At an event I attended in April, the Lord had asked me, how I felt, if it turned out that he had said something similar to the enemy about me, that he said about Job. What if I found out that the Lord said to Satan, have you seen my servant Tanya?

This past Sunday he woke me with instruction: he told me to read John 7 and 8. I noticed how the Scribes and Pharisees treated him. He reminded me of a church trial I had three years ago. My friends had been banned. I was not banned but a statement was read in the community recommending my friends and I were not to be trusted. I did not return. As the Lord brought this up, he asked me why I did not go back. I said that leaders instructing people not to trust me would prohibit me from community. He said oh. Then I got it. Scribes and Pharisees were telling people not to trust him. He still continued to go. I realized I had missed it. He said Man cannot legislate trust. I asked why I could not hear him during that season, instructing me to go. He said I could not have heard him, so he did not say it. I wept.

Then Wednesday, I woke up with such energy. The Lord had been missing the songs I sing while doing stuff around the house, and I sang and sang. Order was in place to get a bunch of stuff done. The flow was so life giving. The Lord knew I was seeing my counselor that day and he asked if I would be willing to look at a memory involving my Dad. For the friends that get confused and think he was the satanist, I call him my step dad. But he met my mom when I was six weeks, married her when I was four, adopted me when I was six and remained her husband till she passed last November. Yes he sexually abused me;-everyone did. But he did have remorse, and a lot of guilt. I remember when he stopped sleeping in the same room as my mom. He was devout catholic. I believe he had told a priest what he had done, and his penance was abstinence. Dad had been struggling physically for about six month (in California). At 96 the list of things gone wrong was big. Yes, Lord. I trust. My history with him in healing has restored that trust. Next I got the call. Dad had passed. All the local family had seen him yesterday. He waited until everyone was gone. And the Lord called him home.

I realized all the energy came because the burden was gone. I went out to check my garden. My cucumbers were great. My dad love cukes. My tomato plants were being destroyed by ladybugs. I sighed. And I heard my dad. Maybe next year, he said. Just like he was there, sharing my disappointment. That was a bit confusing. He did not seem like cloud of witnesses. He sounded like pre-eternal state. He seemed relieved to be out of his body. There was a lightness that told me his guilt no longer chained him. I was happy about that, and pondering why he was there. I asked who Jesus was to him. He responded with the truth that Jesus is the Son of God, come in the flesh. So I figured maybe the Lord was answering questions for him about me. My healing involved a decade away from the family.

Although reconciliation began five years ago, perhaps the Lord was catching him up on my life. I was a little miffed that there was no repentance, no apology, but. God is God. So, I planned my day. It seemed there was grace to do errands before my counselor. I went to the post office in Huntley. In our mail there was something from some nuns addressed to my husband’s dad, who passed away two years ago. I opened and tossed it. And heard my Dad say, see, Catholics are not all that bad. That comment sent me straight to the Lord. Does he Know, God? Does he know about the priests at St. Martins, and does he know about my path? The Lord’s response was -if I transition him without him knowing, if he does not need to know to be perfected, is that ok with you? At this point I am thinking it must be my week for hard sayings. And however the Lord transitions him is perfect and good. Settled.

My next stop was to go the half price book store. My freshman daughter needs a book. And I feel a nudge to go into the Christian book store next to it first. I have time. So I do. There is a way the God meets me as I view the art in that store. The verse brings the memory of him, and as my brain matches what my eye sees with how I remember God in that verse, the air around me opens up and he comes. I am viewing the art, and God comes. And I perceive that my dad, who is watching, is being introduced to facets of the Lord he had not known. With each progressive piece of art, he is beginning to weep. As he sees the Lord through my lens.

He starts saying things like I’m sorry. I didn’t know. And he is saying it to God. He is being humbled by the majesty. And I am standing there weeping. And the Lord says again, would you be willing to look at a memory involving him today, and I realize my Dad might be there for that, and I weep even more. And I ask, do I need to forgive him then? And the Lord says any one that you would allow to meet me through you, you have already forgiven. So this memory I get to go into knowing the forgiveness is done. How very strange. And I say ok. Because of who he is. And if he has decided this is good, my limited vision should not prohibit my alignment. Ok.

Sitting with Maggie shortly after, sharing how the morning had looked and what the Lord had asked,

Maggie asks if my Dad can see Jesus. Yes, they are both there. And Jesus is garbed as a catholic priest. Forgiving catholic priests has been part of my journey. 🙂 Knowing he is coming in the way my Dad can receive him, I marvel at my role in this. But then, Jesus stands up, goes to the back of the room, comes back and he has a book. And I know the book is a book of my life, things that happened and my heart’s movements. And I realize he is going to show my dad the book and I am horrified. I remember a time when I was eight or nine, and my dad tried to hug me. I pushed him away and refused. He was so upset with me. He complained to mom about it. He withheld affection from me for days. And I realized my concern was that if he saw it all he would look at me with pity and I would be ashamed. He would never look at me the same way because he would not be able to think that somehow I had done something wrong. The Lord addressed my reservations. The book was opened. My dad saw. He wept.

And he was aghast. His time here was over. He could no longer repent. There was no absolution available in his eyes. No reconciliation model back to God. I saw his horror. And the Lord spoke. He asked me how Jobs friends were reconciled. He asked me if I would pray.

I never realized what that process of praying for his friends was like for Job. Because to pray I had to recognize everything his behavior had cost me in my life. By choosing to not see, by being locked in his own sickness, every relationship I have ever had has been affected. I had to go through all the costs, and then pray for him. And then, just like that he was gone.

The session ended with me repenting to the Lord of the unbelief and doubt that had hindered me.  He did not ask me to pray a hail mary, but just sprinkled me with his blood and it was done. This past weekend my sister let me know that the priest from St Martins that was requested to do my Dad’s funeral was on sabbatical. So they are waiting, until Oct 1. My afternoon in San Diego, pre-arranged months before, will be at the Catholic Church where I went to school as a child. With a priest who likely knew me then. And my whole family is invited. I have to laugh at the ways of God.

Transitions from darkness to light are not easy. Some take longer than others. But as in the birthing process, if one can lean in and ride the waves of the change, one is better served than to try and fight against what becomes inevitable.

Change.

A sadder story comes from the year that our camp was kiddycorner with a camp called comfort and joy.

A guy visiting that camp climbed a ladder in their center. Everyone thought he was doing art up there. It wasn’t for a while that they realized he had hung himself. The rangers came. I think we all felt the sadness. The brush with an irretrievable decision.

Then, in the spirit, I felt him. The young man. He kept trying to bump himself back into his body. But his body had closed to him. In its ceasing, the hole he once fit through in life was closed to him now in death. He did not understand. He was not READY! He needed to get back in. He kept trying. I was distressed. I felt the nudge of God. He needed light. I entered his gray space enough to shout, ‘look for the light! Head for the light!’ He was confused. He turned dully towards me. My words did not make sense to him. What the f… for? To him light was unimportant. He wanted his body back. I tried more. As loudly and as long as I could, to impress upon him the importance of light. He had not cared for light in life. So it was also for him in death. In the end, I obeyed the prompt to take my drum to the dome and to play a funeral song for him there.

Looking back, I wonder. Was I the last contact he had with humanity? I hope not. It is entirely possible for someone to become tuned for eternity in those last moments. Witness a different transition from a similar life response to light.

She was in her eighties. Her life had lots of emptiness that had been filled with religion. Every day she went to mass. Until she couldn’t. Her marriage had left her childless but wealthy. She learned she could get away with being mean when you were rich. But you can’t stop disease no matter how many dollars you have. Parkinson’s worked its way into and through her. At the end she lived a miserable existence. Retreated. Pained. Unable to influence with gaze or speech her existence. Penance? Perhaps.

The last day, on my way to see her, I heard- what you agree with in life you will agree with in death. Oh no! The jeopardy of her soul was at hand. I entered her interior world. I saw Jesus there but he was super small compared to all else. Relying on the history I had built with previous visits and stories of heaven, I explained she needed to go closer to Jesus. Yes, he was small now, but as she got nearer he would get bigger. He was the way. She heard. I think she listened. And I think, I will see her in eternity.

To God belongs the sovereignty of all these things.

Which brings me, somehow, to the accident on roller coaster road.

My experience came before that knowledge. I was in my living room, on my couch when a young Middle Eastern man appeared before me and I clearly heard the Lord say, he needs to be saved. I explained to this young man the gospel. I explained how Jesus was the messiah. I explained how he took our place with his death, to reconcile us back to God. I explained how he was the Son of God, how he died and was resurrected, and how he can live in our hearts. They young man repented for his unbelief. He received Christ and became a believer.

Within two hours, I heard about the accident, which had happened the night before and claimed three lives- three young Middle Eastern men had died on roller coaster road. I knew the young man I had witnessed to in the spirit was one of these.

Was our experience before or after the crash that took his life? God alone knows such things. I can only report the small part I see and interpret through my flawed humanity.

I remember Reuben.

It was my first year as a part of the burning man team. I had been invited to go with a group that did readings, cleansing, interpretations, heart tranforms, etc. At first I thought it would not be fun. Creator did not listen but saw what was best for me, in his parenting way, he got me onboard.

When I was little, I was instructed by my family. In addition to being the keeper of secrets, I was to grow up, be a trainer of the way, then lay down my life so that my blood could further the line in power and anointing.

Yeah, it was a bad childhood.

There in the desert, I learned there was an altar at a structure they call the temple. The temple is where people go to leave what they can no longer carry. It burns at the end of the week. Cathartic, for a year. So when Creator said to me, I want you to go to the altar, and I want you to lie upon it, you can imagine my response. Initially, anyway. Creator fathered me through to more grace.

Wednesday of the week I woke up, knowing it was the day.

We worked in the tent until the sun finished. Then we were on our own. I took a buddy with me out to the deep playa where the temple stood. On our approach, I intuitively knew what to do at each boundary line. One was for lineage, if you do not know who you are there is permission for stuff once you cross the border that you may or may not like.

I know who I am. At least my spirit does and I noted how the recitation was in a different language.

The second perimeter line is the one where you state who you are with. If your leaders are recognized by the inner community there is an allowance for you to be there that does not exist if your group is unknown. More test is required with the latter.

There was the temple. And before it, the altar. The altar this year had stairs of ascension behind it. The area surrounding the altar had wood roundtables dedicated to faiths. I headed for the main event to get this act of lying upon the altar done. And stopped. I saw a man that I knew to be a Satanist. I do not know how I knew. But I knew, and he waited, sitting upon the altar. He saw me. I watched him listen to his guides as I frantically tried to connect with God’s Spirit.

‘I would be happy to do this Lord. Move him and I will go.’

Thinking I had prayed the right prayer, I moseyed over to examine the round wood tables more closely. My friend was busy looking at other things on the other side of the structure.

After a decent interval, with my friend still not visible, I headed back towards the altar. He was gone. I got closer. Oh no! He had climbed. He was sitting on the third step, the highest step on the ascension steps behind the altar.

Lord?

“I never do anything without a witness. Go quickly and do what you must do now.”

I felt his grace and power. I climbed awkwardly on top of the altar. Once there, I lay on my back. And the sobs began. And I realized I was there to repent, for the acts of atrocity. That I am so intimately familiar with, I cried out for mercy to those who sinned such.  The sobs wracked my body. What I uttered surely came from heaven and was expressed back to heaven through me.

And all the while, the man watched. As a witness.

The Lord spoke as the sobs lessened. When you were a child, you spoke as a child, you understood as a child, you thought as a child; compared to me, little one, Satanism is a childish thing.

What seemed like a long time passed. I got up. He was gone. And around the corner came my friend. I was done. We explored a little more, and then headed back to camp. I explained to a leader in brief words, what God had asked of me, and how I responded. It felt within protocol, but submitting to leaders is wise. He was fine with it.

I felt like the altar had been my divine appointment, the most important I would have that year.

But the next day in the tent, Reuben came.

Our leader had met Reuben in center camp. He was doing readings there. Our leader had invited him to come check us out. And he came. The leader came up to me as my team got ready for another encounter. He said, I got one for you, in my ear. He went back up to the front, got Reuben and brought him to sit with us. Reuben sat. I saw him peering into me. He was using his gift. He smiled and said, what do you have for me? I knew we were being tested. I looked beyond his eyes. I saw little lights with little question marks behind every one. I knew what I saw. The lights were the things he had explored. The question marks were the things that were unanswered by the exploration. I shared with him that I saw a big question in his center. I asked if I could invite White Light to come and answer that question. He said yes, and the fun began. The more he yielded the more he received from God. God came in power for Reuben.  He shaked, he shuddered, he quaked, he bent, he moaned. He cried. He gasped. He changed. The leader came over at one point to tell things unclean to go. He dodged as they left with violent force. It was a conversion as in the days of old. The power of God went as deep as Reuben wanted and he had wanted for so long. The moment came when Reuben needed better language, and our leader explained he was experiencing King Jesus. I remember as Reuben left that day, transformed, that he declared he was going to go to the temple and tell everyone what King Jesus had done for him! It was straight out of the book of Acts. The leader looked at me then, and said, this was why you got on the altar. And I knew. God’s ways, impossible to predict and as impossible to deny. Reuben spent a lot of that week with us.

If you are blessed, this book is dedicated to the One who is, who was, and who ever shall be.

If you are challenged it is dedicated to you.

And if you are offended let it be dedicated to my imperfection, in the knowledge that he who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it; I am yet seeing in a mirror dimly.

The end does not have to be the end. Let that truth perplex you.

There is a desire that exists within the one who created you for you to be loved, to love, and to experience eternity. The plan for this was put into place a long time ago.

There is nothing you have ever done or could ever do that would make you ineligible.   

Let me share a specific experience where I got to share God‟s heart about those he created (this includes you). 

The worship leader was singing a spontaneous song. “look upon the beautiful bloodstained face of Jesus” and as is often the case with me in worship, I had begun to see Him. I was getting ready to immerse in His beauty. It is one of my favorite contemplative places.

He had other plans.

I saw his hand. His hand had the hole where he was nailed to the cross. He superimposed his hand on my hand. I reminded him we were supposed to be looking at his face. He didn’t stop but rather impressed physical weight into this experience. The weight of his arm, of his hand upon mine, alerted me that this was something he really wanted me to note.

So I looked at his hand.

His hand upon mine.

Thoughts of suffering came. How hard it is. Yet necessary. I brought a current situation before him. I shared I could not see the redemption yet. It seemed like just pain. I mentioned I did not know how he was able to do it. To go to the cross. all the way. Stay forward. Endure. And remain whole. It seems impossible in this situation I was bringing. I asked for help. His answer was to show me another aspect of the cross.

He took me back to the garden. The love was so tangible. The peace that permeated the atmosphere surely led to good health. It was beautiful. And I sensed father there. It was like His heart supported all life that was there. And suddenly it was broken. A great wrenching opened a door. Yukky things came through. Things began to change. Deterioration, which had never been known, was now a factor in all life. In this experience what gripped me the most was the tremendous explosion of pain. It was Father’s heart. He was weeping. Such anguish I had never felt. Beyond the waves I have known, this pain seemed to have no crescendo, it kept expanding. Breathing was hard. My throat was so tight. The weight of the experience had tangible tension, I could feel heaven pressing me down. The tears began but there was no articulation that could capture the feelings. I was so overwhelmed. His heart hurt because relationship had been broken. For him it was always about family. It wasn’t that he didn’t know it was coming. it wasn’t that he didn’t know what was ahead. It was the great pain of choices being made that violated love. He knew those choices would lead to death. The closest imagery that comes to mind is if you had a son and you saw him in the moment he was committing suicide. And death was not even the hardest part. It was the separation. The break of the spiritual connection that had existed and made life love. Then he spoke.

‘Jesus was willing to identify with my heart there. Only Jesus could fully share that pain.’

And then I am in the place of revelation, and people are weeping because there was no one worthy to open the scroll. And I know, that Jesus’ willingness to share the Father’s heart over broken relationship, was part of what made him worthy to open the scroll.

I am struck with the understanding that all the tears of everyone everywhere, throughout all of the halls of time, would not be enough to share the pain of my Father, that day, in the garden. And Jesus not only identified, but he offered himself, to bring reconciliation to the creature that was too immature to understand, and to ease His Father’s heart.

The revelation still feels too big for me.

He  spoke again. ‘Until you identify with my heart, until you let it be your motivation, there is mixture in your agenda.’

I know the only way to identify with his heart is through his son.

I am broken.

The intensity has gripped me in a way I cannot word.

I had not known, or thought about, his sorrow.

What else can my response be?

Father, let my heart do nothing, without identifying with yours. Cleanse my agenda.

I only want to do what I see you doing. Let your love be my reason.

Teach me how to love.

Selah.

For a second, and a second more. The last days of life are so time conscious, if one is aware. The inexorable draw to another place becomes intertwined with the ticking of something known since conception- a timetable that corresponds to a divine alignment. The passing of one moment into the next is recognized, feared and embraced, not by choice but because of the grid on which we were placed. Time, time and a half, and time again. Mysteries that have defied humanity attempts to understand -unfold in ways that confound mathematics and science. The existence of space within time is a non linear grid. The suggestion of spaces within those spaces that fold and rearrange and open to other depths is not easily proven by the science understood in our age. Time factors into this along with gravity, and becomes an essence we temporarily term as reality. 

Time then. 

What do I know of it?

How does that knowledge define my understanding of the eternal.

Throughout my life, on an irregular basis, an older lady will approach me and speak the following- your times are his.

It always rings true, it is always when I need it, it is mostly when I doubt I am at the right moment or on the right track in life.

My times are his. To me, what that means is that if one were to take all the moments of me and number them, that their order, arrangement and sum would belong ultimately to the Lord. 

In my childhood there were many experiments.

One that comes to mind along this topic is the practice involving manipulating time. I, as a child, was held in a place with other little girls. It was sort of like a horizon of some sort. We could see thickish off-white lines that looked milky, and moved, like clouds and rivers, and there was the sense that there were worlds beneath what we could see. It was a darkened light environment. Our companions were spiritual beings who dwelled in a place other than earth. Indeed, if pressed, I would say this place existed outside of the earthly dimension I know as my daily reality. 

The lines were bloodlines of families.

These particular bloodlines were families that ad made covenants or pacts with spiritual beings for gain, power or protection. The pacts gave these beings the rights to perform these experiments. 

The place where we observed from was outside of time.

Sometimes individually and sometimes in groups, the other girls and I were inserted into a bloodline. Our instructions were issued in growls and mutterings- hate and destroy, kill if you can, divide, alarm, cause them to fear you, be unpredictable, we will deal with the rest. And in we would go.

In an odd way it was somewhat cathartic to be involved in such acts of negativity. I could find place for all the feeling that otherwise ad no fee room in my existence. Movement was key in this endeavor. To move violently and create lots of noise was proportionate to effectiveness. Sometimes we were invisible, sometimes we were visible. Sometimes we were there for a day, more often it was longer although when we were plucked out for return it seemed as though no time at all had passed. 

Those times when I observed the process, those times when it was not my assignment but I waited with the beings while others went, it was interesting what happened. 

The size and type of disturbance seemed to shift the very bloodline of the family. If it was a big event, such as a death, the line grew much wider and timing shifts occurred- like the difference between watching a river that had free flow and one that had various blocks and dams that flows in abrupt and jerky motion.

If it was division over a period of time, the observance of the line showed a lengthening, almost like anything attempted in that line would be twice as hard and take twice as long.

The beings would insert us, observe results, then remove us and debrief us on what happened. They learned as we became defiled. There seemed to be a certain limits on our use. I am not sure if that was imposed because of our humanity, our age, or our providers.

I learned to be unpredictable. I learned the value of surprise. I learned I did not have to stay within the confines of expectations. Indeed, the further I strayed from those the more power I had to influence. As I learned how important time was to those who had power over me, I became similarly aware that eternity is a fact that exists on God‟s side. 

Eternity is the answer to time‟s deficiency.

When the imperfections of an existence within time is fully understood, eternity is the alternate plan that turns out to be perfect in all the ways the original was not.

It turns out to be the plan that superseded because of a better model while at the same time it exists as an alternative when the old model has run its course and simultaneously it is the perfection that needed imperfection as its backdrop so it could be recognized. 

Time was created and for a time, it served.

It was a way to put a beginning and an end in the middle of a longer theme. It was for communication with each other, a frame of reference that when shared could increase the ideas we want to convey. It placed importance on order. It lent stability and continuity in the midst of pulses that are erratic and unpredictable.

And when the new has come, it has replaced the need for the old. The old is passing away even now. And all things are made beautiful, in their time. My time, your time, my dog‟s time, all are different yet converging. Convergence is the step towards the emergence of a new thing. Time facilitates us learning to recognize the ways of God.

There is a more, there is a hereafter, and it is a superior model. At the same time, it currently exists. When the creator formed us in his image, there was a portion of himself imprinted onto each of us. And while the imprints are different, yet they are all the same, in that they draw us towards ideas larger than ourselves. This imprint allows us to consider with recognition that hereafter, in fact, exists now, and always has. Eternity has been placed in our hearts. We each have a sense of knowing things extend beyond our lives. Sometimes we get a sense that influence or impact is larger than the conceived, recognized moment. This awareness has made the study of history legitimate. It comforts humanity to study the known. It offers stability to encourage the unknown. But eternity is not something that can be studied according to the grid of knowledge we possess. And so it is dismissed. If it is not understandable to the human mind, surely it cannot matter? Oh, the arrogance of our hearts!

Eternity is what takes the fail of human life and coverts it into success. Eternity allows the perspective of justice as a real factor in our equation. It is what balances the unequal and keeps the positive in its proper order as ahead of the negative. It is the part of the existence continuum where values of events and imperfections change. Eternity makes the room for evil to defer to good. It lays the foundation for faith hope and love to remain. Eternity is the provision for my gaze to transcend me beyond where I am to a better place. It is both a place and a way. It is a subject and a description.

Eternity brings perspective into alignment.

The knowledge of it inspires the human soul and spirit. The taste of it creates divine hunger for more. The smell of it encourages choice that matches alignment within it. The sound of it resonates to a time before time that we all intuitively know and language fails in catching. The sight of it grips the heart and imprints it in a way that is never forgotten. 

Eternity was before, it is all around us, it sometimes collides with time and topples understanding, and it exists beyond. It surrounds God and is something that was issued because of his identity. Through him all things were created, and without him there is not anything that does exist. A heart cannot beat without a framework around it. Eternity completes the cycle of continuity that removes God‟s need for a beginning and an end. He is both and still more. 

You have probably touched eternity at some point in your life and felt the difference between your ordinary understanding of existence and the surprising other-worldliness that comes when the two, time and eternity, collide. 

The first heart connection with your child. A certain intimate moment with your spouse that transcends both emotion and physical fulfillment and imprints you into each other for mutual sustenance and growth. The passing of a loved one. Baptism, sometimes. A car wreck, where everything seems to slowly unfold before you. A moment when you are uncertain your life existence will go into the next moment of finite time. It is almost as if time is suspended while eternity intervenes and intertwines into the event. 

Eternity is a truth that creates a concept for all who exist with spirit. It makes provision for a „beyond‟ existence. 

You have something eternal written into your DNA. 

You will experience eternity.

The choice is yours on what that eternity looks like. 

Evolving. De-evolving.

An ever expanding increase of positive beyond what you can think ask or imagine.

Or a merciful unraveling of what constitutes you in a context of bad beyond what you can think ask or imagine. 

These are the two I have seen. 

My spirit rests. Today my spirit finds that place, outside of time and space, that was especially designed for me, so I can rest.

People say they experience better rest around me.

People come to me in crisis so I can help restore them to their own rest.

Lets see if I can define that rest with words

Picture a mountain

Green grass on the valley area below.

Chaparral and brush growing as ground cover on the ascent.

Trees.

A trail not too well worn.

Water running down in a little gully from yesterdays rain.

Birds singing overhead.

An eagle flying high on the breeze if you look up.

A rock, jutting out of the side, just enough to be a ledge for someone seeking a momentary pause, but not enough to cause fear of its falling.

The air, open with a light breeze. The temperature between the 60s and 70s, the places where the sunlight reaches just a few degrees warmer than that.

The clouds, high and puffy, moving slowly through the sky, forming pictures and ideas on the way.

The rodents in the brush, making sounds of scurrying life. An ant, walking across the trail, in front of you, pausing to investigate a possible source of food.

Life all around you.

Consciousness descending of communion within diversity. Of all sorts of different life converging in a moment of connection and appreciation.

There is a song in that moment.

Not a human made melody, but a combination of notes and pauses and diverse instruments of footsteps and whispering brush creating a symphony, an orchestra.

A superior song, for those having ears to hear.

Transcending the physical sensations and the souls knowledge, not to escape thm but o embrace them in their place with the other life noises, the spirit recognizing th convergence and the strength that comes from things working together while apart. This defines one  moment of rest for me.

Picture the ocean.

Your favorite shoreline

The waves, changing, never changing, scurrying forward and hustling back, the rise and fall of kings in their tides, the stories of the ages between their pages, jostling, changing, rearranging, discontinuing and continuing all in the same breath.

The smells, the sand, the air, the light. The fragrance of seaweed, and oils, and birds. The rich texture of fragrance permeating the air and making it thicker, more established in memory.

The sounds joining in the smells. The whoosh and the withdraw of the water, and the birds, making seagull noises overhead. The wind rustling the sand. The voices of humanity upon the shore to explore it. 

All the current combined with the history. And it becomes and is becoming a memory of the richest sense, so invading cellular structure that it remains as memory when the elements are long gone. Peace for me here as well.

Imagine a song.

Each note divinely inspired and played with no agenda other than to add beauty to the whole.

The hearts and rhythms within the melody have their own song. The blood flowing through the bodies, the air ebbing and flowing in and out with the most accurate tempo, the rise and fall within the chest as transcendent experience is touched and receded The overall expression becoming more than the sum of the parts, and the joy of each experiencing a wholeness, a totality that authenticates knowledge of God. Peace is here

My daughter. Her joy, her desire to share that joy with another human being, her intuitive understanding that the joy will be more complete for its share. Her way of connecting, her leaning in. the physical, and the non physical, the moment of touch in the spirit that brings rest to us both because of its familiarity and because each time we both choose it we build something together that makes life easier Peace and rest.

Everyone has their areas.

It is that place you desire to occupy more. It is the place that, you know if you could remain in touch with it all the time, you would respond better to life in its difficult moment. 

It is that part of us which was designed in the image of God. It finds rest, as he did, in goodness and creation. It is an important component in brain development, to experience and grow habitual in experiencing joy and rest. It is a natural and necessary state which allows us to explore gradual growth.

Without rest there is an erosion of who we were intended to be. The creation of the universe, both its order and its elements, speaks to us of rest being an integral part of the ebb and flow cycle of life. 

In hell rest seemed to feel different. Like, things were bad ad bad and then there was a moment where the realization of how bad it was began to sink in. Just as that process began to increase (for realization and acknowledgement always empower) the level would dip down again and it would get worse. Rest, and yet un rest.

This has been a hard subject to write. I have spent much of my life trying to keep repressed these ideas and experiences. Today I am more at terms with the idea that if I had not experienced such unrest, there would probably not be such a zealous pursuit in me to find rest. 

Peace and rest are largely interchangeable in my internal definitions. In rest I find peace. In peace I am at rest. But for me rest is not dependent upon the externals. Otherwise I would be a victim, responding to life and its uncertainty and being a person who only reacted to things. The growth of peace, the cultivation of it inside me, has allowed a development that manifests as my internal peace giving me a different perspective on external things. When the inside of me is solid, assured, and at rest, I am not threatened by externals that have potential to change things beyond my control. The internal is established. It will remain and I grow stronger through trials. I don’t like trials, but I have developed a healthy respect for their necessity in my growth. That kind of peace fosters physical health. It reminds my soul to not entertain or enlarge or succumb to worry. It enable me to let go of things easier. It opens the doors of revelation so I can hear more clearly. It invites and embraces wisdom that has eternal value, and it postures me to receive perfect love in the midst of imperfect situations. 

Peace is not something I would have appreciation for had I not experienced the intolerable no-peace plateaus of existence within wicked domain. 

I used to become physically ill when I was within 20 feet of someone who had spiritual authority. I became sexually aroused when I was near someone who exerted a lot of spiritual energy. I worried about who cut my har. When I cut my findernails they had to be done in a certain order and trashed in a certain way. Phones and doorbells would tap into an internal panic that never quite rested. There was no way to enjoy a moment singularly for its own sake. There were attachments to everything, and in my mind I thought I was responsible for keeping track of all that.

I did well for a while

Peace means I don’t have to keep track

Peace means I have trust in a higher power that is invested in me with the agenda that involves my good.

Peace means that I know perfect love, it is on my side, and it wins whether or not I can yet see that ending.

I would not trade the peace I have today….for all the tea in china. 

There are ways to cultivate peace. One is by going into a contemplative state. Meditating on an attribute of God or on his divine nature until our focus of that supersedes the life of the soul. 

In hell you cannot do that anymore. Knowledge of the holy has been dimmed. It is the mercy of God for it to be so- lest you be even more condemned for knowing and not responding rightly. 

The lack of peace progresses to more absence which digresses into the unraveling of the very DNA with which you were formed. You unbecome. Peace is not an attribute, an option, nor a luxury that is available. If you are going there, you should enjoy peace now, while you can. It is something that is missed when it is gone.