when man reaches up towards Heaven…

“Spira, spera.”
(breathe, hope)
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

The day we met,
Frozen I held my breath
Right from the start
I knew that I’d found a home for my heart…

I have loved you
For a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more…
(Lyrics from Christina Perri A Thousand Years)

(Pieta by Niccola Coustou / Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2019)

Notre Dame—Our Lady of Paris

850 years of–

Christianity
faith
religion
spirituality
mysticism
relics

history
ingenuity
construction
architecture
labor
sacrifice

art
sculpture
poetry
prose
music
colored glass

revolution
desecration
coronations
funerals
burials
weddings

bishops
nuns
confessions
monastics
saints
sinners

humanity
bloodshed
loss
wars
peace
victories

humankind
survival
life
death
breath
hope…

Yet for now, there are too many emotions to express regarding this collective sense
of sorrow, grief and loss.

Our frail and feeble earthly attempts to reach upward to God will each eventually perish
while fading to both ash and dust…

and yet…

Our Heavenly Father’s reach, downward to us his children, will remain for eternity…

(detail of Virgin and Child by Antoine Vassé / Norte Dame Cathedral / Paris, France/ Julie Cook / 2019)

(detail of the iron work on the main entrance doorway / Norte Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2019)

(detail of the central portal (central enterance) of Notre Dame Cathedral / The Last Judgment, constructed in 1220/
Julie Cook / 2019)

(vaulted ceiling of Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France/ Julie Cook / 2019)

(South Rose Window / 1260 / Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / Julie Cook 2019)

(South exterior of Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2011)

(detail of flying buttresses and gargoyles / Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2011)

(detail of bell tower / Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France/ Julie Cook / 2011)

(south view of Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2011)

(Notre Dame Cathedral / Paris, France / 2011)

(Wesrtern facade of the bell tower entrance Notre Dame Cathedral /Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2011)

“He therefore turned to mankind only with regret.
His cathedral was enough for him.
It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least
did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence.
The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him –
he resembled them too closely for that.
It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at.
The saints were his friends and blessed him; the monsters were his friends and
kept watch over him.
He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues
in solitary conversation with it.
If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade.”
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

unseasonable

“Preserve me from unseasonable and immoderate sleep”
Samuel Johnson

(Helleborus / Lenten Rose / Julie Cook / 2017)

Unseasonable warmth gives way to
an unrelenting chain of events…

There is…

emerging,
birth,
growth…

A fullness of life…

there is preparing,
and a signaling of readiness,
and the ushering in of the new…

there is hopefulness…

Yet it is all so dangerously premature.
It is ill prepared,
unsuspecting,
and unsustainable…

It is out of step with time…

It is not strong enough to ward off that which will certainly be coming…

It is the living of a falsehood.

Living without regard for the Word,
while there is disregard for the Sovereign…
with contempt for the Promise…
Ignoring or discrediting all that has been proclaimed and foretold.

It is like the premature bloom…

Blooming,
growing,
living…
out of step and out of time…

Ignoring the rhythmic nature of what is to be,
only ushers in an inevitable destruction…
brought about by the reality of rebellion and ignorance.

What makes you think you are any different from the premature
blooms lulled into the pretense of Spring by an unrealistic and untimely change?
You who simply ignore the Truth because you find yourself basking in a
a false and unseasonable warmth…

All the while as you know, in the back of that mind of yours…
you who are fully aware that none of this of the superficial and self indulgent will last…

As you find yourself now unprepared to ward off that which is surely coming…

You will be defenseless and ill prepared.
You who have been basking and relishing in the allure of something other than the Truth.

Be not fooled by your own folly of bliss over the distortion of reality.
The Lion roars as winter is coming…
The premature thaw and warming winds will not last…
Take heed,
for you have been warned and now told…

Only those hearts humbled and now knowledgable will be ready…
for they have not given way to these foolish and heady times…

For out of the North,
and then the West,
while up from the South,
and finally the East…
the premature blooms will be trampled under the hooves
of the stampede…
those who run seeking a safe haven…
who will find none.

Yet the faithful will not dismayed…
you who have been prepared and ready…
Your time draws near…

As Hope is ushered in on the returning winds of change…
As His way has been prepared and now made ready,
as you who have been waiting,
now find yourself more than ready to pay homage to
the returning of the King.

Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of
the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
Matthew 24:20-21

Beauty in a bucket

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
Louisa May Alcott

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”
John Donne

(the fallen late blooms of the meyer lemon tree and an oak leaf float in a bucket of water / Julie Cook / 2014)

When might debris in a bucket deep,
take on such beauty doth to keep?
Which floats upon a surface sweet,
while wind and rain so strangely meet.
In Autumn’s late grey days of myth and lore,
as light doth fade forever more.
Be quick to see all who so chose,
for beauty hides just under your nose.

Blessings for a Tuesday full of surprising beauty and joy

For thus says the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
Isaiah 45:18

Memory

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

(an old home-place in the middle of nowhere western Georgia / Julie Cook / 2013)

The old metal spring frame screeches obnoxiously with the slightest turn and twist.
Eyes blink in the inky blackness haplessly trying to focus.
No street lights, no city glow, just the twinkling of a million stars filling an endless sky.

The mattress thin and lumpy, ancient army surplus, offers little in the way of comfort.
The unzipped sleeping bag certainly not refreshing in the stifling humid summer’s night air.
There’s no breeze, no movement, no relief. . .only the shrill symphony of sound produced by the profusion of an endless sea of tree frogs.

Lying in the darkness, with arms folded under head, staring upward at the nothingness in the tiny musty room, pleasant thoughts race across the expanse of time.
Old wooden planks pop and groan recalling the countless steps which once trod over the roughly hewn surface.
Fading laughter mixes with the steady hum of cicada.

The once binding tie of whispered secrets now mingle together with the rising smoke from the countless crackling fires.
Age old stones, stacked artfully together generations earlier, blackened by years of thick heavy soot, offer a warm, smokey, familiar welcome.

The intimate faces, which form a memorable past, collide in the middle of this darkened night, with the new faces of a current life.
The difference between now and then spans across an endless abyss of time and space.
The experiences of “then”, which make the current moments of “now”, merge mindlessly together resulting in the singleness of one

Lying in the darkness on a hot humid night, with all that was and with all that is, tenderly forming the basis of the dreams yet dreamt, heavy eyes now close as muscles give in to the weariness of time, while a magical dance of a thousand fireflies sparkles, beyond an old broken window, as the singleness of now is made whole by the union of then.

Sweet and simple

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

(a tiny sweet begonia blossom / Julie Cook / 2014)

Taking stock of what was,
melancholy and nostalgic,
do we count our treasures?

Looking back on a life long lived,
tired and weary,
can we hold our possessions in open arms?

Time no longer kind,
spent and gone,
is it who we know or who’ve known which matters most?

Complicated, overwhelming, excessive
No time, too busy, maybe later
What does any of it mean now?

Can we rewind, return, renew
The chances come and chances go
Time begs to begin again

Take it while you can
Hold on to it longer,
to all that mattes most

When everything was simple
When time never mattered
When less was happily more
When life was sweet

A Trinity Tale

“The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of Holiness: the Glory and the Power of the Trinity is the Glory and Power of God who makes us holy. There is God dwelling in light inaccessibly, a consuming fire of Holy Love, destroying all that resists, glorifying into its own purity all that yields. There is the Son, casting Himself into that consuming fire, whether in its eternal blessedness in heaven, or its angry wrath on earth, a willing sacrifice, to be its food and its satisfaction, as well as the revelation of its power to destroy and to save. And there is the Spirit of Holiness, the flames of that mighty fire spreading on every side, convicting and judging as the Spirit of Burning, and then transforming into its own brightness and holiness all that it can reach. All the relations of the Three Persons to each other and to us have their root and their meaning in the revelation of God as the Holy One. As we know and partake of Him, we shall know and partake of Holiness.”
― Andrew Murray

(two images of two different trillium plants, Trillium cuneatum / Troup County, Georgia, the middle of nowhere in virgin woods / Julie Cook / 2014)

The tears of a forlorn Father, who wandered alone in the woods the day His Son hung on a cross, fell silently to the ground.
As the tears fell, trickling down through the scattered leaves and debris,
the Earth trembled.

The Earth, now sad for its Creator, wanted to offer comfort.
For each fallen tear, a small plant soon emerged
Three leaves with a tiny three leaved bloom
White for the purity of the sacrificed Son
Red for the innocent blood shed for all mankind

Each Spring, year after year, the trillium returns
offering to all who may wander wood and glen
a reminder . . .
The Sorrow of a grief stricken Father
The Sacrifice of selfless Son
The Grace of a transcending Spirit

“Crown Him with many crowns”

Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered… the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith… All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.
Thomas Becket

(a blooming dogwood / Julie Cook / 2014)

Dogwoods blooming turn skyward,
tinged by the rust of nails.
A thousand tiny crowns lifting to the Heavens
While the echoes of sorrow linger in the wind

Three hours, three days, three cackles of the cock
The lamb is lead to slaughter
A noose tightens as a sponge offers up bitter gall
Life and death begin a precarious slow dance
As every soul hangs in the balance between loss and hope

Arms extend upward bearing fingers stiff with pain as a head falls forward
Blood and water flow into one when the spear pierces the innocent
Assent and decent turn upside down
Limbs now frozen in place while a fierce battle rages
The tomb is sealed as day becomes night

Only mystery remains of the terrible war.
Blinding light reflects terror in bloodshot eyes
Fear lingers in the face of the defeated
As the earth shifts, a heel crushes the head of the snake
Chains fall away along with the discarded shroud
When a single pierced hand finally lifts a golden crown