"The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel -
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."

- John Updike, September

pictures in the sky

(another classic from the pen of rich mullins...)

There are those skies - skies stretched so tight you just know they're about to pop - skies in whose seamless blue reaches down to you like sails full of wind, sails moving ships like these skies move you, like these skies move oceans, worlds, time ... skies stretched tight like balloons at birthday parties, full of breath, light like helium, so light you have to tie them down.

There are skies like that. Skies so light they look like they could easily be lifted away, so light they seem almost to lift you, to suck you out of the grip of gravity.

But it is the sun they lift, these skies - skies into whose perfectly arched and balanced heads any sun would rise and find room therein to shine. These skies stay poised, enormously gentle, like giants across whom children and crawl and play - giants who are strong enough to feel the touch of these little ones and not move one muscle to risk unbalancing or frightening them.

There are skies like that. You have to look up to see them. You cannot find them beneath you or within you. They are "out" there...they are "up" there.

There are these skies.

Skies stretched so tight you just know you're about to pop standing beneath them. Your lungs may burst from breathing their sizable air - air from their cool heights so tall they scrape the footings of heaven - skies so pure and strong that God built His New Jerusalem on their back. And they reach up toward that Holy City like Romeo scaling the forbidden wall beneath Juliet - skies that go endlessly, nearly forever with the beauty of her face, the quiet, unshaken gaze of her eyes, skies alive with all the virility and tenderness of young love - skies as ancient as time, as innocent as babies held in the Hands of Eternity.

And I was trying to think of how I could encourage you - of what I could say to spur you on, just trying to come up with something. And then I was overcome.

And you might say, "but it's just a sky" - but you could say that only if you'd never seen it. And you might say, "Oh, the sky is just a metaphor and he's really overcome by something spiritual, like, say, the love of God." But if the sky is only a metaphor, it is God's metaphor, and if you'd look up - if you'd just look up...well, I haven't the words, but...

There are those skies - skies stretched so tight you just know they're about to pop...

(Rich Mullins, Release Magazine, 1995)

some things just go together

It's a simple fact of life that some things just plain go together. Things like salt and pepper, bread and butter, bees and honey, love and marriage, husband and wife.  Things like milk and cookies, bacon and eggs, soup and crackers, burgers and fries, and of course, peanut butter and jelly.

Some things just go together. And this is not just limited to earthly things -
there are things like that in our spiritual lives as well.

Things like saints and sinners, water and word, bread and wine, body and blood, word and sacrament.
People in the Bible like Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale, Peter and Paul, James and John, Mary and Martha.

There are some people and things that were just meant to go together. Even things previously far apart.
For although we were once separated from God by sin and death, because of the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, now even God and Man go well together.

car heaven

what the bible is really about

a view from above

This photo taken by the Nasa Messenger deep space probe shows an image of the earth and moon from a distance of 114 million miles away. For some reason Psalm 8 comes to mind....

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise, 
because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

this week's sign of the apocalypse....

...which also doubles as the stupid quote of the day -

"The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship."- President Ahmadinajad