GOING HOME

Road Less Traveled

Sojourners

There are no true destinations in this life for the entire experience is a never-ending journey into the unknown guided by faith alone.  And we understand that the future belongs to those who believe in it—even after death.

We are all beautifully incomplete.  But a broken soul can still stand resolute and move about this broken world with courage and faith in the future.  Perhaps we’re wired to subliminally perceive that this imperfect world is not our final home and we are all just sojourners renting space, regardless of where we keep our stuff.  Life is hard so we’re all just walking each other home.

 

John documents the incident of Jesus revealing his divine power over death upon bringing his friend Lazarus back to life from the grave.  Some say he wept when he arrived at the tomb because his friend had died and his sisters whom he loved were grieving.  And that is easily probable even though he knew that he would soon resurrect him.  But there is also the possibility that he wept because he knew he was bringing his spirit back to this broken world from a beautiful forever.  And he would have to endure a second death later, for that is every human being’s certain legacy.

 

People that read of Jesus’ healing powers turn from him when they pray for healing of a loved one and it doesn’t happen.  But even as he walked among us 2,000 years ago there were thousands of people who were not healed because the intent of those few miracles was to affirm his divinity.  He established the laws of nature, so he doesn’t normally violate them.  If you build a house in an area known for hurricanes, praying to stop one headed your way will probably not go as requested.  Miracles still happen on occasion, but strength and peace may be more realistic expectations.  And all are healed, just not in this life.

LAST FLIGHT HAIKU

                                          Beached, Kiawah Island, SC
An anomaly,
walking the beach at sunrise,
colors in the sun.

A lifeless shadow,
washed up by retreating tides,
covered in time's sand.

The butterfly's life,
is one of resurrection,
and spiritual flight.

Reaching the shoreline,
at long last the journey's end,
hearing "Job well done".

EASTER APPARITION HAIKU

Apparition, Glenola, NC

The apparition,
was moving from west to east,
sunset to sunrise.

Formed like cirrus clouds,
but much lower in the sky,
appearing quickly!

Flowing wispy hair,
directing us to the east,
pure white flowing robe.

What is the meaning?
What's the signal in the noise?
Vapor or spirit?

An apparition,
revealed Christ to the Wise Men,
announcing his birth.

An angel of God,
revealed His second birth to
Mary Magdalene.

Look to the sunrise,
symbolizing victory,
on Easter morning!

NEW LIFE

Harbingers of Spring, Jamestown, NC

New Life emerging from winter's decay as we observe the season of Lent in anticipation of Easter resurrection.

GUARDIANS OF ROYALTY

Royal Crown, Jericho, Israel
Royal Train, Jericho, Israel

Peacocks are only native to Asia in countries like India and Indochina and also the African Congo basin. It’s no surprise that they’re birds of the colorful pheasant family. The iridescent feathers and large “train” of peacocks along with their eerie piercing call have caught the attention and imagination of mankind for eons. The peacock was seen as a guardian to royalty and engravings can be found on their thrones. The monarchy of Iran is referred to as the Peacock throne.

The peacock is first mentioned in the Bible when Solomon, the wisest and richest king that ever lived, sent his ships abroad to return every three years “bringing gold, and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peacocks”. No doubt peacocks walked the elaborate gardens of ancient kings and became associated with paradise. Because ancient Greek legend believed that the flesh of a peacock never decays after death it became a symbol of immortality. Therefore, it is often depicted next to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden for Christians. Mankind also began to observe that the peacock sheds its old feathers every year and grows more brilliant ones to replace them—a beautiful sign of renewal. Paintings and mosaics of peacocks on the walls of third century Rome catacombs became early Christian symbols for resurrection, renewal and immortality. And the multiple blueberry eyes of the peacock’s train has been associated with an all-seeing God. Regardless of the associations, a male peacock definitely knows how to attract a female peahen!

Our recent pilgrimage to Israel included exploring archeological digs at Jericho, reputed to be the oldest occupied city in the world. The area has been the site of copious springs which has attracted civilizations to rebuild up to twenty settlements mounded on top of one another. One of these sites enabled us to visually exam this phenomenon of the rise of mankind back some 11,000 years to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch of Earth’s history. It was here at Jericho that Jesus healed a blind man and related the parable of the Good Samaritan on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. It was here that the Bible records the only time that Jesus invited himself to someone’s home for dinner—the home of little Zacchaeus the tax collector who was hated by both Jews and Gentiles.

We enjoyed a local luncheon at a location that also included a rather large retail area selling a variety of products sure to attract tourists such as olive wood carvings, brightly colored scarves, and a large inventory of Dead Sea mineral beauty products. I bought a unique olive wood carving and ambled outside with my ever-present camera to browse for a photo op. As I walked around the building I was greeted with the eerie call of a brilliant peacock strolling the grounds like royalty. If you had given me a hundred guesses about what I would encounter that day, I would have never thought of a peacock! But here we were in the cradle of civilization following the footsteps of Jesus, ancient kings and legions of ancestors on the sandy paths of long ago created star dust. And here I was confronted by one of history’s most revered symbols of that royalty.

LINK TO PEACOCK CALL:
http://soundbible.com/1301-Peacock-Call.html

MARY OF MAGDALA

Torah Table End, Migdal, Israel
Magdala Synagogue, Migdal, Israel
Valley of the Doves, Migdal, Israel
Torah Table Top, Migdal, Israel

Mary Magdalene was among the few who had stood by Jesus at his crucifixion and watched in horror as her Lord was killed on that infamous Black Friday. She had entered the garden tomb before daylight to anoint the body on this first Easter Sunday and found the tomb empty. She stood in the garden crying because she thought the Romans had taken the body away. And as she turned, Jesus appeared and asked her why she was crying and who she was looking for in the garden. Mary mistook the resurrected body of Jesus for a gardener until he called her name, “Mary”. And she cried out in Aramaic “Rabboni!” which means teacher. He instructed her to go and tell the disciples that he was alive which left her with the Augustine legacy of the “Apostle to the Apostles”. Women had no status in this first century culture, but Jesus acknowledged women as equal reflectors of God’s image. Given this male dominated society, revealing himself first to a woman provides even more credibility for the resurrection. A purely fabricated account would have quite probably written a male into the role.

Mary was from a small fishing village on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee called Magdala. Magdala was destroyed by the Romans about the time the second temple was also leveled in 70 AD. She was also referred to as the Magdalene in the Bible. Jesus had cast out seven demons from Mary, but that may be a reference to a complex mental or physical illness instead of any form of sinfulness. The male culture of those days who were uncomfortable with a female apostle may have intentionally merged Mary with the unnamed woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Mary was not a repentant prostitute and these efforts to demonize her in particular and disempower women in general though the centuries are unfounded. She is now considered a saint by the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches with a feast day of July 22.

Father Juan Solana, a Roman Catholic priest, had a dream. He envisioned building a serene spiritual retreat for Christian pilgrims on the northwest shores of the Sea of Galilee. This Galilee region in Israel was the primary location on earth where the Son of God lived out his human existence while teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God for mankind and healing the sick and disabled outcasts of society. A routine archaeological requirement in Israel with its centuries of history is to carry out a salvage dig on any potential building site prior to excavation. This work began in 2009 and almost immediately Father Salona described the miraculous discovery of a stone slab as providential. The subsequent discovery of a local coin dating from the year 29 confirmed the existence of a first century Galilee synagogue. And further excavation revealed a marketplace, water pools to cure the famous Galilee fish, and a large public building. It soon became clear that they had just discovered the ancient little fishing village of Magdala.

An ornately engraved stone that was found in the synagogue ruins was quite probably used as a table for reading the Torah. The time period places the synagogue right in the sweet spot of Jesus’ ministry and he quite probably read from the Torah on that table in this place. The Valley of the Doves contains a 22 mile trail from Nazareth to Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. The base for Jesus and his disciples was in Capernaum, just five miles away and their footsteps were all over this country. Our tour group not only traced their footsteps in the Valley of the Doves, but now we were also walking in and around the small village of Magdala where they visited and the Magdalene resided.

Mary of Magdala was present at the beginning of a movement that transformed the world. She was quite possibly more of a disciple than the disciples, but the culture of her time wouldn’t acknowledge her. As we move on into the twenty first century, God has revealed the birthplace of one of the most influential women in Christianity with the opportunity to also discover the woman who lived there. And now we all have the privilege of walking in the footsteps of the Apostle to the Apostles from Magdala and recognizing her rightful role as an early Christian leader and the first to announce the good news of the miracle of the resurrection!

The Hope of Easter, 2015

FOREVER GARDEN

Easter Garden, Jerusalem, Israel
Via Dolorosa Station IX, Jerusalem, Israel

I’ve always been a bit of a visual learner, so it was a challenge for me to associate with some of the sacred places in the Holy Land which humans had basically covered with well-intentioned reverence. Ironically, two such places included the site of Jesus’s birth in the Church of the Nativity and the site of his death at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Both locations included exceptionally ornate surroundings of a literal hole in the marble flooring. You could stand in line to insert your hand into the hole to touch the rock below--or you could simply meditate on the event that occured in close proximity.

We walked the narrow crowded streets of Old Jerusalem amid the variety of small shops selling brightly colored scarves, pottery, olive wood carvings, and fresh foods. Along the “way of sorrow” (Via Dolorosa) we stopped and remembered the events at the Stations of the Cross regarding Jesus’ agonizing walk to his crucifixion at Golgotha. The walk was made more meaningful by an intermittent rain that accompanied us along the way. Our walk ended at Station IX which recognizes the third time Jesus stumbled on his path to destiny. This station is located next to the entrance of a monastery and the subterranean Chapel of Saint Helena in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We then queued up inside the church to go inside a Greek Orthodox Church that had been constructed around a cave tomb where tradition says the body of Jesus was laid to rest and was resurrected. Christians consider this the holiest place on earth. The interior was fully decorated with brass and glass.

As we neared the end of our Holy Land journey, “the arena of God’s revelation of himself to humankind”, our last stop in Jerusalem became one of the most meaningful. We traveled to the Garden Tomb where many Christians go to celebrate the resurrection. These tombs carved out of the ubiquitous rock outcroppings indigenous to the area had been discovered at a later date. There is no absolute certainty of where Jesus’ resurrection actually occurred. But this setting has been developed to visually pull even the most casual pilgrim into the experience of the resurrection. Jesus told one of the two men crucified on either side of him that he would be with him in paradise. Paradise is a Persian word for “walled garden”. When a Persian king chose to honor one of his subjects, he invited him to walk with him in the palace garden.

We gathered in a small shelter on the site and celebrated a short communion service with small olive wood cups of wine and flat bread. The experience was a great remembrance of Christ’s passion, presence, grace and love for His creation. It also became a reflective last meal for a group of disciples that had been drawn together by a common bond, in the spirit and land of the Last Supper that Jesus celebrated with his twelve disciples. The light rain subsided as we left the shelter and entered one of the garden tombs in silence. When I turned to exit the stone tomb I noticed a wooden sign over the opening that proclaimed, “He is not here—for He is risen!” And as we departed the garden grounds to begin a rather arduous trip back home, we passed by branches of fresh cherry tree blossoms framing the empty tomb—a very natural and visual sign of the Easter promise for new life and hope in a beautiful forever garden!

NEW LIFE MESSENGER

Row Cloud Messenger, Burlington, NC
Butterfly, Burlington, NC

I was recently driving back through the Carolinas from my final beach trip of the year. As the wind began to increase I noticed the growing formation of billowing row clouds stretching from horizon to horizon, signaling the changing seasons. Since I still hadn’t completely disengaged myself from unstructured beach time, I pulled off the interstate and grabbed my camera to quickly capture a few sky images.

As I was editing the five hundred photos that I had taken during the trip today, I stumbled onto the final images on file. The row clouds were interesting as I scrolled through them. And then my eye caught the anomaly in one of the images I had taken as I panned the sky from east to west. A quick cropping of the image revealed the fleeting image of a colorful butterfly riding the wind that had totally escaped my attention as I took the photograph.

Humankind has pondered the influence of the butterfly for centuries. Many cultures believe these winged spirits personify angels and loved ones who have gone before us. Their short life span and physical transformation from a slowly crawling caterpillar to a beautiful spirit animal taking flight always captures our imagination. Their resurrection to an ethereal winged spirit serves as a sobering reminder for us to live in the present moment, for life is fleeting. But their serendipitous and unannounced appearance in our lives also reminds us that as we complete our mortal journey, we simply transform into a spiritual dimension freed of gravity and time. They represent joy, freedom, creativity and change. Their transformative influence symbolizes the shaping of our own life and soul evolution.

When a butterfly crosses our path we should pause life and consider the message of new life that it brings to us. And only we alone can discern the spiritual meaning for our life at that milestone of the journey.

JUST THREE DAYS

Resurrection, Wrightsville Beach, NC

Lots of folks deny the existence of God and the availability of His priceless grace for all. Some have witnessed or been a victim of such abhorrent experiences that they absolutely cannot believe a greater power would allow it to happen. Man’s own inhumanity to man accounts for much of this. But there are examples of people who have decided to work with God to bring good out of a bad situation. And when they do that, the rest of us are doubly impressed with their faith and character. The grace-full reaction of the woman in Kansas this week who discovered the senseless hate murders of both her father and teenage son comes to mind.

During this Holy Week of Easter, we’re reminded of Luke’s account of Jesus’ false arrest on the Mount of Olives during the night. Two of his twelve disciples denied him to set the stage for his death and our redemption. Judas, the group’s treasurer, was seemingly disappointed that Jesus was not the Messiah warrior king he was expecting to help defeat the ruling Romans, so he sold out for thirty pieces of silver. Later, as Jesus was being falsely accused of the crimes that Barabbas had actually committed, Peter denied that he even knew him a total of three times.

After Jesus’ resurrection on that glorious sunlit Easter morning, Peter was locked in an upper room fearing for his life and Judas was dead. But later, Peter received the personal forgiveness of Jesus and went on with his life to become the rock of God’s church. His testimony provided even more weight and assurance for God’s priceless grace. And it pales in stark contrast to the extraordinary possibilities of the message of forgiveness and hope that Judas could have delivered to countless generations in desperate circumstances, if only he had waited for just three days.

YELLOW BUTTERFLIES & WHITE FEATHERS

Yellow Butterfly, Wrightsville Beach, NC
White Feather, Wrightsville Beach, NC

A number of years ago our family happened to be at a Carolina beach over Easter weekend. We had attended a number of sunrise Easter services in Kansas and we were looking forward to experiencing a resurrection service next to the vast ocean waters with the waves breaking onto the shoreline. As the light brightened over the ocean’s horizon, we did indeed experience a very spiritual remembrance of the risen Christ’s victory over death and the promise and hope for all mankind. Waves have symbolized renewal and life giving water throughout time.

Since that time, we’ve all enjoyed a meditative walk on the Carolina beaches at sunrise on a number of escapes from the madding crowds. A stroll along the beach at sunrise can be a very personal and spiritual time as a new creation unfolds for yet another day on planet earth. We were fortunate to have another beach trip this past Labor Day week with myself and my grown daughter and son-in-law. My wife of forty years certainly was with us in spirit, as she lost her struggle with breast cancer five years ago. The three of us were at her bedside when she was welcomed into the presence of our Heavenly Father.

The gardens around our beach home for the week were alive with very vibrant yellow butterflies this year. They flitted and darted in the cool breezes off the ocean waters among the brightly blooming tropical flowers. We photographed the gardens and rose every morning before sunrise to greet the new day and photograph the colorful sunrise over the sandy beach. And every sunrise is as unique as a snowflake or the shells that are left on the shore by the receding nighttime tide waters. All four of us had walked together on this particular beach and it brought back those kind of good memories that sustain you after you lose a loved one. As I walked the beach one morning, I was struck by the anomaly of a pure white feather lying among one of the many shell beds left exposed that day. Native Americans believed that departed souls manifested in the form of beautiful butterflies and visited their relatives to assure them that all is well. Feathers, especially white ones, symbolize purity, peace and love. They represent a sacred universal symbol of flight within the spirit world and serve as messengers of the Great Spirit. The ancients believed that they also convey a message that all is well on the other side.

It’s very understandable that butterflies and white feathers have come to symbolize spirit messengers over the centuries. Whether or not they are personified messengers in this mortal life will remain a mystery. But I do know that they both represent a beautiful reminder of those we hold close in our hearts and their presence does rekindle warm memories. Memories of long walks on the beach as the waves relentlessly break onto the sandy shore and the colorful light of a new creation assure us that God is present and He has those who go before us in the loving palm of his hand.