The Flame

 Jan - July 2025 Wandering Archive

The Avalanche II 

Isaiah, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, cried, “Woe is me! I am ruined!” (Isaiah 6:5). He was not just afraid-- he was undone, unmade by the sheer holiness before him.

Ezekiel fell on his face when he saw the heavens opened and the glory of God revealed (Ezekiel 1:28). So did Daniel (Daniel 10:8-9). So did John when he beheld Christ in Revelation (Revelation 1:17). They lost strength, they shook, they could not stand.

And so, I. I was undone. But this was not destruction. It was revelation.

I had been thinking, just the day before, about God loving a broken heart. I was writing something that involved Psalm 51, 

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
    or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.

 

There is a specific broken-heartedness that calls to Him as a response to the full realisation of our sin and futility, versus His Glory. It's not from the pain of having been caught, the consequences, or our regrets over our decisions, but the weight of understanding what one has done-- Seeing the brokenness in the world, and how one has contributed to it.

And then I thought about when I was younger; in my late teens. There was a day that the weight of the world was so immense that I turned my face away from it in order to keep from breaking. After that… my life spiraled out of control in another search for meaning that I couldn't grasp because meaning also entailed a certain level of pain. And I couldn't take it… I had no where to hold, and it was too much. And I didn't know God then. I didn't know that He was the answer. 

There is an implication in Romans 8 that God inflicts futility upon us so that we can be delivered from it. Not by our own will, but through openness and vulnerability, where we might finally see that His hand had been reaching down to us since our beginnings. And then, all the stories and all the lives and all the things that we treasure are all nothing. Nothing by comparison. And yet even God himself came down to save the world that we also love, but secondarily. The world that to him might as well mean nothing but somehow meant more than himself. And I'm getting emotional thinking about it, but even still it's not fully up on me to understand. There is something even deeper down that is welling up from a place I don't understand. 

All I do know is that it was in shutting off my perception of the pains of the world all those years ago that I also shut out God… and so for a time I'd even shut off my chance of redemption, and flung myself into the very thing that I feared the most.

  

A Prelude 

My faith did not grow from logic, though it passed through it. It did not form from stories, though I've studied them. My faith unfolded when the intellect finally gave itself to love. There was no grand moment, no shattering revelation, and yet one day I found myself across a bridge I didn’t know I’d crossed. One day, I simply believed. Not in response to a trauma, a vision, or even a longing… it just was. A quiet shift that changed everything. A death, a waking... A realisation that I had been born to be alive right now. 

That same strange, powerful certainty continues to settle into me now. 

What followed wasn’t a need for proof, but a growing fluency in a language I hadn’t known I’d learned. 

 

I’ve begun seeing my life as filled with new colors. Joy was one. Glory is now another. These aren’t just emotions, though, they are states of being; parts of the Kingdom becoming visible. It is no longer an idea, but a felt presence-- radiant and near, always just at the edge of my surrender.  

I am a candle in the presence of the sun. Still burning, still myself, but gloriously eclipsed.

 

Holy Grief 

Recently it's been grounding for me to let myself be sorrowful about certain things, because the heartbreak feels like the only correct response. It's not an empty, hopeless sorrow, but one that is simply the shadow of things that are great... Things that are sacred. When the sacred is profaned by irreverence and apathy; when humanity reels from self-inflicted wounds; for all that we will never know or understand...

There is no resolution or even comfort, because there simply is none in this lifetime. It simply asks me to sit with the ache and appreciate the giants of truth and goodness it represents. 

There are things we cannot change, and things where even our best may not ever seem like enough. There are things that are too big for us to carry alone. 

But the good news is that we are not alone, and we are never called to do more than God knows we are capable of.  

God, grant me the serenity...

 

A Day in the Oasis

The oasis is empty, but still a comfort for the night. Perhaps longer.  

Not long ago, I neared the brink of intellectual wilderness... I had hoped that my studies, especially those grounded in the way of Christ, would give me a bedrock firm enough to stand upon. Yet first, it seemed I needed to again face subjectivity. Even here, among the faithful, there is nuance upon nuance. Each path shaped by the eyes who walk it... I realized with aching clarity that, whatever system we fashion to discern our place with God, we will inevitably be called to choose to believe, or not, on the basis of the mere fragments of knowledge we have been given.

This troubled me deeply. 

It touched an old wound; the memory of reaching out, longing for God, and being met with silence. Or worse, being met with cold certainty that whispered, you need not reach at all; there is nothing there to meet you. 

 

In my distress, I sought counsel from a trusted friend, who listened and answered simply: There is an objective truth, and that truth is God.

At first, though it may seem like no answer at all, I was still comforted by the ear and the conviction of the statement itself. And yet... after further wandering in thought, I begin to see the shape of it. Yes, God is Truth, infinite and whole. But to approach this Truth, we have, as humans, always reached with imperfect hands. We shape symbols, enact rituals, tell stories, and even with our best intentions and efforts they are frail attempts at limiting the limitless into what is destined to be inadequate... but are still the best we have.

Every tradition, in its own way, seeks to give meaning to suffering, to guide us through this veil of tears. And most, at their heart, seem to pursue love and truth. Yet we are set apart by the Trinity that gives shape to the Way. We are not left with only fragments. We discern by three lights: First, by the law and the scriptures: the songs, visions, and stories of those who have wrestled with the Divine before us. Second, by relationship: the living, breathing presence of God who walks beside us still, shaping us inwardly through the Spirit, through Christ our example. And third, through community: flawed yet luminous, challenging and refining each other as we share this journey. 

These three together, like a stool, hold us steady, though the seat may still wobble from time to time.

Whether the story of Christ is, as I believe, the very heartbeat of reality, or even reduced to a myth truer than it... Still, I say: I believe there is an ultimate truth, and that Truth is God. I believe that Christ who died and rose again is the perfect image of God, and I believe I am called to follow Him, even when the road is dark.

If nothing else, we all have this speck of light ahead, and even that is enough to walk toward. And perhaps that is the most faithful beginning, and with humility we may take our next steps.

God, help me to walk further tomorrow.

 

Reaching for the Sun

Do you think that love is greater than fear? The very idea of asking the question is saddening somehow. Do I believe so? Yes. Does it happen in practice, however? Less so.

But I love... Love. I love connection, and the glimpses we get of the soul when interacting with others in meaningful, intimate ways... and the way being in it feels the world is exactly as it should be. In it, we get a whisper of what sometimes feels impossible, or improbable, but also right. And love can inspire us through its exquisite madness to feats only imagined by the sensible. 

But the deeper the bond, the more obvious the absence; the more soil is disturbed when the root is ripped up. When present, it gives life, aeration, and strength to the soil, at the cost of this silhouette it carves. And yet... unlike so many idols, that pure and divine source can leave springs of deep beauty in its wake. Somehow love makes things that it touches holy, and then one cannot be untouched. 

But even as its full Source is so desperately out of reach in this life, it is in us to keep reaching, because once we've tasted it, there is no sweeter thing. No satiability except deeper within it. And if we ever feel like giving up, we know that we are giving up the opportunity to see what would happen if we had just held out, or reached out, one more time... even if our hearts have already been mined so many times.

 

Patience

Patience is a bit like pain, yet it is also an art. Sometimes when I'm waiting, I confess that I can grow impatient, depending on how secure I feel about the arrival of the thing I'm waiting for. But like pain it is mitigated by purpose. Because of faith or future value, or some combination of the two, there is a certain sort of peace and expansiveness that comes with surrender to one's temporal shackles; then transforming the time into a gift. 

In those rare moments where I have managed such serenity, it is as though I lose the need to be pointed in any particular direction, and I can unfold from where I am... and the world moves around me, while I stay still. From there, I get a feeling of how large the world is compared to me, and that in some weird way the "I" that is me, is revealed to be both part of the tapestry and separate from it at the same time. 

It is there that I begin to notice a second, quieter truth, that only reveals itself after I have succumbed to the first. I am free to explore the stillness in a way that doesn't disturb it, and something... opens. And creation can happen. Not rushed, not measured, but unfolding beyond time. 

 

Open Hands

My realisation of my helplessness and of my total reliance on God, is sobering and peaceful, despite being more horrifying than the anxiety that comes with the illusion of control. 

There are simply things that I cannot do… and I confess that for someone like me this is deeply uncomfortable whenever I encounter it. But I am glad to name it, because even here, with my ache and no answers, there is still something sacred.

Sometimes the prayer is the breaking.

But this time it wasn’t from the overflow of a storm, it was a wash in the wake of a debridement. It was a gush the moment I shifted the stone, just a little, and the weight dislodged. And by God’s grace I remembered that I cannot stop the flow, but I can watch it, too, go by, with the things I wished I could hold onto forever, and the things I missed because I was afraid in the knowledge that I could not. The places I thought I failed, or felt the weight of responsibility freeze me, all in the name of knowledge no mortal can ever truly have, of a future that often never was or would be.

But this surrender is not giving up, but giving in-- to presence, to grace, and leaning into the soft, trembling place where prayer begins simply because there is nothing else that is ours to hold.

And so tonight, where I met the edge of my strength, I was also met again by the one who always waits to be seen and to comfort his child... and I feel a pang of regret that it is so commonly only when I have no choice but to open my eyes to see, that I actually look to Him. But in His presence there is a quiet where ache begins to loosen its grip and the soul is free to yawn.

Through every kind of wilderness I’ve tried to make God my rock, and on some days, I even succeed. On other days, days like this, He is my feet.

 

Dusk at the Edge of the Wood

I walked farther than I meant to today. The path wound strangely, like it knew some destination I didn’t. My feet are blistered, my pack is lighter than it was, but still my heart is heavy.

Last night, I laid everything down. I didn’t even know I was carrying the world until I finally let it go... With it, I even felt the sensation of falling, but I let the silence hold me. I surrendered. And for a moment, I was completely weightless. I knew I was held. Not by any arms I've longed for, but by the arms that formed the stars.

I will never stop dreaming... the threads my mind weaves remain unbroken. But I release my grip on the shape I thought the future must take for me to be happy. What will be, will be by God’s doing, not mine. God's alone.

I have learned: surrender is not the end, it is the gate. Grief is not failure, it is passage. Love is never wasted.

What can I hold onto while this grief passes? Only God. Only the self I am learning to become. Only grace, through the process.

And now I ask myself, beneath the trees as dusk gathers... What will I do with what I’ve learned?
And the answer came like wind:
I will live it.
I will speak it.
I will bless others with it.

 

Speak Love

 wondered as I sat today in the shadow of the cross-- a place where love poured out not in fury, but in stillness.
“In lighting candle with candle,” I wrote, remembering something I once read long ago, "nothing is lost." The light only becomes brighter. And yet, sacrifice seems only possible in our world of the finite, where something could possibly be lost.

Would it mean anything, if we were infinite? Is it even possible, I wonder, to "sacrifice" oneself without meaning? Without love? For surely, if there was no meaning, it would only be a death, or an "end", perhaps not even a loss.

And so I think... it must also have to be of our selves, somehow. Our selves are all we can truly own, and after that we belong only to God. Everything else would simply be a generous donation. And so, sacrifice is giving of ourselves in the name of something we love, and to give of ourselves freely is to walk with Christ into a place beyond transaction, into deliverance from futility, even. 

 

“And God so loved the world…”

The Son, therefore, gave what no one else could: Himself. And this, I realise, is what makes it sacrifice... Not the pain, not even the death, but the forfeiting of his will, his desires, his thoughts or dreams and human legacy that orbited his being as we are orbited by our own. And his depths of love were shown in the dark mirror of suffering in the face of the distance between God's kingdom and our world. A gap that was caused by us, and hung him on that tree.

And yet in it, he was silent, forgiving, and generous. He didn't scream, he didn't protest... And when he did speak he did so to comfort those who could hear; ignoring the voices that mocked, and he spoke only love.

 

"By His wounds we are healed," "By His suffering I am freed..." 

This scarlet thread of the cross winds through the groaning of creation, through the hearts of all who love with no guarantee of return.

And we are called to do the same.

To give ourselves in love,
to become a candle that lights another,
to live in such a way that we speak only love, even if it is in silence.

It is by sacrificing and giving in love that we are not diminished, but multiplied.

Through this and only this.

 

From Below the Cross: A Holy Saturday Prayer

Lord,

When I do not know where You have gone,
and the world is hushed in a way that feels unbearable,

I think on you, and your word that you would return.
You said You would turn sorrow into joy.
And I believe You.

But when the tomb is shut, and the light is dim, I am only human.

I do not know what resurrection looks like,

I only know the shape of Your absence, and the ache of waiting.

 

Still I will keep vigil, whispering Your name into the silence,

even when it echoes back as nothing.

I will sit at the edge of your cave of sorrows with lighted lamp--

not because I am strong,

but because I remember Your eyes.

Amen.

 

The Banner over Me

I had really hoped for some clarity, so that I could also be of help to others. 

I wanted to learn to about God, how to love His people, and what both of those things looked like. And yet, sometimes it seems like even with increased knowledge, what seemed like a simple answer, or a single answer, became as complex as those I wish to serve. 

I can see with increasing clarity where people are, and where I am, yet even as I desire to help, the complexity of human variation is beyond me. God as the centre-- Christ as the centre, is the only sufficient answer, not because it is simply the logical place to start, because I see now that it is the only place. So many things in this world work in theory but not in practice, and yet the Word is both. 

At one point, I started to feel like I had failed because I didn't "take a side," somehow fit my thoughts into a neat label, or otherwise feel like I could sit with others and "belong" there. But I realise now that sometimes the middle is its own stance, and that's perfectly alright, too. It is not, by default, a place of indecision, but a place of truth, and in fact much less comfortable than I'd hoped, but probably as much as I'd expected... and I would much rather be in an honest middle than side with false truth out of a desire to feel safe.

 

"... where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears." (1 Corinthians 13: 8-10)