The beauty and the least

      Questions are the beginning of each good story, interestingly enough. Broken, battered we are, but from the brokenness we bounce toward the wonderful lap of our Father.

      The weariness actually strengthens us in some round-about way. Extreme promises are there for us because God is there for us in our weakness, waiting lovingly for us like parent waiting for child.

      So, as the windows fog, and doubt comes pouring like dirty rain on a summer's evening, warm but persistent, the kind you get when you are stuck in a place where spirituality is less than prominent, where less is more and least is better still.

      I pondered all this morning while on the lovely complicate path, home to lost, lost to home. I was not concerned that I didn’t know the final destination, for I assumed it not to be the, well, “final” destination at all. I believe my church, my friends to be hungry enough to make things happen and they are hungry enough to reach toward the great chef and impactful physician, our Lord Jesus Christ.

      Still, questions pour like invitations to the solace’s dance. The questions want to know the basics of what, when, where and how, like all good stories and writers do. The tales told by their keeper woo and they swing hither and yon, which is a fancy way of saying right and left … just out of reach, just out of touch. When finally I get there, barging in to the throne room, I lay every burden down at the foot of the cross, gingerly walking away knowing I could do no more than this, and that worry is futile.

       The burdens are awful occurrences, simple mistakes and terrible happenings that create questions whose answers can only exist in great peace in the land where the sun sends out streaks of sentries. That’s the place the unknown prospers.

      The unknown prospers where the evening is a shade of deep blue. The unknown prospers where night beckons, and its siren call is ashes to beauty, where forgiveness is worn like a crown and chunks of thick pink dot the sky surrounded by shades of white only found in William Faulkner’s short stories and in North Carolina blue cotton candy.

      It is spring in the Kingdom, and though we seek Him, we know we will find him. It is summer in the Kingdom, and though unpleasantly warm, it is worth the seeking.

      When we seek the Lord, He is available, promises tell us. It’s that simple and that complicated.

      He is here, there, everywhere. Dotting t’s and crossing I’s. He’s waiting, and he’s running -- towards us.

      That’s the God we serve, love, and seek. Unknown and known well.