I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged

It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to your Name, O Most High; To tell of your loving-kindness early in the morning and of your faithfulness in the night season. Psalm 92:1-2

He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for His Name’s sake. Psalm 23:3

I sure as heck have no idea what lies ahead.

But I have a heart full of images of Jesus breaking the bread and lifting His eyes to heaven and giving thanks before He offers it up to His followers. Before the miracle of provision.

And sometimes the night seasons are long. And last night I sat outside and let bits of an almost rainstorm splatter me as I read Dickens A Tale of Two Cities: Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.

And I am not sure why I went further into the melancholic mood first established with Saturday’s Les Miz, because of course Dickens builds upon it, brick by brick, with the sorrows of mankind. But there is light gleaming his each of his carefully hefted words, just as hope echoes in the wordless tunes of dreaming of dreams that now form the soundtrack against the stillness.

And there is great mercy found in the Dickens’ cry for justice: A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

Every human creature. And Our Shepherd knows each our names and sees the secret longing of our hearts. For we are Your people and the sheep of Your pasture.

And in this let me give praise for Your lovingkindness in the morning. For in Thee do I trust.

For we are your people and the sheep of your pasture; we will give you thanks for ever and show forth your praise from age to age.

Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee.

Deliver me; Teach me to do Thy will. Quicken me, Oh LORD. I lift up my soul unto Thee.

And even if I do not know for what I ask, Your Spirit within me does. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.

Almighty God, give me grace that I may always most thankfully receive.

The world I have known is lost in shadow

I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for Him; in His word is my hope. Psalm 130:4

Jesus taught us, saying: ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. Is there anyone among you who would hand his son a stone when he asked for bread? Or would hand him a snake when he asked for fish? If you, then, evil as you are, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!’ Matthew 7:7–11

I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for Him; in His word is my hope. Psalm 130:4

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? and why are you so disquieted within me? Put your trust in God; for I will yet give thanks to Him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God. Psalm 43:6

Every part of me wanted to weep throughout the whole of Les Misérables last night. And it was not so much that the Tucson community presentation at the Arizona School of the Deaf and Blind was so brilliant or gripping. But the story is, such is the lot of mankind. The injustice. The heartbreak. The isolation created by the lies each of us believes. We are the miserable. The miserable masses doing our time, breaking the rock set before us.

And yet there was one steady shining light. A quiet light, gently going about his own business. His business of extending the grace of God to an aching world. Undeserved. But offered because He calls all men unto Himself.

For this He came into the world, to not only save us from each other, but from ourselves.

And He gives freely to each who asks. Not because we are good. But because He is good and we are His children.

And a thundering rain greeting me this morning before morning began to streak the skies, lightening bolts blasted across the skies. And it rains on both the just and the unjust because He is our merciful God. A merciful God who beckoned even Javert, the self-righteous accuser to come unto Him, and I will give you rest. But he could not release his self because he was deaf and blind.

Dear Father Who Is in Heaven, I am asking.

And yet another double rainbow arched over the Benedictine Sanctuary as I climbed the stairs.

Dear Father Who is in Heaven, what am I asking?

For whoever finds me finds life

The Lord formed and brought Wisdom forth at the beginning of His way,

before His acts of old. 

I, Wisdom, was inaugurated and ordained from everlasting,

from the beginning, before ever the earth existed.

When there were no deeps, I was brought forth,

when there were no fountains laden with water.

Before the mountains were settled,

before the hills, I was brought forth,

While as yet He had not made the land or the fields

or the first of the dust of the earth.

When He prepared the heavens, I was there;

when He drew a circle upon the face of the deep 

and stretched out the firmament over it,

When He made firm the skies above,

when He established the fountains of the deep,

When He gave to the sea its limit and His decree

that the waters should not transgress across the boundaries set by His command,

when He appointed the foundations of the earth—

Then I was beside Him as a master and director of the work;

and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, Proverbs 8

So I just got a note from Wali who made it to Dulles this morning after his Tucson plane broke down last night and John had to drive him up to Phoenix lickity-split last night because there are a lot of complicated connections between here and Al-Qamishli, Kurdistan via Abu Dhabi, and Wali is a little nervous because he hasn’t been back in seven or eight years since he was fifteen and since he was granted political asylum because he might get shot when he steps foot in his old village. Which reminds me of when Dustin and I sat there through his first hearing down at the courthouse and listened agape as his pro bono lawyer earned every penny Wali didn’t pay her and he almost got sent back then and there.  And I just wrote a good-bye to Yu Cheng Bai as he takes off to China but he is going to send me the science fiction story he is writing to enjoy and edit and I chatted with Nicole finishing the last of her edits in Marmaris, Turkey, at the Global Sailing Academy, and Lily, my new kindred spirit, Jin Cheng’s sister in Australia, asked another question about his senior expo project, and Jin Cheng is a little scared because he is facing yet another Chandler biology final exam and the last one didn’t go so well, and John is a little scared too and he isn’t scared of anything but has scrambled down all of the abandoned Titan Missile shafts around Tucson but now he is walking out the door to go deep water soloing in Winslow, Arizona and who knew?

He knew.

And things are a little busy tired crazy around here. And I am too exhausted to eat anything besides cold oatmeal two or three or I forgot how many times a day even when Alan makes his stirfry specialty and am looking forward to a twenty-seven hour flight to Istanbul so I can sleep the whole way.

And as I splashed across the pool this morning in my lane with a German salesman and an Eastern European professor and a perky medical student and a gracious organic baker, I though about this knowingness. Wisdom, which was inaugurated and ordained from everlasting is mine for the asking.

And my prayer for the Penazzi brothers on Mondays is the Ask and Ye Shall Receive promise.  And it is my prayer for today.

Dear Lord God of the fountains of laden water and the settled mountains and You who drew  a circle on the face of the deep, Dear Lord God, I am asking for wisdom. You who have promised to give freely and without reproach.

Because You know.

And before I pop out the door I have to remember to print up Elizabeth’s Works Cited page because she just sent it to me and her only printer is at her dad’s work.

You know.

Sifting through empty pods

opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

Today, I am praying for those askers, for those knockers, and for those seekers.  Lifting them up to the LORD and asking How Long? And while they wait, Dear Father in Heaven Who Would Not Give His Child a Stone, please comfort their hearts and fill up their bellies.  Because our flesh is so very bound up in time, and I am one of these.  

And dear Poppa, for the others, those who are not asking, those who are not knocking, those who are not seeking, I lift them up to the LORD and ask How Long? Those of us careening through life, squandered our property in reckless living, I ask for mercy. And yes, so very often the most merciful gift is that of point of pain, the pause of feeding the pigs, longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.  

I will never forget little seventh-grade Ben Winslow’s joyful gallivanting when he wrapped his brain around the Lewis observation: God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Dear Father in Heaven Goes After the One That is Lost, I trust You to seek until You find, because it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Because our flesh is so very bound up in time, and I am one of these. 

The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The word translated as 'repentance' is the Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia), "after/behind one's mind,” which is a compound word of the preposition 'meta' (after, with), and the verb 'noeo' (to perceive, to think, the result of perceiving or observing). In this compound word the preposition combines the two meanings of time and change, which may be denoted by 'after' and 'different'; so that the whole compound means: to think differently after. Metanoia is therefore primarily an afterthought, different from the former thought; a change of mind accompanied by change of conduct, "change of mind and heart,” or, "change of consciousness.”

Dear LORD, Today may I ask, may I knock, may I seek. Your Spirit at work in me, lead me to repentance, Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul until Thee.