The great flood-gates of the wonder-world have swung open.

I will thank You, O LORD my God, with all my heart, and glorify Your Name for evermore. Psalm 86:12

And really this is the way to greet each day.

And the birds started singing while it was still dark not this morning, but the one before, because a big beautiful rainstorm dumped down on them.

He loads the thick cloud with moisture

   the clouds scatter his lightning.
They turn around and around by His guidance,
    to accomplish all that He commands them
    on the face of the habitable world.
Whether for correction or for His land
    or for love, he causes it to happen. Job 37

Rather than shake my lists at the LORD God.

Like Job.

When Job asks, “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” and compares it to Man searching out to the farthest limit the ore in gloom and deep darkness, I have a clear image in my mind, since I am showing Matteo’s video clip of ethical mining to the kiddos Monday to talk about how science can Make an Impact.

But at the end of it all, Job is still. He lays his hand on his mouth.

And listens to the voice of God out of the whirlwind.

And last night I picked up Moby Dick. The one iconic book that I have never been able to wade my way through but have always tossed away before I hit page 100.

I will never forget the steadfastness of Blair Wilcox. The seventh grade Blair Wilcox who followed my half-hearted recommendation as to what book he should read, and lugged that thing with him everywhere for the rest of the school year. And finished it.

Yet one more time yet another author, this time famous sociologist of declarative statements Harold Bloom, describes in this Week’s Best Books how he cannot think of any American fictive prose as memorable and transfixing in its profound yet tragic critique of Yahweh, source of the unwarranted suffering of Job. And I have been reading Job for two days, so I loaded the pdf up onto my phone and headed out to the backyard to camp under the stars. So that I could bask in His loving-kindness that is greater than the heavens, and His faithfulness that reaches to the clouds.

And old Ishmael shares my heart in that whenever he finds myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in his soul, he heads out to the wide open spaces and to the sea.

And yesterday my brother Scott wandered through stacks of bikes and he knelt down and examined the gears and shook the frame in his knowing grip and we picked out a little charcoal Schwinn Searcher for me to ride along the coasts of Italy and France and Spain and Portugal. Which is a lot of wide open spaces and lots of sea. And Brandon and I are planning to leave from Genoa, which is where Columbus left for the New World. In sixteen days.

And I read all the grammar school history of who has done battle with The Whale, the dread Leviathan. And there is nothing new under the sun. Man cannot face his woes. He cannot fill the hide of his Enemy with harpoons or his head with fishing spears. The hope of man is false. And Leviathan is king over all the sons of pride.

At last Job repented. He saw the LORD God.

And I repent. Again.

Resee.

He can do all things,
    and no purpose of His will be thwarted.

 And Luci Shaw has a poem from her reading of Job.

Steadfast Taper
Job 28:3

His candle shines upon my head.
He trims the wick and guards the flame
and though darkness creeps in close
the steadfast taper shines the same.

The flower of flame sways in the air.
Wind fingers snatch and try to snuff
the stalk his careful hands protect.
The light shines through.  It is enough.

His candle shines on me in love,
(protective circle in the gloom)
and through the dreadful night I know
that he is with me in the room.

Throughout the weary waiting time
the liquid flame shines thin and pure.
When tiredness dims my faith, I look
and see his light, and I am sure.

He is enough. His grace is sufficient for me.

His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

Inadequacy can enable us to live in contentment and quietness of spirit.

Selah.