Prayer of the insignificant (repeat 2015)

There is nothing insignificant in the world.
It all depends on the point of view.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(mum / Julie Cook / 2015)

Who am I oh Lord that you should consider my worth…
That you, the God of all that was…
Of all that is…
And all that will be…
Whose hands sweep across time…
Who has masterfully scattered the stars across the heavens…
And whose own breath is captured in the rhythmic roll of each and
every crashing wave…would look upon me,
a tiny speck in the vast churning sea of life and humanity…
And call me your own

(mum /Julie Cook / 2015)

A thousand tiny petals…
Each lovingly placed by your hand and your hand alone.
Counted, numbered and perfectly aligned.
Tightly woven.
Spiraling outward.
Unfurling simultaneously.
An insignificant happening transpiring daily and unnoticed by millions…
Yet You are keenly aware of it all as nothing, absolutely nothing,
takes place on this planet without your desire and knowledge

(stamens full of pollen / Julie Cook / 2015)

Each tiny microscopic dot of pollen exists because You have deemed it so.
Every single unassuming spore, necessary to set a miraculous chain
of events into motion,
Exists only because of You.
Pollination, a miracle unto itself, yet countlessly taken for granted,
Plays out every day, over an endless expanse of time,
as yet another flower blooms.

My mind is woefully limited, unable to grasp the vastness of all that is You.
I cannot understand how or why You, the all encompassing You,
stops because of the small and insignificant me.
Yet stop You do.

You stop to
Listen
See
Touch
Care
Love

Long before my birth, You claimed me as yours–
with both the rising and setting of the sun.

The Psalmists tells me that each hair on my aging head is accounted for
And that nothing which transpires in my life escapes your knowledge.
As I often…
Question…
Wonder…
Argue…
Curse…and rail against the seemingly random and mindless fates
of life that appear unfair and unjust.

Yet each life is inextricably linked together
Each breath, each tear, each sound of joy, pain or sorrow
is woven tightly together, as the Master of the Universe
Jehovah-Jireh has declared it so . . .
As You, the Master weaver, Jehovah-Rapha has knit my heart to your own.

May the Glory of the Heavens declare your Majesty, Oh Lord. . .
May the earth, and all that is in it, sing your praise.

And may my seemingly insignificance, which is held tightly in your hand,
as I am never from your sight, be a testament to your enduring Love
Forever and always…
Amen

(Hope in a flower / Julie Cook / 2015

What do the wise among us see

“Saruman rose to his feet, and stared at Frodo. There was a strange look in his eyes of mingled wonder and respect and hatred. ‘You have grown, Halfling,’ he said. ‘Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel. you have robbed my revenge of sweetness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you! Well, I go and I will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell.”
J.R.R. Tolkien

(a curious jackdaw watches from the crumbling walls at The Rock of Cahsel, County Tipperary, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

What of those wise men…
those sages of days long past…
those perceptive foreign kings who would travel from far far away in search of the sacred, the mysterious, the Divine?

What of those enlightened seers who once possessed a depth of wisdom not afforded to the masses of their time…
Of those scholarly patricians, scientists and astronomers of yore, those who studied both the heavens and the stars hoping to see, to foretell, and to discern those dire or joyful events which were to befall mankind…

I wonder what their thoughts, predictions, and discernments would be for our day and of our time…would they travel day and night all those many miles wandering only hoping to pay homage or rather would they hasten to warn those willing few brave enough to heed their divinations?

Would their concern be of the escalating global warming as they measured various viscous liquids watching the rise and fall of floating objects within a myriad of glass vessels?
Would they gather dirt and seed while measuring the falling rains?
Would the increasing number of tumultuous storms, floods, fires and earthquakes give way to a heightened need of understanding fueling their global quest?
Would their concern be of the climate shift and of the rising ocean temperatures?
What of the mysterious “die offs” of massive numbers of fish, antelopes, star fish, birds…
What would these learned men who sought to understand the balance between health and living make of these new pandemics, epidemics, plagues and unexplained global sicknesses?
What of the melting icecaps, would they even be aware of opposing earthly poles encased in ice and snow?

Would they unroll their brittle parchments and calfskin scrolls plotting and planning while measuring the charted maps of both known land, sea and heavens?
Would their vision be cast upward during a nighttime sky as they pondered the oddity of 4 successive large reddish moons which each oddly took place during a holy day or festival of the Hebrew people?

(the half moon in the Killarney night sky / Sept 2015 / Julie Cook )

Would they read the words of ancient prophets and prophesies wondering if there were connections and correlations or would they simply pass it all away as coincidence.
Would they yield to the ancient scriptural warnings of things long foretold or would they consider the ancient tomes written by those delusional and crazed?

What of the star, that lone bright and brilliant star which had beckoned them years prior to that tiny Jewish village on the periphery of the expansive Roman Empire…
What of the ancient texts and the cross references of the both sacred and secular…were they but mere conjecture?

What other celestial and earthly signposts and events must appear before the wise and the average both understand?

(moonlight over Killarney, Ireland / Sept 2015 / Julie Cook

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:6-14

An evening’s wonder

Shut your eyes, wait, think of nothing. Now, open them … one sees nothing but a great coloured undulation. What then? An irradiation and glory of colour. This is what a picture should give us … an abyss in which the eye is lost, a secret germination, a coloured state of grace … loose conciousness. Descend with the painter into the dim tangled roots of things, and rise again from them in colors, be steeped in the light of them.
Paul Cezanne

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Excerpt from “Do not go gentle into the night”
Dylan Thomas

(western sky at a Winter’s sunset / Julie Cook / 2015)

Dry crisp clean air sweeps downward, deep across the land.
All the while as a myriad of minuscule molecules swirl with palpable excitement.
Invisible dust particles sashay from side to side,
as brilliant rays of light streak across the horizon.
The color catchers of light, that gauzy blanket of clouds, fans ever outward acting as a giant scooping net capturing all of Red.
Gleefully the Master Creator slings a seemingly sopping wet brush full of scarlet pigment outward from the western sky.
Orange and yellow drip and ooze off of a massive palette like melting ice-cream from a cone.

Ominous?
Foreboding?
Harbinger?
Perhaps. . .

Yet it is the sheer magnitude and overwhelming sense of mastery which now shrouds any and all worry or fear. Brilliancy is effortlessly scattered out across the heavens.
Who can doubt such a Master Artist and His existence while standing in awe of such a display?
Can mere meteorology and science neatly put this canvas into a tight fitting box?
They tell of the pieces and the parts, of the hows and whys. . .
They tell of the lengths of rays, curvatures of the planet, the makeup of an atmosphere and of why an eye may see. . .

Yet there is more to this dazzling painting and its perception than what literally meets the eye.
The inspiring observance of this masterful moment affords the viewer insight into the telling strokes, the intimate fingerprints, of the Master Artist. Selfless abandon covers this canvas as the designs of the Divine are poured out to each viewer, freely given. A vast gift of love poured out from one heart to another. . .benevolently offered without expectations, demands or requirements from the Master Creator to the created.

The day is now done and gone is the sun. . .as we sweetly dream as to what new wonders will soon be in sight. . .

The rise of the perigee-syzygy. . .Behold, “the Supermoon”

(the super moon hidden behind storm clouds / Julie Cook / 2014)

According to informational sites such as Wikipedia and timeanddate.com, the phenomenon known as “perigee-syzygy” (syzygy is Greek meaning “yolked together,” or in our case this would refer to an alignment of say, our Earth and moon) or that which is commonly referred to as a Supermoon, takes place usually twice a year when a full moon is closest in its elliptical orbit to the Earth. As the moon’s obit brings it closest to the Earth, more so than other full moon phases, the result is the largest appearance in size, as well as light cast from the moon–as much as 14% larger and 30% brighter– as is observed from here on Earth—hence being dubbed a Supermoon.

And according to those in the know, this Supermoon is to be the most “super” as we will not have the moon this close to Earth, along with all the perfect alignments, for a predicted 20 more years or so. There is also the Perseid meter shower which is to be taking place simultaneously with this most super of moons but the light cast from the full moon makes seeing any stars, let alone a passing meteor, nearly impossible.

Grabbing my camera and heading outside around 11 PM, I find a mix of cloud and illuminated sky as the Supermoon does its best to rise. Despite the littering of clouds from fading summer storms, my first view of the moon is of it resting behind the passing storm clouds. The accompanying eerie flashes of color from within the clouds, produced by steaks of lightening, make the observation of such a magical event even more spectacular.

As the storm clouds eventually loose their energy and fade from view, the moon rises to its full splendor against the backdrop of the nighttime sky. . .
Oh to have the type of camera and skills necessary to capture such a brilliant display from our tiny little orbiting neighbor. . .

And what wonders they are, available for all to behold—lovingly displayed from the tip of a masterful Creator’s brush. . .

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Psalm 19:1-4

(the rising of the supermoon from behind the stormy clouds of a summer’s night / Julie Cook /2014)

“Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.”
― James Joyce

(brilliant supermoon / Julie Cook / 2014)

(Summer’s supermoon / Julie Cook / 2014)

(Summer’s supermoon / Julie Cook / 2014)