Tag: Eternity

Eternity is for Real

The bird was there waiting, asking to be noticed. I stood staring at him against that blue sky and early moon all stark naked Reminders that Life went beyond gravity!

Ramona was buried yesterday;

her husband and two sons stood tall by her grave: on Zoom it was surreal. A Mumbai cemetery rich with songs we sang as kids, about the Risen Savior, & oh where was death’s sting?! Ramona’s warm brown eyes and soft skin seemed closer, her easy laughter, subtle jewellry and gentle lip gloss mouthing words of love for Christ. We hadn’t met in years: but her passing brings me closer to the Reality of what the Cross does for us, 24x7xn! I’m feeling many Seasons in one, but especially Summer: warm like the embrace of the Father in a Time of fear, His Gospel of Peace.

Death is demanding.

It is not silent. It is an open conversation with what opposes Peace. It breaks us, it seals us to the ‘Unknown’. And we can turn our faces to all our walls all we want, but nothing buries Life. Love. Joy. The invisible presence of That. Of turning away from sin. Of repenting, and letting us be re- created in Christ. That Peace with God in Christ, is Peace.

🌾

One of the last times I met Ramona we were at a beach; it was dusk on a busy shore. I don’t remember that we spoke many words, but what she and I utterly had in common was Christ:

the Christ Who found us in different rooms, in different differences, bridging barriers, crashing statements, limits.

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How does one describe a place where Gravity does not exist, where Peace is no longer just a temporary Live-in partnership;

how do I bare my heart, except say it like it is:

^{The Cross doesn’t crucify me, it BARES MY SIN, THEN bears IT. The Cross shuts up satan: his War against our absolute eternal fulfillmenT}.

OUR PEACE! THIS IS THE GOSPEL OF PEACE.

^{The mark of Christ is nothing like the beasts’}:

Christ freeing you & me from short term satisfactions: Quick Fixes, begging for more. Not just blank-eyed druggies’, but Humanity altered by self abuse, by others’.

I was once confronted by a Nun(school principal) on why I followed Christ. You did not mess with Mother Grace, and as she looked in my face for a reply I said what had happened. “No one else came here looking for me…. “

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Eternity pursues me, there’s a Name on It. Christ’s. There’s a Heaven even among us when we reflect True Love. And there’s a Hell horrific and more as the ones we rehearse on earth: of the worship of cravings. Every Dance, is arms reaching for the Invisible Partnership we know deep within, exists.

*Deep inside we hunger for the One Who speaks in us ceaselessly: the dialect of a waiting Father.*

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When I was carrying our first child, this horrific incident with the vegetable cart man happened:

one morning he was in the ground under the row of eucalyptus trees, writhing like a snake, a death rattle sound in his throat, it filled the entire noon; the man’s white shirt and pants, always spotless but not on that day. My mother asked me not to look. An expectant mother best not see such things, she said. But this was Ramu our friendly veggie man. They were getting someone to exorcise him, and it took till past 4 pm; a week later I met Ramu, now he was half his size.

Evil itself reveals the very presence of God, not one appeased by sacrifices. He is Light (we are all yet to be able to even look at Its lesser form: the sun):

He Who is Love, of Peace, Joy: three things satan cannot stand, leave alone claiming our Place by the blood of Jesus Christ His Son. Try it.

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But Ugh:

the incredible Power of Doubt: it can derail us totally.

Why consume the deadly whispers of satan when we have Christ’s Words that can do ALL for us? If we only knew the extent of This here.

Eternity is Real, and I am encouraged today to make it a huge part of my daily schedule. Yea Ramona, death has no sting, the grave no victory.

Christ took that.

*Every flower is an Unburdening to the Light: every shadow clings to It. Every Leaf drinks Its Dew. We breathe to His Breath. Where does our breath go when spirit leaves?*

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With Him it is Eternal DaySpring.

FMF Writers: this went beyond 15! (‘Summer‘ and what the Word stoked). Thank you my fabulous creative friends.

It is time

To hold on to the good in us. To remember mercies and love. And faithfulness. It’s that time to practice peace. And pray like we believe prayer works. It does. Everytime we healed, someone prayed. Everytime our heart of stone melted, it was someone praying. Someone changing the stone of us into a pleasant pasture. What a tragedy that we believe drug- related elation, rather than what made us. It is time

***

..to rest, lean on the magnitude of true Love. I have lived a while now. I’ve seen good and bad and ugly. In you and me. I have eaten nice days that melted down to garbage. And I’ve been kissed by green pasture still waters, my soul has tasted of the Lords goodness and old fashioned as it may seem to someone’s intelligence, darling all our intellect cannot even begin to explain the goings on of mortal breath.

Yep. It’s time to pray. To know God is there here within the arms of our screaming need; Lord heal our lands, our diseased core. Why we fear death is because we know there is more beyond these days, & all our material ways. ‘Neath clothes and head and shoulders & knees & toes, we are creations made. We are more than bags of bones descended from ape and tapes of theories. We are more than doctrines and philosophies. In the core of your pillow you know, you know… in the stark of night, you look out your window asking the meaning of it all, and you know there is more. There is your beautiful mind and it will not die in a box. It leaves into territories we must seek now before late cannot get later.

It is time beloved, to not just pray for life but that also in death we will be safe. We are more than corpuscles and conditional peace. What are we, what is man, his woman, her child: do we know?

In the core of the night with stars, we wonder twinkling star shining bright, what you are…? Just dust. We are more. We write and deduce, we think and celebrate. We justify and keel. We are storms and wars, deciders of things we negate, but this:

a little piece of virus has us running like rabbits into our holes where we beg grace. Our theories and kings, all our horses and men, cannot put us together again.

In our distress we become murderers. Killers of decency. Not just now but thru’ history we read that when we are pushed beyond limits we are limited in our morality. Then we know there is good and bad. If there is good there is a Source. And it’s not us. There’s evil and there’s a source and its not us.

Something made a nice man a demon.

Something made a terrible man an angel.

Get a little closer, listen to my breath. Tell me the source of that and I’ll tell you the source of what draws humans together in the presence of a crisis. There is a Power wider than the girth of the earth spinning on an axis at her tummy. There are polarities geographically, spiritually. We have tasted the bitter dregs of evil and we have sniffed a sniff at some good. We have accepted the powers of Ugh but we are suspicious of God because He wouldn’t like us nestling with Him with all our horns and tails on.

We hate the idea of a Christ that upset the grave. “Bah humbug!”

We suspect His love that spurns evil. We would believe every other, not Him. Though we thoroughly blame Him for all the evil we invited in our living rooms. I’ve done it too.

But it’s time. Time to wipe our glasses and shed embarrassment at being created. The grave has no shame. That last word belongs only in this fleeting land of human existence.

What is man….

Last night as my eldest daughter Vi and I sat talking into the early hours of today, there was this sense of human fragility, of an earth spinning in space, of recent global panic & the puny state of everyday living as we know it.

This morning was woken with a strong sense of God’s love surrounding our home by the trees and little yellow and red bird couple flitting in and out balcony as Jeff sat close, his words and hands warm with Gods love. The landscape outside is sparkling washed after last nights rain and this mornings sun. Why is my heart all hushed, not in a bad way:

Oswald Chambers’ reads in his My Utmost For His Highest – ‘the despair of delight....’ what’s that. Takes a bit to process. (Whoops, it’s actually the Delight of despair😅)

Unsure what these are called,
but theyre least maintenance.
.

I can’t imagine that we’re all sitting pat on a molten core of flames thousands of miles beneath us; can’t imagine that we have gravity- and the moon hasn’t. Am gawking at the fantasticity of bird wings, of Nature and Chaos. Of Viral disaster and how it overturns every thing. Of the power of Change, of Newness in our Present. Of our very Ignorance mid Intellect. Of how little we know of Everything; so

must I go on today as if we all can do without God? D’you care. What are these Posts for, what’m I here for, who are we, are we ours? Have we lived as if we are gods? Are we God’s? After Dust, where will our Spirits home?

*Bamboo stalk ‘pot’ picked*
from pile @ Haven Fellowship
Cubbon park.
(Acres of bamboo growth
caught fire so they
felled it all.
We got a piece)
Its just grown
an unrelated sprig.
***

As Jeff held my face in his warm hands now I had a sense of his spirit reaching out to mine… an eternal warm spring. Not experienced that as strong as today. Have felt that over the years,

too: with the birth of our first daughter, and subsequent 2 adorable adoptions. There was that Presence & here today, mid heartache for our people, and the futility of watching thousands struggle through pandemic impact…

am sensing His Presence stronger than ever before deep in this valley of Shadows.

With Marija from Prague.

Kitsy our precious daughter at Cubbon that day with the rest of Haven Fellowship, ***but can you see the bent figure in white shirt in the background?*** This was on Feb16th 2020.
***

Armour of Light

..reaching, sifting, shredding all dark: surpassing everything we know, leading us to Secrets yet to show:

You my only eternal Friend, what else is there this wide, this deep, or high: than the endless life of Light?

Isolation Angels.

I can’t thank life enough for Fellow Angel Bloggers who’s incredible posts keep me believing that this is still the world we knew before ‘Rona virals!! Purple Ray’s ‘Isolation Angel’, + verse here simply had to be shared for its sweet sheer brilliant reminder that we are never alone. Thank you!

In the midst of your life:
the daily of it,
the ordinary of it,
the noontime and night of it,
let there be moments
that open to you
the hallowed and the holy of it….
and may there be an angel!

👆*Courtesy Purple Ray’s Blog*
***

too Dave of Phoblography below: Lens Genie whose work is as emotive as generous.

ISOLATION
https://thephoblography.blog/
***

Dave’s photography travels around the UK in places I may never physically see, nor do they reflect my Indian life. Though right now, they mirror our times. We are in transit, we tiptoe past each others’ posts and find our shadows in each others’ stunning walls.

CORRIDORS
About DAVE thephoblography.blog/
&
Audio Books
***

Some time this morning between fixing breakfast and wondering whether we must think of one meal/ day soon, if we can still find veggies, and if we still aren’t carriers/ consumers of this ugh viral, after which thought I took to blog surfing and came across Harris’ Quote (pl see below), all this after searching for ‘Corridor‘ quotes. Well, I’m all startled now, thinking on how humans ‘make up their minds‘;

the Globe stares with new eyes at empty toilet paper shelves in one nation; emptied street Fruit Vendor’s cart in another nation:

Writer of *Hannibal, Silence of the Lambs.*
…

as we all try to sit down and not think too much on Corona whatever. Morbid! And yet it’s not far away. It’s easily next door. It mayn’t happen to us, it might die away tomorrow, and yet death is not new news on the block. It’s been there since we all began and it’s no Respecter of physical status.

Harris says, ‘...we are not a culture that’s reflective. We do not raise our eyes to the hills…’

ah’m. Any help in a crisis, is welcome. Any comfort, anything that can take our minds off Covid spike charts, is welcome. If it is Singing hills, and Archangels declaring Peace on earth, I’m telling you Hannibal himself would tear his nails out in a hurry to get to nearest angel, now.

We’ve possibly never longed for our old normal like we do now. We’ d look to hills, any which way….lift our eyes, our reflective/ non reflective brows, we might stare at linoleum, at blatting television, but we are Reflective like never before.

And we aren’t willing to live in Transit lounge forever.

We’ve grown impatience from fore fathers who grew wings in their ears from just trying not be impatient. We as the human race can philosophize over Sanitisers without any of the rest of us objecting.

We call Death the Reaper, and Life…no bed of rose. Everything has a name: we are the Giver of Name and Emotion, & We are that IceAge -prehistoric (Squirrel?) just within reach of Its nice nut.

Yes, we stare at blatting Televisions, and want to lift our minds, ears, eyes, nose, heart, hands to that one thing that can be Touched…. Love, eternal, deathless.

As I wrap this, my Jeff makes us a warm drink. Our younger two are in bed. Subtle birthday lights from 3 days ago are still on. Out there it’s a Life glowering at statistics, facts & facilities, but here’s the thing. Death existed before Corona. And death is too quick an exit for our spiritual existence as a race that can think holes through the linoleum of the basement of hell. We are too blest, too endowed; too much trouble has been taken in just growing us all up to where we are today. We climbed Jack’s bean sprout, we killed our Goliaths, we cannot return to kindergarten shoes and cages…

‘Isolation‘ makes me gaze at all our reflections like never before. We do not like everything we all see, but we are learning to learn that there’s more to Us than all this, there’s more than survival and social distance.

When my Ma left this earth I was by her side and felt her pulse slip away, felt her presence next to me. I couldn’t even grieve in proper outrage for her, it was like she were standing right there but in another sphere. What oh death is your sting? Where your victory, if you cannot take my soul? We are soul, else we are in fantastic corridors between places we just happened to be at? We are each other’s angels at a time like this, and need the Gift of Life to never ever stop, no matter the way our heart shelves at the enormity of loss the coming months may harvest, I’m pledging my faith in a God who reaches for us in His own way, when we lift our eyes to the hills. …

At a very young age I was introduced to patterns of prayer, but it was later that God startled me in the weirdest places: places of disbelief and difficulty, sickness and doubt. Maybe if I’d never had that opportunity to meet my Creator, this Post would never have happened.

I’ve attached here a link to our 25 year old’s 21 day Reflection on the Person of God, not as a Genie giver of gifts, but as one who can be talked to unconditionally, if we would take a moment to listen to the Divine, quoting Purple Rays:

‘In the midst of your life:
the daily of it,
the ordinary of it,
the noontime and night of it,
let there be moments
that open to you
the hallowed and the holy of it….
and may there be an angel!‘

Stay precious, blest.

@raylarn

You are your own brand!

This Post is for anyone celebrating their birthday today, (and everyone else) I have this urge to celebrate you, and offer a tiny prayer too from my son who’s incredible gift is prayer. If you’ve been following posts you’ll know he’s not just blind but recovering from a series of disturbing issues, but this isn’t about him;

whichever part of the world you’re in: what a ride this is, and yet we are still the same people we were born as…

Was my birthday couple of days ago: “..no fuss,” I warned them, but there they were @ midnight, cake and candles, hushed whispers: in the morning among mysteriously bought gifts, was a Heart full of blue crystal stars from Kitsy, and Perfume from our eldest, my first name ‘Diella‘ hand- crafted in with scores of words like “Light”. (I got that name in a dream, after a long crazy illness. While I healed, there was a dream: it had my name written on a white stone. Diella means Worshipper);

mid- birthday joy, now there was announcement of national 21 day curfew; our entire street & surrounding areas went quiet, no bustle of traffic or twitter from Myna in trees running between our home and army acres across.

Within our walls, my family had strung out little lights, there was music and the smells of great cooking,

(I have officially surrendered cooking baton to second daughter Kitsy, who is master chef! (On left is how she used to be), now 👇….sigh, they grow so fast.

*Kitsy in our last visit out in a park…. why’d that seem so long ago?*
…

D’you sometimes feel guilty to feel happy? You know it’s a mess out here with virus and anxiety attacks, but now and then there’s a celebration,

so here’s the thing: we were going thru’ all our pics, and my Jeff he rounded off everyone’s words with, “Ray, you are … you are… unique….” ….words that make me stare at everyone else now…..

that, there is no one like you either!

No matter the news, nothing changes who you are, your essence is unique, novel! Yes they say ‘novel‘ for all kinds of things, but here we are, citizens and strangers and basic people born to mothers and families and lives that can change in the twinkling of an eye. We been warned of all that, but when it arrives it’s a thief in the night, it’s a touch between life and death…

We got two bone chilling letters from people we love, one from our precious nephew in a hospital in Germany, he’s a doctor; and the other from a very dear friend in the U.S. They wrote loving notes, asking family to pay attention to how deadly this Covid thing is, the pace at which it mutates, its silent stealth. These precious ones lives are at risk because of their professions: I can’t tell you enough what it felt like, to be gazing at/ celebrating life in all its hues: to hug across the miles, and cry tears of love and pain;

to know that we 7 billion are strong and yet we are this vulnerable. We are beloved and fragile, our life is like grass, and yet we are one-of-a- kind- each, Designer made, no matter that our breath can be whisked away; we are phenomenal, a Force to reckon with. The day we were born, people paused or clapped, kissed? …. wept.

We can die, and even that occasion is phenomenal. It causes chaos / maddening grief, because humans as a race cannot be ignored. If one of us is attacked in any unusual ordeal it is News. The entire planet of us under siege is another thing altogether, nothing competes with the vastness of that: the fact that we are under this kind of common indefinable, insurmountable distress is totally New.

If we survive this, and many will, there will be the aftermath of it and it may be unlike anything recorded in the history of mankind: I don’t want to go much there: this one is about birthdays and how it feels to celebrate humans, mid- international crisis; it feels strange and provocative -beautiful and Quiet.

This morning I woke up feeling different, younger and older, like I had more in my 206 bones. It’s an awareness… of what? The immortality of life, or its brevity? I’m staring at books we used to read, it’s like from another life: movies, talks. Some Quotes feel more right than before. Oh, bouquets and birds, they don’t change, they are like paintings and classical music; they have Eternity in them. But our conversation…. it is halved in a new way.

Birthday hugs: they are tighter.

Gazes and strummed guitar, candle lights and the clink of glasses… they say new things. I can’t say what, just new. And old. And somethings we never knew before. We thought we knew it all. Our parents and grandparents taught us how to say Grace and say please, thankyou and sorry. As we grew we thought we understood things a little more than yesterday. It felt sweet, sometimes sour.

Now, I don’t know… and that is a New Thing. It reminds me of how little we all truly know about each other as humans. You are a person with feelings and heart and we must care deeply for each others’ well being, must pray for one another’s lives/ souls…

this is more than birthdays: you can see this Post hovers around that word and how I want to wish you a beautiful life without sounding patronizing, even if it’s not birthday zone. Even if life’s not short and we’ll survive this and other wars.

Our daughter Vi does these Videos and I’d love for you to listen to this one. She’s a lot like me and feels deeply about things;

then our son walks in on her recording (he cannot bear closed doors), but the moment turns around, he prays and brings you right into our room facing palm trees on it’s right, with my large painting in the back drop. It is called DaySpring, and I wish you that Inner Spring of Light and Life.

Vi does her own take on Michael W. Smith’s Agnus Dei; we looked up those words and it means “Emblem: a Lamb bearing the Cross of Christ.”

All sounds so serious. D’you get the feeling life is way more than mortal detail? That there’s more besides thinking on Cures and everyday bread/ rice/ health… that oneday we might all be someplace else besides this planet?

And that we matter incredibly more than we suspect…