Mastery

“Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?”
Michel de Montaigne

(abandoned nest of a barn swallow / Julie Cook / 2016)

Intricately and amazingly woven and spun.

Freshly planted moss now utilized as lace accenting, ever so sweetly, the nursery of two small creatures.

The ability of birds to not simply build but rather to command harmonically a symphony of interwoven
this and thats…is beyond the descriptive words of the human mind

A Creator who endowed birds with the gift of artistry and mastery in all things utilitarian…
oh what can’t He do, what won’t He do, for us…

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.
1 John 3:1-2

living in the shadows

“Gregory of Nyssa points out that Moses’s vision of God began with the light, with the visible burning bush, the bush which was bright with fire and was not consumed; but afterwards, God spoke to him in a cloud. After the glory which could be seen with human eyes, he began to see the glory which is beyond and after light. The shadows are deepening all around us.”
Madeleine L’Engle

(shadows cast on the grounds of Adare Manor / Adare, Co Limerick, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

While no one seems to take notice,
Distortions and false precepts gather around the faithful…
like opportunistic buzzards circling overhead …

All the while a noose tightens…

The hard truths have been concealed by the naive,
who with their blankets of all things happy,
dole out feel good prosaics offering only false hope…
numbing the reality of all those who prescribe.

Like a spider’s sticky web, the lies have been beautifully spun…

Reality was decided long ago yet it appears to be more than most care to bare…
So a heavy dish of falsehoods and half-truths have been offered up with limitless appeal

And now discernment must play a pivotal role.

Not all who follow claim the one and only Truth…
they’ve been chasing after the elusive shadows…
which disappear with the fading light

Judgement now dances a strange dance with confusion.

Time has arrived with its decisive ultimatum…
Choose Light
Choose the Life
or…
remain hidden within the shape shifting shadows of your own distorted illusion…

These are a shadow of the things that were to come;
the reality, however, is found in Christ.
Colossians 2:17

The diligence of time

“The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject… And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them… Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.”
― Seneca

(portion of a massive spider’s web / Troup Co. Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

Woven and spun in the season of lengthening shadows.
Strength in the most delicate of thread.
Steadfast, determined, ever diligent to the task.
Over and under, in and out, loop and hook.

Easily broken, laboriously repaired
Each day passing as the day before
Stretching, giving, taking, bending
Up and down, side by side, criss then cross

Luminescent, translucent, barely seen yet keenly felt
Holding fast and tightly firm
Beauty in the tiniest detail
Master weaver ever toiling without complaint

Assailed and assaulted come tempest wind or driving rain
Victim of ravenous foe who vie for hungriest claim
Never deterred, never wavering, constantly steady
Spinning and weaving without delay

Intuitive skill or mindless action
Eons of time have witnessed no change
Beauty found in necessity of action
Survival in the most delicate thread

the warp and weft of Nature’s master weavers

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Chief Seattle

(images of both male and female green lynx spiders which blend in beautifully with the coral geraniums / Julie Cook / 2014—remember, I’m terribly fearful of spiders but the colors were such a draw, almost mesmerizing)

“Life is but a Weaving” (the Tapestry Poem)

“My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.”
― Corrie ten Boom