Lavish in Detail

Yellow-crowned Night Heron by Intracoastal Waterway

If you click on the photo to view it full sized, you will see the intricacies of the heron's feathers. Then gaze on the edge and the patterns in the huge sycamore leaf which dwarfs the bicycle seat on which it is resting.

Dry Sycamore Leaf on Bicycle

Whether in a bird's feathers or a leaf or the double helix of DNA, nature is not parsimonious where detail is concerned.

Lord, how thy wonders are displayed,
where'er I turn my eye,
if I survey the ground I tread,
or gaze upon the sky!

Isaac Watts, "I Sing the Mighty Power of God"

How Lovely Is Your Dwelling!

Cybernun's new video features Brahms' "How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place" (Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen), from his German Requiem.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Happy are they who dwell in your house,
Ever singing your praise!
(Psalm 84:1-2,4)

Not only the temple, not only the churches are God's dwelling, but all of creation -- and each of us is also the dwelling place of God. "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). How lovely is God's dwelling place!

Dandelion Reaching High

Dandelion and Clouds

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds,
and it will not rest until it reaches its goal.
(Sirach 35:21)

Death Swallowed Up in Victory

Easter Lilies in Sunlight and Shadow

(Click image to view full size.)

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

1 Corinthians 15:51-54

To Live for Jesus

The short video, "Jesus Tibi Vivo," features a Latin song based on Romans 14:8,

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

Especially appropriate for this Lenten season is the final scene, where everyone is gathered into the cross.

No Barrier Needed

Some fences are needed. But we don't need barriers between ourselves and God.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be thine, yea thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

"Just as I Am," Charlotte Elliott, 1841

Spring as Lent Begins

Dogwood and Spanish Moss
(Click to view full size photo.)

LENTEN FLOWERS

Primrose, anemone, bluebell, moss
Grow in the Kingdom of the Cross

And the ash-tree's purple bud
Dresses the spear that sheds his blood.

With the thorns that pierce his brow
Soft encircling petals grow

For in each flower the secret lies
Of the tree that crucifies.

Garden by the water clear
All must die who enter here!

- Kathleen Raine