“Therefore, praise and adoration to God, the Holy Spirit who awakens in hard, dead men the grace of repentance. He gives it to those who ask for it. “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.””

“Evil quietly slips through the doorway and into our souls when we leave the door open only a crack just to see what might happen. And when evil moves in, it moves in to stay.”

“Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

“Those of us who write, who sing, who paint, must remember that to a child a song may glow like a nightlight in a scary bedroom. It may be the only things holding back the monsters. That story may be the only beautiful, true thing that makes it through all the ugliness of a little girl’s world to rest in her secret heart. May we take that seriously. It is our job, it is our ministry, it is the sword we swing in the Kingdom, to remind children that the good guys win, that the stories are true, and that a fool’s hope may be the best kind.
If you’re called to do this sort of work, then keep those dear ones in your mind as you fight your way up the long mountain of obedience. You’ll be tempted to slow down, or to take and easier route—but it is only by discipline that you’ll finish, and it is only in finishing that you’ll be able to offer up your humble work to those weary souls who may need it.”

“Maybe the song you’re writing is for one specific heartbroken soul who won’t be born for another four hundred years.”

“Remembering scenes from my own story, I realized that I had found part of the lost journey of my heart. As a young boy, my heart and join it in a kind of joyful exuberance; mystery that hinted of a story that existed on it’s own outside my own fanciful creations; a story that nonetheless invited me to be part of it as I constructed my childhood adventures; a story that offered me villains and heroes and a story line that evolved out of their conflict; a story that, along with telling me of great danger, also told me that all things would be well; a story that felt as if it began in laughter and was confident that it would bring all who were a part of it home in a joyful communion.”

““But to all who did accept him and believe in him he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12 NCV

Once the world was as big as wonder was easy. We bolted down our halls reckless and barefooted. Adventure and exploration filled us with something electric. Innocence was mischievous and sacred. Things that seem so small to us now provoked the endless question ‘why?’ And we were not then afraid to ask. May wonder return to you again, childlike, fearless, primal, charged with originality and daring, the stuff of ecstasy and awe, evidence of the divine, wonder that made it easy to believe. May you begin to ask the questions you asked in a more curious time, in an uncivilized time, before the rod of our corrections transformed everything, that cut our playtime short, a time before we began to forget.

In Christ, my fellowship with Wonder, Amen

May you be unsettled with wonder. May it come like love itself, timeless, without conditions, innocent, playful, pure, uncivilized, sacred, reckless and barefooted.
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