Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.
Why is it always easier to anticipate God's wrath than to perceive God's joy? Ever
expecting to be shot, we're invariably dumbfounded by a grace we can't conceive...God plays rough before breaking into laughter.
The spiritual function of fierce terrain...is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the abandonment of language and the relinquishment of ego. A vast expanse of jagged stone, desert sand, and towering thunderheads has a way of challenging all the mental constructs in which we are tempted to take comfort and pride, thinking we have captured the divine. The things that ignore us save us in the end.
The spiritual function of fierce terrain (in the apophatic tradition) is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the abandonment of language and the relinquishment of ego. A vast expanse of jagged stone, desert sand, and towering thunderheads has a way of challenging all the mental constructs in which we are tempted to take comfort and pride, thinking we have captured the divine. The things that ignore us save us in the end.
~ from THE SOLACE OF FIERCE LANDSCAPES by Belden Lane
Special grace comes with drama and flair. We are rescued, singled out in a momentous act of boldness. BUT common grace falls upon the just and unjust alike. It strikes us as simply too ... ordinary.
~ from THE SOLACE OF FIERCE LANDSCAPES by Belden C. Lane
