Nightmarish

Just a random question...
Have you all had those dreams where a car alarm or a clock alarm or some sort of alarm is going off and it's extremely annoying and it's gets more and more annoying every minute, so you try to turn it off, you press all the buttons in different orders, and finally you punch them in the order you're sure will turn it off and it STILL WON'T GO OFF! And then at the pinnacle of frustration you wake up and your alarm clock is beeping away obsessive-compulsively. I don't like those dreams. :P

I used to have one of those old fashioned alarm clocks with the bells and the first morning I used it I heard Chloe wake up in her room and shout "OH NO!"

Ephesians 3:16-20

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine . . ."

Not only is Jesus sufficient for us, he is abundant. "My cup runneth over."

I saw the movie Bella today. Very good. Sad.

From Psalm 104

"He wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters."

"But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight . . .
You set a boundary they cannot cross."

"The trees of the Lord are well-watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the pine trees.
The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the coneys."

"The sun knows when to go down."

"You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God."

"There is the sea . . .
There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there."

"These all look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth."

May the glory of the Lord endure forever . . ."


I'm doing a paper on Deism for my US History class, and this is a beautiful rebuke of subtle Deism, that says God wound up the world and let it go. But God sustains the world. I love that the LEVIATHAN frolics, and there are coneys! I had this great book about coneys when I was little, has anyone ever read it? They're little rabbity things who live in coneyland, and they discover that what they thought was a tree in their park is actually a giant carrot. Needless to say, they're thrilled.

The River

" 'Have you ever been baptized?' the preacher asked.
'What's that?' he murmured.
'If I baptize you,' the preacher said, 'you'll be able to go to the Kingdom of Christ. You'll be washed in the river of suffering, son, and you'll go by the deep river of life. Do you want that?'
'Yes,' the child said, and thought, I won't go back to the apartment then, I'll go under the river.
'You won't be the same again,' the preacher said, 'You'll count.' . . .
[H]e tightened his hold and swung him upside down and plunged his head into the water. He held him under while he said the words of Baptism and then he jerked him up again and looked sternly at the gaping child. Bevel's eyes were dark and dilated. 'You count now,' the preacher said. 'You didn't even count before.' "

From Flannery O' Connor's story The River. I don't want to give the end away, but the story is about a neglected little boy who learns to hunger for the Kingdom of Christ, which he associates with the river. Its highly disturbing and its all about meeting grace. I especially love this section where he gets baptized...You count now...