Posts Tagged ‘Isaiah 11’

Beautiful and Safe

Posted: September 22, 2020 in nature
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Sun seeking jungle vines are heliotropic. They race one another up tree trunks to the light. One type of thorny bramble whips from side to side, shoving other plants out of the way. How rude! It is a jungle out there.

The Queen Victoria’s Water Lily has circular leaves that can grow to over 8 feet in diameter and float holding up almost 100 pounds in weight. Air is trapped in the ribs of the leaves. Air mattress plants.

The Africa acacia tree produces a whistling sound from the bulbous of its thorn. It also makes friendships with ants. Ants who can be whistled in? Maybe not.

Smart kites and falcons in Australia fly into active fires to pick up smouldering sticks and carry them away to area the flames have not yet reached. They start new fires to flush game from that area. They use fire to hunt. So much for a romantic view of nature. Yikes! Mice, snakes, lizard and rabbits should all move out of Australia. Find a nice, small suburban yard in London or maybe San Diego.

Forest trees have learned to live in mutually beneficial relationships. The trees communicate using a collective intelligence much like an insect colony. They share water and food through networks. Cooperative. We could learn from the trees.

Sand dunes are built one sand grain at a time. Each dune type is the result of different wind patterns, and the presence or lack of vegetation on the ground. It’s a self-organizing phenomenon. Beautiful! It’s natures geomancy, the art of arranging buildings auspiciously.

Our world! Strange. Instructive. Brutal. Beautiful.

Today I helped a butterfly escape from our patio cover. It was trapped there banging frantically against the fabric until I guided it with my hand down to where the cover ended. Then it fluttered away, freed. Safe.

I like the cooperative elements. The forest trees working together. The acacia and the ants. Beautiful and safe. It’s coming.

Isaiah 11

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling a together;

and a little child will lead them.

7The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8The infant will play near the cobra’s den,

and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

9They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

The Wolf Will Live With the Lamb

Posted: July 4, 2020 in love
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“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

Isaiah 11:6

I want that world! We need that world.

I want the world that ends harm. I want an end to suffering. I want to end racism. I want to end the pandemic of 2019- 2020. I want to end all disease. I want to end all poverty. I want enough food, enough good shelter, enough clean water for every creature. I ache for an over-spilling love for every creature. My desiderata, the desire of so many others too, particularly the oppressed, is the universe of Isaiah the prophet.

Is this peaceable kingdom possible? If so, what volition can make this harm-free world possible?

Our volition must play a role. We must act to bring changes. Justice, fairness, care, sharing provision, choosing good leaders, choosing love can be our choice to make a better world, but we need God to be our agent. He has the power to change hearts, confront evil powers, inspire and lead this change. He is the prime player in all reform, in all justice, in all redemption. Earlier in the Isaiah passage “a shoot … from the stump of Jesse,” a clear reference to Jesus, brings the peaceable kingdom about.

Isaiah writes, “He [the shoot] will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.”

I love that world! I love the poor and needy taken care of. I love wickedness trounced. I love righteousness won. I love pain defeated. I choose to believe that world is yet possible. Why? Because it is God’s vision, his intention, his choice. He wants to end oppression, injustice, violence and suffering and he will defy resistance and do just that.

And he can — for he exists as and in his own freedom — and he will do what he says he will do. He is the source of all agency and the creator of all redemption. He is the one who will undo the underpinnings of current harms and make a safe world for his own.

By agentic power — the power that flung the universe into place — God will water his garden and nothing will stop him.