Being Human

This morning I read a beautiful post by the friend who inspired me to begin this blog, Terry Bernardini. I had just returned from picking blackberries and was contemplating Philippians 2 from The Message-  "Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of Himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of Himself that He had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, He set aside the privileges of Deity and took on the status of a slave, became human." 'Became human'. He became one of us and we are a fragile, odd lot. 'Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love...' wrote the hymnist Robert Robinson. We humans hurt and leave those we love, struggle with being content (it is a fine line between contentment and apathy), and, are easily offended. And yet, The King of Glory became a man. 

Terry reminded me that humans have fingertips, and this morning my fingertips are sore because blackberry bushes have thorns. But they are worth the pain.  

Here's a video my son, Sam, introduced me to; a group of humans who know how to use their fingertips.

Dash of Life

Elementary Rules of Usage

Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

On a gravestone,

there is a significant mark that is often missed- the dash between the date of birth and the date of death; an engraved summary of all that occurred between two moments in earth time.

Today I am living in the dash.

A dash is, of course, the stuff drawings are made of.

Artists call them lines.

Psalm 19 begins, 'The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line (sound, precision, musical string) has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun.'

The Hebrew word for line in this Psalm is kav. One Rabbi says of kav- "The precision of the universe is likened to a surveyor's tape stretched out to the ends of the earth. This means that the precision of the cosmos is evident all over the earth to any observer."

Maybe that is why John Muir said, "Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."

A language of line

The Letter

oh, the power in a line

to ascend and descend

arc and loop

open close

thin becoming thick

as thought begets

a river of black-

and there is Life