Up the Sunbeam

-- It's no secret around here that I love to take pictures, although you might not know it by the infrequency of my photo excursions since I started school. How I miss heading out with my camera to capture whatever my eye is falling in love with wherever I happen to be! The unique beauty in a moment can be what lyricist, Alan Jay Lerner once described as "a fleeting wisp of glory"  (1960)  (C.S. Lewis would have liked that line). It may not even last as long as it takes for the earth to turn one degree of its rotation--the light moves, shadows change, and everything is different in only minutes, even seconds. As amazing a gift as memory is, it walks a delicate dance of deciding what to remember and what to forget . The choices it makes about what it should and shouldn't retain don't always match my wishes . . . and so I take pictures. Without pictures to remember what something really looked like, we lose details, we remember only in pieces.       ...

-- "The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out. " John 1:5 PHI Caught and captivated by the spangled darkness of a starry and moonless night; the sky seems a limitless ink well, glossy and liquid and black and . . . somehow comforting in the quiet way of shadows. Just in case you wondered . . . just in case you thought so, the enemy does not own the dark! Sometimes, the  dark is just the best backdrop for light. Nowhere is beauty more stunning than in the vividness of contrast, and God is a Master of it! His Shekinah, His powerful, dwelling Presence, blazed glory-fire in a mighty pillar, lighting up the desert nights for His children.  It was not only to give help and comfort to them, but as a warning to anyone who might try to attack . . . My people are not alone in the dark! My people are protected! My people are MINE!! I. AM. HERE!!! God is not afraid of the dark!   "And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it...

 -- "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) "Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos." Madeleine L'Engle , Walking On Water   What does it mean to be Named?  Have you ever thought about what your Name is?  I don't necessarily mean the one your parents gave you, but the Name that is you? I've been thinking about it a lot. God loves names.  He has always set great importance on names, from teaching us how to revere His Name, to the curious way He has of changing a name to reflect His transformation of the person who wears it.  We are told that at the Name of Jesus Christ, one day, every knee will bow to His authority--that's a powerful Name!  God graciously reveals His personality and c...