The Primacy of Being

"The vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which [no man can read]. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth...but have removed their heart far from me...therefore...the wisdom of their wise men shall perish..." Isaiah 29:11-14

Here we see marked the sharp (and yet constantly muddled) contrast between being and doing. The Israelites were doing much: they kept (quite religiously) the outward ceremony, pomp and circumstance of their belief system. God, however, was not satisfied. All of their ceremony was asinine; it was all mindless subterfuge that distracted them from what was real and true, i.e., intimate communion with God. They had done many things, but they had left their first love (c.f. Revelation 2:2-4). It is the reverse of James chapter two: their works were plenteous, but their faith was dead. Consequently, their dead faith produced dead works: "Let them kill sacrifices." (Is. 29:1) You can almost feel the sarcasm.

The error Israel committed was a confusion between the primacy of being to doing. The Israelites got it backwards: they thought all of their doing would bring about their being God's chosen people, i.e., who they are was produced by what they do. This is incorrect; the reverse is the truth: your being brings about your doing, i.e., who you are produces what you do. The Israelites had to be God's chosen people before they could truly do like ones, and such being comes about by "hearts drawn near to God," by intimate communion and relationship with God.

This same confusion afflicts the Church today. We have people all across traditional and denominational lines who are still trying to put the cart before the horse. We know that we are to be "Christ-like," but we have the bizarre notion that that being will come from our doing. Such a confusion hits both legalism and liberalism: either you become like Christ by following the rules, or by saving the world through activism. Both ideologies are ultimately about doing. Unfortunately, both ideologies' goals (keep the rules, save the world) are beyond our abilities. Only Christ did both perfectly, so obviously we need to be like Him before we can do like Him.

Christ was who He was because He was one with the Father, and that union is what He desires for us (John 17:3, 20-23). We will get nowhere and be nothing without that intimate communion and relationship with God. All of our doing, regardless of how pious or noble, is all so much sanctimonious hubris, ultimately ranking as our own righteousness, which is filthy rags.

So many ministries, sermons, books on Christian living and life, churches, Christian schools, institutions, organizations, coalitions, programs and services are based solely on this error, i.e., what you do produces what you should be. Very few anymore stress the vital importance of the primacy of being, of the primary role of the intimate communion and relationship with God in Christ. Many churches, ministries, etc., are now dead in the water or spiritual wastelands because they left off knowing God for trying to serve Him.

"Without You

My works are Nothing;

Without You

I am Undone.

Without You

I am still Nothing

Without You

I am still just me..."

-Jon Vowell

A Bit of Christian Mythos III: Awakening

"And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel...shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty..." Isaiah 29:7, 8

Our enemy's victories are temporal and corporeal. "The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still." They may take and destroy cities and capture and kill bodies, but they are only touching that which is fleeting, that which is of the Shadowlands, that which is of the Dream World. When all awake to the light of God's day, the enemy will find their victories and accomplishments hollow. Only that which was of God lasted to the break of day.

The world and its troubles seem all too real to us. The enemy loves to distract us with its sensuous reality. The truth is that there is something higher, greater, and more real than this world, a Reality above reality, and that Reality is God. If we belong to Him, then we belong to the stuff that lasts. When we awaken from the dream and this present world is consumed into and made anew by the light of God's presence, we will be amazed that what we took as real, what we thought mattered, was only shadows that fade before the rising Sun.

The world is not an illusion: it is there and it is real, and the pain and troubles are real. The point is that this world is not all that is there or real. God's unveiled presence will one day transform the dream into reality. Until then, we take His reality to the dream.

"We are Minds Awake

In a World of Sleepers.

May the Light of the Son

Awaken the Sleepers

To the Dawn..."

-Jon Vowell

Desolation and Glory III: Changed into His Image

"Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow; and it shall be unto me as Ariel [once more]." Isaiah 29:2

Before Jerusalem can be the "Lion of God" once more, it must go through heaviness and sorrow. There is no escaping this fact: there are no crops unless the seed dies, no remission of sins without the shedding of blood, no change without pain, no glory without desolation. If we would be everything God wants us to be, it will mean the death of everything that is not of Him. That process will mean pain and sorrow and heaviness, but its fruits are joy and peace and all the evidences of God's Spirit.

At salvation, the old man died and is no more; the inner man is now Christ (Galatians 2:20). The battle line is drawn between the life of God within you and your dead body without (Romans 8:1-11). All the old habits and thought processes formed by those habits will have to go, and that means death and pain. To be formed into the image of Christ means a shattering of the old image of man.

We do not take seriously our prayers to be "like Christ." To be "like Christ" means to pray the prayer that Paul prayed (Philippians 3:10). Are we ready for that kind of likeness? Are we ready for the total wounding to annihilation of our pride? A total collapse of our self-reliance? A total loss of our control over our circumstances? Are you ready for desolation? Are you really ready for glory? It will mean walking through the valley of the shadow of death first.

"What Pains You bring me through,

I am in Fellowship with Christ.

Through the Fires I come forth

Purer than Gold..."

-Jon Vowell

The Thread of Grace

"Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground?..For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him." Isaiah 28:24, 26

The plowman is instructed by God on how to till the earth: when and where to plant, how to properly till the ground, and what to use to thresh with what. All this is very interesting because the need to till the earth is a result of the Fall (Genesis 3:17-19a). What we see here is God's grace providing mercy in the pain: when the ground is cursed for our sin, He comes in and shows us how to survive.

It could be said that people today cannot see the ark for the flood. God does not abandon us in the pain and the trial and the judgment; His grace is always there. There is no fall so great that God's grace does not touch it with mercy somehow. Even Hell, in all its terror and darkness, is paradoxically tinged with mercy: God saw fit to quarantine those souls who ultimately reject Him to a place set with limits and boundaries, so that they cannot affect and infect anyone on the outside, nor can their sin totally consume them into oblivion. It is the last mercy His grace can do for a soul that will let Him do no more for them.

"The bread corn is bruised..." (Isaiah 28:28a) When man fell, God promised a "bruising" (Genesis 3:15). The Son of God was promised in the garden, and He was the bread bruised for us. In Christ we find that all that God is and says is proven true, including that He is full of grace and mercy. Christ is the ultimate testament to the thread of grace in our existence, woven throughout the entire tapestry of our lives. We hardly notice it: we seem naturally geared to focus solely on what is wrong and frustrating, and totally ignore the moments of grace around us.

In Diary of a Country Priest, the priest's final words before he dies are, "Grace is everywhere." This is a truth we too often miss. At the Fall, God was there; in the flood, God was there; throughout the lives of the patriarchs, God was there; in Egypt and through the wilderness, God was there; through promised land and exile, God was there; from empire to empire, God was there; through trial and tribulation, God is there; through the joy and the sorrow, God is there. It we would only step back and try to take even one tenth of the energy we waste when we worry and become frustrated to focus on the thread of grace woven through our lives, we would be astonished at such doctrine: Why, God was there all along, though I knew Him not! We could truly say with the Psalmist that neither heaven or hell are proper hiding places from Him, and be convinced with Paul that there is nothing that could separate us from the love of God.

How do we ultimately know that God is gracious? Because: Christ died. Jesus is the first letter and final punctuation point in the testimony of who God is. Christ is concrete proof that God is active and enmeshed in our lives, that His grace reaches to the uttermost; for He, being God, made Himself nothing, and condescended to our depths to reach us (Philippians 2:5-7). Christ is that true yet abstract thread of grace bursting through into concrete reality, so that for all time we will know, there is a God in Israel, and He is intimate in our lives.

The Fall brought the need for a plowman, so God filled the need. It also separated us from God, and He bridged that gulf. There is no escaping His grace; it is an inescapable rhythm behind the noise of the world. Even in Hell, though you never will nor can know its presence, you are still wrapped up in its web. When the gray rain curtain of this world is rolled back, and all is seen in the light of God's presence, we will be astounded at the tapestry He has woven, and we will cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory!" Amen.

"From the Heights of Heaven,

To the Depths of Hell;

To the Uttermost,

Your Grace touches All..."

-Jon Vowell

What Fills You?

"Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves..." Isaiah 28:15

What nonsense is this? A bodyguard of lies? You might as well hid under air.

What are lies and falsehoods? They are nothings: they say that which is not. They are hollow, empty, devoid of substance. Such a shield is not chaff before the fire; it is nothingness before the fire. Lies are non-entities; what kind of refuge can they be? Falsehoods say only that which is not; what kind of hiding place could they be? Trusting your salvation to lies and falsehoods is the height of foolishness.

Perhaps it is even more foolish to make pacts with death and hell. What is death? A negation: the body separated from the soul, and the soul separated from God. What agreements can it keep? Now, what is hell? The void, the darkness outside. It is the holding pin of all that is not: all that is not of God is nothingness, evil is the absence of God, the absence of that which is ultimately True and Real. What security is there in a bottomless pit? Also, if by "hell" you mean the "grave," you are no better off, for the grave holds nothing but hollow shells of the absence of life.

What is God's response to all this foolishness? "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone...a sure foundation." (Isaiah 28:16) Literally rock solid foundation, pure substance beneath your feet; for how do you crush that which is hollow and empty? You fill it with substance. "[Justice] also will I [make the measuring line], and righteousness to [be] the [plumb line]..." (vs. 17a) He is measuring His man, so to speak; you do not measure something unless you plan to fill it. "[The] hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies," it will pile all around and on top of you, "and the waters shall overflow the hiding place," it will fill your empty cup until you spill out with the excess. Using lies, death and hell as a defense against God's judgment is about as smart as jumping in a pit to stay safe from a flood.

Our ironclad pact with death and hell was done away with by Christ at the cross. When He passed through death's gate and into her bosom, the hollow void of her womb was suddenly substanced with He that is the Life and Light of all mankind (John 1:4), true abiding Presence. Christ filled the void, and it was defeated. He stepped into the vacancy that was death and the grave, and claimed it as His own (Revelation 1:18), filing it with His life. Now those who trust in Him pass through death into His new life, both at salvation and physical death. You can either embrace the void, or be swept up into His substance. One means damnation, forever swallowed up into emptiness; the other means salvation, forever filled with His love. Choose wisely what you fill yourself with.

"Substance and Void,

Reality or Illusion,

Life and Death,

Heaven or Hell:

These are the Choices

You lay at My Feet..."

-Jon Vowell

The Paradox of Salvation

"...they would not hear. [Therefore] the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backwards, and be broken, and snared, and taken." Isaiah 28:12b, 13

The people of Israel would not learn as children would learn, they would not step down to the level of child-likeness necessary for trusting God. Therefore the very instruction that would save them is the very stumbling block that will destroy them. You cannot escape God's ways: you either accept them unto life or reject them unto death.

This is the paradox of salvation: Christ is simultaneously the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world and the scandalon on which many will be broken and crushed. He is simultaneously the source of man's salvation and damnation (John 3:16-19). It all depends on what a man "does" with Christ: accepts or rejects, comes with or goes against, swept up or left behind. It is man's choice whether he is damned or saved, but those are his only to choices, and Christ is the center of the whole issue.

We have the bizarre assumption that God's ways can be rejected and they become indifferent to us. They are not (especially if you are His child); they will haunt you again someday, revealed as the adversary of the path you took. Truly if you are not with God, then you are against Him (James 4:4; c.f. Luke 9:50). That which can save your soul will damn it if you choose to reject it. Our decisions decide our destines: if we choose Christ as our salvation, then we are saved. If we choose to make Christ of no account, then we are damned already.

No Grown-ups Allowed

"Whom shall He teach knowledge? And whom shall He make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; Here a little, and there a little..." Isaiah 28:9, 10

All those who knew better to lead Israel have all fallen away (vs. 7). Who now will God choose to be the keepers of His wisdom and truth? The children will, and they will be correctly taught, being instructed in in the basics step by step, precept upon precept, line upon line. The elders have failed. The only ones left that have the child-like faith necessary to trust God are the children themselves. Children will lead the nation to God.
Chesterton (in Orthodoxy) said that God is "eternal infancy," i.e., devoid of vice, full of endless life and vitality, limitless in energy, and seeing and filling the world with awe and wonder. We, however, have sinned and grown old: vice is our drinking partner, we are dead in transgressions and sins, we are tired and bored with all things, and have scrupulously sucked all the numinous wonder and awe out of everything. We have lost our childhood, and God came to give it back.
"Except...[ye] become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3) Let us not err as Nicodemus did and marvel that we must be "born again." Jesus said becoming a child meant to be "converted," and conversion means a change from one thing into another: we are changed from dying old age to eternal youth. God puts His eternal infancy into us, and suddenly all things have become new. There is an underlying wellspring of joy that brings life and vitality to our once ancient souls, and the world is suddenly a wonder-filled, awe-inspiring place full of demons and dragons, angels and magic, snares and traps, falls and rescues. The life within us reveals the life around us. When we were dead, all else seemed dead as well. Only the eyes of a child can see a fairy behind every leaf, and a troll under every bridge.
This is the great source of power in us: the eternal childhood of the life of God. How often we miss it! This fallen world continues to seek to age us, and we let it! We forget to dance with our Father God in fields of eternal youth and wonder; we turn our faith into a religion: keeping creeds and rules, doing work and service to gain favor, fulfilling our obligations out of duty. Consequently, we tire out, because we are becoming old again, and the life of God is told to sit in the corner and be quiet.
"...and a little child shall lead them." (Isaiah 11:6b) The kingdom of God belongs to the children; no grown-ups allowed. The gates of heaven are barred against those who are sick with age and full of their own conceits. Such antiquity would fade as chaff before the fire in the presence of all-consuming youth. The elders have fallen; the children lead now. They are the banner carriers of the redeemed of Zion.
It is the child that can live by faith, the child that can simply trust and obey. The Christian faith is the faith of a child. It is the restoration of the one thing we truly miss as we age: our childhood. May God keep us as children in this old world.

"The simplicity and peace and joy
Of Childhood
You restore to Me.
You make all things New,
All things Reborn in You..."
-Jon Vowell

The Wages of Sin is Non-negotiable

"But [my people] also have erred through wine...For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean." Isaiah 28:7, 8

The same folly of Ephraim (vs. 3) is also the folly of God's people. They are also full of their own pleasures, their works, themselves. "The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink." (vs. 7b) Even they that should know better are caught up in it all. "They err in vision, they stumble in judgment." (vs. 7c) They are consumed with themselves, they cannot see clearly anymore, and therefore they cannot do justly. The evil of Ephraim has touched Israel, and it took no prisoners. It spread to all its corners, "for all tables are full of vomit and filthiness."

Here we see the power of choice as well as sin itself. Even after Christ's disposition replaces our old one and we become God's adopted children, we can still choose to sin. In addition, if you think that being God's child removes you from falling into sin and its consequences, you are fooling yourself. No matter who you are, "the wages of sin is death," whether temporally or ultimately. Sin can only bring about destruction and negation; it is its very nature to do so. It will do the same to us if we let it.

We can choose to let sin reign in our mortal bodies (though not in our inner man, for our inner man is Christ; see Galatians 2:20). Because we accepted the light of Christ, choosing to sin will not damn us in the life to come (see John 3:16-19), but it will damn us in the here and now, damn everything we do or touch to death and destruction, until all tables are foul with vomit and filth. Such is the doom for the life of anyone (believer or otherwise) who turns from God to self. On the other side of the grave, sin can never touch us; but it can still kill us here if we let it. The wages stay the same.

"My Flesh would drag Me

Into Me,

But I am hollow without You.

May your Spirit forever lift Me

Into Your great Love..."

-Jon Vowell

In Touch with Reality

"In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory...and for a spirit of [justice] to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate." Isaiah 28:5a, 6

That God is our crown of glory, the only thing we have to boast in, is a thought that must filter down into every aspect of our lives. That God is our all and all through Christ is a lofty idea, but it can be easily lost in the muck of the nitty-gritty of everyday life. Plans are laid, expectations are set (by you and others), circumstances go awry, problems arise, fears set in, and at every turn it is the most natural thing to look to ourselves, to "believe" in ourselves, to place ourselves as a crown upon our heads--we are our own symbol of power. Consequently, we are never strong or wise enough to meet all that comes to us, and so we sink into despair and self-pity at the sight of it all.
Those who "believe" in themselves, who set themselves as their ultimate end and trust, are truly lunatics. There is nothing more maddening than believing solely in yourself when everything around you goes to pot. You have nothing to fall on but yourself, and you have already fallen; you have nothing to count on but your own character and will, and you have already failed. To continue to believe in yourself when everything has proven you to be impotent is true madness: it is a complete disconnect with reality.
Believing solely in God makes more sense: the Bible reveals Him as more than merely another being, but as the source of all things, including strength and wisdom. He is the inspiration behind our work and the strength to do it (Philippians 2:13). To trust in God is to be in touch with reality, because God is Reality, and we are only truly sane when we are connected to Him, when He is our crown of glory and spirit of justice and strength.

"Jesus, Crown above all crowns,
Spirit of Justice,
Strength of my heart,
There is no other Hope like You..."
-Jon Vowell

Two Crowns

"The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet..."
"In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of His people..." Isaiah 28:3, 5

The glory of Ephraim was itself. It was its own height and depth, it was its own greatness, it was its own glory. What did it have to show for it? What was their crown? Behold its pride and glory: its drunkards, full of their own pleasure, full of their own works, full of themselves; they were full of themselves to the point of drunkenness. In the end, they were their sole focus, they were drunk on their own glory. Such a crown will be taken from their heads and be put under other men's feet: their world will be turned upside-down.
The glory of the children of God is Himself. What else have we to glory in? Have we saved ourselves? Have we tasted of the grave? Drank death like wine? Walked amongst the dead shades of Hades only to rise victorious? Have we laid the world's foundations or set the limits of the oceans? Have we danced in perfect triune communion and brought many sons to the same glory? What have we to boast in but our great God? What riches or power, or gifts or wisdom can we claim that He did not give and that He cannot take away? What glory have we other than God, His Incarnation, His death and resurrection? The crown of pride will be taken from men's heads to be trampled under men's feet. The crown of glory was trampled under men's feet and is now ascended as a diadem of beauty upon the heads of them that believe. Amen.

"What can I claim as my Glory?
This Christ and His Work accomplished.
Grant me, O God, my One Desire,
To Magnify Thy Name..."
-Jon Vowell

Purely Purged II: Here Comes the Pain

"In measure, when [Israel] shooteth forth [like a plant], Thou wilt [contended] with it: He [removes it by] His rough wind in the day of the east wind. By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged..." Isaiah 27:8, 9a (Rev. Marg.)

Perhaps we forget that purging is painful. There are parts of you that are not of God, parts of you that are still dead; ideas, habits, and perspectives that must go. There are ways that seemed right unto us, ideas that seemed the norm. God's Spirit enters in, however, and reveals that such ways and ideas are not a part of Him and must go. Change brings pain; Christ has given us the power to change, but it will be a war between our flesh and the inner man.
Look back at the week you had: Was it rough? Were you troubled? Did you feel hammered on all sides? Now that it is over, are you exhausted and yet relieved? Now ask yourself: What did you learn? What has changed in your mind about things? Where have your perspectives and ways altered? The "rough stuff" of our lives is part of the anvil and hammer that God uses to purge out our imperfections.
"...this is all the fruits to take away sin..." This is how we know that we have been purged: that which once held sway in our lives is no more; that which held our focus away from God is gone; that which was a manifestation of our own will has been lost (Isaiah 27:9b). Drawing closer to God always means a purging of everything that is not of Him.

"Take this dead body and
Beat it with Your Life
Until it is in the Image
Of your Living Son..."
-Jon Vowell

The Vineyard of God

"In that day sing ye unto [Israel], A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Isaiah 27:2, 3

We see the nature of two things here. First is the nature of God's beloved; this includes Israel (Isaiah 5:1, 7) and the Church, since Christ has made the Church Abraham's children (Galatians 3:29). We are as a vineyard, which means:

1. We are planted. We exist by the work of another, not our own strengths.
2. We are a plant. It is our nature to grow, but only if we receive nutrients from another. By ourselves we will fade.
3. We produce fruit. We are not meant to be lifeless and barren. We are meant to produce something, again only by the care of another. By ourselves we will produce nothing.
4. Our fruit makes wine. What we produce is not meant for show, i.e., for our glory. It is meant for use by others, including the one who keeps us (for surely the farmer enjoys the fruits of his crop as well). What we produce is to be poured out to others, and what we give is not water, but wine, something that gives joy and pleasure to men's souls and sweetness to their lips.

The second nature that we see is that of the One who planted us, keeps us, and cares for us. God is our husbandman. He waters us and feeds us so that we may grow and produce fruit. Everything He puts into us produces fruit, so it is the fruit of His labor, and He partakes of its pleasures too. Left to our own way, we are nothing; we would wither and die.
What He puts into us is His very Spirit, His very presence. The fruits we produce are the fruits of His presence. It is sweetness and intoxicating joy to us as we are filled with His presence, and that presence is to be released unto others. Remember: we are the plant that brings His sweetness to men, and He is the sweetness that gives us life.

"Your Love flows in
And brings me Life.
The Fruit it makes
Is full of the same
Delight..."
-Jon Vowell

A Bit of Christian Mythos II: Dragons and Monsters

"In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and He shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." Isaiah 27:1

If there is one image of total malevolence known to all cultures across time, it is that of the dragon. No monster holds such nightmarish sway over the imaginations of the world. Even the Bible identifies them as a power too great for any man to crush (see Job 42). That is why the slaying of a dragon is one story that is etched in our minds: we know that something amazing and impossible has happened, that the extraordinary has occurred.

Now, Israel has seen its fair share of dragons: from Egyptian captivity to Babylonian exile to Roman rule to Arab attacks. The Church has also had its dragons, both from without and within. The Devil himself is identified as a great and dreadful dragon (Revelation 12:1-9). Dragons are an ever present part of our history, whether they have literal scales or no. This is just one of the many mythic elements that make up our lives.

Of course, we do not catch anymore the myth that we live in. The modern world has so destroyed our sense of wonder and romantic awe that our "Christianity" today is based on timetables and quotas: put in my prayer time here, my devotions here, get this many people saved this week and this many tracts handed out this week or the boss man won't be happy, punch in and out for church, etc. Goodness! One would swear we were part of some religion. Christianity is not a religion; it is a story. A religion is something you must keep; a story is something you are swept up into, i.e., it keeps you. We are not swept up anymore. Our minds seem geared against it.

Pray to God that He gives us mythic eyes again so we can see the chariots of fire around us; see the prince of this world fall like lightning from heaven; see the Godhead charging on a white steed, coming to slay dragons, and monsters out of the earth and sea; see the knife-edge we walk between heaven and hell. Perhaps (if you will permit me to say) Captain Jack Sparrow was right: the world is not smaller than it was, there is just less in it. The modern world is a vacuum that has sucked the numinous life out of everything, until there is no life anymore, just struggles to survive. Even mediocre days would be fraught with peril if we had mythic eyes to see with.

Life is about much more than survival; it is about the tale we have fallen into. Going out your door is a dangerous business; pray that God keeps your feet so that you are swept off and up into Him. Pray that the Lord of Myth gives you eyes to see and ears to hear the story He is telling, full of dungeons and dragons, monsters and mazes, good and evil, life and death, desolation and glory.

"What songs do you sing

That we do not hear?

What pictures do you paint

That we cannot see?

What stories do you weave

That we will not read?

O Lord! Such tragedy!"

-Jon Vowell