The air of new life breathed again

This morning, the leaves of the old oak in the front yard capture the depth and the breadth of the battle wage every humid morning of Fall and every heavy evening of Spring.

Water turned to wine. Check.
Dead eyes triggered to life. Check.
Ashes become blood, blood becomes bone, bone becomes strength to strength to strength. I've been born again; nothing becomes something. Check, check, check, check, check and check again.

The dead, stale, ragged, ugly intake of night is transformed to the very-much alive breath of life. Joy comes with the morning. CHECK.

Each morning, new. Each day, begun with energy. Each day, creation tapped like a cold keg, living water flowing from the throne.

Once broken beyond repair, we assumed, the mellow, warm song of Jesus is released into the clouds again, a Cardinal in search of a fellow traveler, and Oriole soaring, a Blue Jay's wings stretched.

And through it all, through it all, He is there. Here. In my life; riding the currents of despair as they are transformed into the winds of worship.

Oh, if our God is for us, then who in this world or outside of it could be against us? Who? Seriously, who?

In Hebrews' 10th chapter, we read: "The Jewish Law is not a full and faithful model of the real things; it is only a faint outline of the good things to come. The same sacrifices are offered forever, year after year. How can the Law, then, by means of these sacrifices make perfect the people who come to God?"

"We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new wave, a living way, through the curtain -- that is, through his own body."

Freedom. A faint but deliberate etch-a-sketch penciling of those incredible things to come. Sacrifices made. A living way pondered, sought and displayed.

Our God is a healer, a remedy, a big, ol' chapter in our lives that features cattle of thousands of hills and memories of millions of moments.

Jesus... Exclamation point on top of a miraculous past, serving as the wonderfully settling cherry as we load our lives with wonderful whipped cream and a billion bounties.

I'm sitting at Mary's desk this morning, a cool, dreary morning. The wind was just enough, just barely enough, to make a difference in temperatures, and it did, shoving away condensation like a Mustang's wipers attacking lost Lost Bugs. But as the sun struggled out of bed, with the light of a million mornings its companion, the stabbing needlepoint fought past limb after limb after limb till it reached me, inside of me, as unsettling as that might seem.

I was taken by it all, taken in by it all. It -- those smatterings of solid but mellow hope and monstrous but marvelous healing -- came home, to roost and to rest.

With complete freedom, the light roared, raced to shelter, opened a new wave, a living way of truth, through the curtain that had been its own body.  As the fog cleared, terrorized by the light of a world it could never understand, threatened by the light not of its own making, the varsity team awaited to play the game the junior varsity had scheduled.

In other words, the light of the world had come, and the darkness could do nothing about it.

Light raced darkness, and won as it always must in the battle against the world of the dark. Light wins. Darkness shrinks. That's the plan; that's the game. The sunlight struck the darkness, shattering it again, with the force of a hammer made of omnipotent substance. The darkness could not win. It would not. I never will.

And again hope pounces, offering as this fresh day dawns both adventure and opportunity. Ten thousand or more reasons are offered at the altar of sacrifice. We will win. We will shout. We will cry. We will win. That's the plan.

Isn't that what all this is about? Each day, new? Each day, hopeful? Each day, lovingly created, crafted, called?

Water turned to wine.
Dead eyes triggered to life.
Ashes become blood, blood becomes bone, bone becomes strength to strength to strength. I've been born again; nothing becomes something.

The dead of night is transformed to the breath of life. One more time. Feels new, refreshed, living ... for the very first time, in my life.