And he burned the plowing equipment and then set off.

August 27, 2017

Peace be within your walls, and quietness within your towers. Psalm 122: 7

But most of us return to the garden by a more arduous route. In his poem Four quarters, T.S. Elliot called it the path of “observance, discipline, thought, and action. The hint half guessed, the gift half understood.” This ordinary path back to Paradise is the blood, guts and ecstasy of the whole biblical text: usually three steps forward and two steps backward, just like our lives. –Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

Sunday mornings are drop dead still in Italian vineyards.

Except for the distant church bells.

A call to worship.

Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives.

Today is the day that the Church honors the life of Augustine, one who left the craziness and listened in the stillness: Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence, Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it.

August 29, 2017

Me: I can’t believe after all these years I haven’t learned to pour coffee without spilling it.

Dustin: Slowly and with the lid off.

Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love,
    for I have put my trust in You.
Show me the way I should go,
    for to You I entrust my life. Psalm 143:8

Come ye needy, come, and welcome

God’s free bounty glorify;

True belief and true repentance,

Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,

Bruised and broken by the fall;

If you tarry ‘til you’re better,

You will not come at all.

Not the righteous, not the righteous,

Sinners Jesus came to call.

It is harvest season in Lugo, Italy. And what is striking is not so much to big beautiful multicolored grape orbs hanging down from every vine, but rather the vast flat fields of wheat and corn chaff left behind. And two days ago-ish we watched great big trucks chop it all down, every bit of it, and shoot it into other great big trucks, chopped to smithereens. Dry and worthless; so much energy and water invested for naught, except for perhaps cow bedding or mulch for garden beds.

I was talking to a friend who was reflecting on back on life thus far, and all of the big messy projects and shouting crowds and long complicated to do lists and seeming victories that swirled up into so much smoke.  And yet, where was the fruit in all of this?

Elijah came to this moment: he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life.”

And the angel of the Lord met him in a dream, and led him for forty days into the wilderness, far, far away from it all, all of the stuff.  

What are you doing here, Elijah?

I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty.

And the LORD God Almighty said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.

And The LORD God met him there. And He didn’t speak to him in the great, powerful wind that tore mountains apart and shattered the rocks, nor was He in the earthquake, nor was he in the roaring fire. But the LORD God came to him in a gentle whisper.

What are you doing here, Elijah?

I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty.

Lots of people have been, and are and will be very zealous for the LORD God Almighty.

And at the end of the season, the time of harvest they will stand in front of Him and say, “Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?

And He will tell them plainly, I never knew you.

All of this zealous busyness, the stuff, the lists, the stacks of dishes, the metaphorical whirlwinds and earthquakes and fires, where was He?

And at the end of the season, the time of harvest, the fruit will be gathered into the barns, and the tares sown by the enemy will be gathered up and burned. And all will be made clear.

And in response to this quiet whisper, I will choose to say, just as Elijah did, before he returned the way he came,

 “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life.”

And so I set off for Assisi and a quiet long walk in Stillness.