigh.

In the wake of Storm’s carnage,

Quiet Wind whispers Life and Hope.

Gentle Wind ignites Nature’s Fury;

Yet, afterwards, destroys Destruction.

There is nothing more Fierce nor Beautiful

As mine Gentle Wind.