"God's mercies are new every morning and His compassions fail not!"

Solitude is the furnace of authentic formation of the soul and sense of being; solitude with ourselves and God's loving and living Presence takes us to a place of transformation of true vision for what life is meant to be, rather than having that dictated to us by the society around us - a wandering and rootless society, not centered in authentic self-knowledge and a personal connection with and knowledge of the love and Truth of God our Maker and Savior and which shapes a very shallow vision of what can be. The inner journey into our true selves found in communion with our Friend and Rescuer, Jesus of Nazareth - the Eternal Word and Son of our Creator Father - releases us from the false self the world has told us we are. We are listening to the wrong voices! That's why solitude is so vital; so we can hear "the sounds of Silence" and allow the One who is Love and Truth to show us, speak to us, and heal us so that the true self, we've been created to be and to become can begin to emerge and come out into the light of Day.

This true self, this new self, serves as a compass for our living in the midst of a wondering, wandering, aimless generation whose only reality is material, but whose hearts long in the silent moments for something More; something deeper, more satisfying, more substantial and more lasting. It takes courage to journey into solitude and meet with God face to face and heart to heart; to face the fears, the pains, the uncertainties that we so desperately try to avoid and deny and drown out with busyness, constant activity, noise and other forms of medication. Gather your courage, call out to the One who loves you and made you for a larger Life and ask Him to meet you in the silence and talk to you about the Larger Story your life is meant to inhabit and live in; where you find out who you really are and who He really is. Listen! He's calling......

Ponderings At The Back of the Wardrobe

Mystery is not something we conquer, but something we embrace and enter into; and, in the process, we are enriched, humbled, and transformed.  So often in western "civilization" we try to conquer the mysteries of life, a poor and wearied approach that modernity has tried and found wanting.  Many branches of science are beginning to acknowledge with every new probing discovery the wonder, awe and mystery of life.  "Exact science" is beginning to discover its hubris and the folly of empirical rationalism that would seek to reduce the mysteries of life to controllable equations.

The human mind and reason functioning from a perception of its ability to conquer and control always, inevitably, finds itself on the cusp of the chasm of the "deep magic", as C. S. Lewis describes the nature of creation permeated by the life-giving and life-sustaining power and active Presence of its Creator.  The greatest mystery, that of a loving and personal, yet transcendent Creator - God in Three Persons, as one great hymn puts it - beckons and invites all His creatures back into the embrace of His unfathomable and unfailing love in order that we might have the joy of sharing again in the dance of the divine mystery that gives meaning and purpose to every aspect of life.  And, that great Mystery of Love permeates the everydayness of our lives in a manner that has the power to transform the commonness of our daily struggles, questions and uncertainties into discovery, encounter and awakening and to alter our perceptions of what is real and lasting and that can only, finally, be described as wonder and mystery.

Somehow, it seems imperative to take searching steps of faith toward the back of the wardrobe with a trembling hope that as we reach out in the dark there awaits us the joyful discovery that the Great Mystery we have so often feared, ignored or raged against is waiting to free us to enter into and experience the profound realization that there are other "lands", other "dimensions", other "vistas" available to us. He has prepared for us, as the Holy Scriptures describe it, "that which no eye has seen, no ear has heard and has not entered into the heart of man" as we learn to trust and embrace - the Mystery.

Jesus Our Way Bread

1 Kgs 19:4-8

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
“This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
 he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

Jn 6:41-51 

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said,
“I am the bread that came down from heaven,”
and they said,
“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?
Do we not know his father and mother?
Then how can he say,
‘I have come down from heaven’?”
…Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
…Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in Me has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”


Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Psalm 34


Recently, the daily Bible readings from the lectionary included the two passages above as complementary passages that both speak profoundly of a spiritual reality given to us as God’s people and the devoted followers of Jesus His Son. I was reminded as I meditated on these readings of the scene in the movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the Fellowship of the Nine are preparing to make their departure from Lothlorien, the land of Celeborn and Galadriel and the ‘heart of elevendom on earth”, with gifts given them by the elves for the demanding and dangerous journey ahead of them.

Two of the hobbits, Merri and Pippin, are sitting in a boat waiting for their embarkation and Legolas, their Woodland elven companion on the journey ahead of them, remarks about the elivish “waybread” given to them called “lembas”. He says to them, “one small bite can fill the stomach of a grown man”. Merri looks at Pippin who is giving off a sly, self-satisfied smile, and asks, “how many have you eaten?” – meaning loaves of this same wondrous bread. Pippin replies, “four!”