Prophetic Endurance

It's a heat wave. I thought you had gone away. But the score is half scribbled down . . . You could saw me in half if you're a magician, but likely both sides of me would groan from the ground, half matted with blood. I would fall there– my ears buried in wattles, my feet pointed in snow, my hands clenching my old Journal where I wrote in Latin. And when they would unclench and it would fall to the ground, it would lie there unbroken. Each word, lifeless, until the next swallow sang. Shrill notes to waken the dead, perched on each crest of sill. They clutch with their small bird claws, grey bird feet. They sit there and twitter ever so lightly of sun and warmth and all nature holds dear. 

Half matted with death, I would turn lifeless with cold, and shivering renounce all my earthly stones for the gems of one crown. My amethyst prophesies would all glimmer like a sea of words, where I was bathed in salt and thought relentlessly, waves crashing violently to shore, driftwood stoic, as children made nests and forts amid the wreckage of my futility.

I was one to bring hope, one to heal the ivory fragments, the dismembered purple mind, the feverish red rant, the darkened navy eyes, with a sensitivity to touch and silk greenness no one could emulate. Often called upon as an acacia sweeping the African sky: ambient "mimosa". All who said my name made me recoil, shrink back in absolutes. There was no wind, nor could there be. There was no wind!

I ordered a hundred mimosa seeds for five dollars. The mimosa plants are en route, and I shall harvest them, and I shall dry them, and I shall pour boiling water over them and make tea. Have half a cup with me, my mother? Would you like some cream?

Some dried petals, and a little beeswax, an angel must have dwelled in you while only a shell or I would not have risen into buttercup glory. The trees bow their boughs, the line of evergreens blows back and forth over the garden, an owl hovering. The moonlight falls gently on a stalk or a vine, a seedling or an herb, a berry or a rounded cherry tomato. My stars are seeking reception in the constellation-ordered darkness. Their ethereal realms are too far to touch unless you are truly alone and stand on tiptoe. Their minute light swims in the goat milk galaxy, where women are wholesome, brush their hair from their eyes, and harvest the bounty of the lives around them before it rots on the vine.

In good time! Let's commence now– juice and wine, bread and lentils, chives and onions. The stew pot is full and we have room for cherished guests around the table. 

I'll cut the bread. Here is the butter. The vase is full of rose blossoms, falling on the tapestried runner like snow.

The wineglasses are filled with iced wine, and we are once again giving birth, in pre-contemplation of a future child.

"A child with a name?" you ask.  Yes, and her name is Della, named after you.

When summer takes hold of the mind, our blooms open and fall in tandem with the rose and mimosa. But we are rigid with turgor, our thorns are proud to keep others away. Lest they be pierced as Christ was pierced in reaching for heaven. 

Yet a ray of light would fall on this old wood table and illumine for me why we transgress and trespass– and fly away before we are discerned. We are too afraid to reach for heaven in the darkest moment of our humanity. For then we would see the redemption. We would break it and eat it as something we are dependent on to be one with everyone else in need of a Saviour.

Letter from Emily Isaacson to her mother (Della) on Mother's Day 2023. 

  Mimosa Tree

–Photo from  https://thehorticult.com/have-another-mimosa-the-blooming-of-a-controversial-southern-belle/

 

The word of the LORD came to me:

“Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are now prophesying. Say to those who prophesy out of their own imagination: ‘Hear the word of the LORD!

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!

Your prophets, Israel, are like jackals among ruins.

You have not gone up to the breaches in the wall to repair it for the people of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD.

Their visions are false and their divinations a lie. Even though the LORD has not sent them, they say, “The LORD declares,” and expect him to fulfill their words.

Have you not seen false visions and uttered lying divinations when you say, “The LORD declares,” though I have not spoken?

“ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because of your false words and lying visions, I am against you, declares the Sovereign LORD.

My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.

“ ‘Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth.

When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”

“ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury.

I will tear down the wall you have covered with whitewash and will level it to the ground so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you will be destroyed in it; and you will know that I am the LORD.

So I will pour out my wrath against the wall and against those who covered it with whitewash. I will say to you, “The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it, those prophets of Israel who prophesied to Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her when there was no peace, declares the Sovereign LORD.” ’

“Now, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their own imagination. Prophesy against them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all their wrists and make veils of various lengths for their heads in order to ensnare people. Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserve your own?

You have profaned me among my people for a few handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to my people, who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live.

“ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against your magic charms with which you ensnare people like birds and I will tear them from your arms; I will set free the people that you ensnare like birds.

I will tear off your veils and save my people from your hands, and they will no longer fall prey to your power. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

Because you disheartened the righteous with your lies, when I had brought them no grief, and because you encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways and so save their lives, therefore you will no longer see false visions or practice divination. I will save my people from your hands. And then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ”

Ezekiel 13 (NIV)

---

I teach a creative writing course at the local art gallery. It has been on hold during the pandemic, but I am hoping to start up again soon. As an ice-breaker I am going to share some creative writing hints I wrote called The Archway to Insight . . .

Open the door of the mind

Be prolific

Question the slums of life

Bloom where you're planted

Art is just around the corner

Be rock solid at criticism

Pursue solitude

---

As Anne Morrow Lindberg put it. . .

“The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real discipline or sharp flights of spirit. One never learns. Hopefully, one carried down the faded straw bag, lumpy with books, clean paper, long over-due unanswered letters, freshly sharpened pencils, lists and good intentions. The books remain unread, the pencils break their points and the pads rest smooth and unblemished as the cloudless sky. No reading, no writing, no thoughts even—at least, not at first.

"At first, the tired body takes over completely. As on shipboard, one descends into a deck-chair apathy. One is forced against one’s mind, against all the tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the seashore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of all yesterday’s scribblings."

(Source: Gift from the Sea. Anne Morrow Lindberg).

Lindberg prefaced it by saying, ”Besides, I thought, not all women are searching for a new pattern of living, or want a contemplative corner of their own. Many women are content with their lives as they are. They manage amazingly well, far better than I, it seemed to me, looking at their lives from the outside. With envy and admiration, I observed the porcelain perfection of their smoothly ticking days. Perhaps they had no problems, or had found the answers long ago . . .

"But as I went on writing and simultaneously talking with other women, young and old, with different lives and experiences—those who supported themselves, those who wished careers, those who were hard-working housewives and mothers, and those with more ease—I found that my point of view was not unique. In varying settings and under different forms, I discovered that many women, and men too, were grappling with essentially the same questions as I, and were hungry to discuss and argue and hammer out possible answers. Even those whose lives had appeared to be ticking  . . . under their smiling clock-faces were often trying, like me, to evolve another rhythm with more creative pauses in it, more adjustment to their individual needs, and new and more alive relationships to themselves as well as others."

As Luci Shaw wrote, “Silence and solitude leave us undistracted so that the messages can arrive undistorted, clear and true.

   But so many are afraid of silence and of being alone. They wonder, what if nothing happens?  . . .But, in gradual steps, and given some simple tools people can begin to experience contemplation for themselves and discover that it is transformative. And this transformation (as well as the waiting) also informs—always—the place where our creative work is done. For artists, this combination of discipline and listening-receiving is a true cornerstone.

   To be an artist, to live out the persistence of spiritual hunger and thirst—those seasons of drought and rain in art, in the weather, and in spiritual vitality—or a sense of connection with God the transcendent Almighty, in the context of an overwhelmingly material universe—is a kind of evidence of spirituality’s existence and importance. . .

   This mystery, this spill of clues to an unseen reality, is very much a part of the artist’s as well as the mystic’s life."

This is from the chapter, Listening to the Muse, from the book Breath for the Bones by Luci Shaw.

Her friend Madeleine L’Engle wrote: "I was lucky as a child in being given a lot of solitude. . . Allowing the child a certain amount of solitude in a reasonably safe environment . . . is allowing the child’s imagination to grow and develop, so that the child may ultimately learn how to be mature."

(Source: Walking on Water. Madeleine L'Engle)

As Luci put it, “In George Bernard Shaw’s play Joan of Arc, Joan’s captors respond to her claim that she hears God by telling her that it’s just “something in her imagination.” She responds, “Exactly. That is how God speaks to me, through my imagination.” This is very often how I feel (Luci Shaw continues)—that words, ideas, and rhythms are given to my imagination, handed to me as a gift for which I am infinitely grateful. But the gift must be shaped and crafted if I am to be a cocreator with God."

---

It’s a cracked crossover world, waiting

For bridges. He escapes our categories,

Choosing his own free forms—fire, dove,

Wind, water, oil—closing the breach

In figures that flicker within.

—Luci Shaw

(Source: Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit. Luci Shaw.)

---

When I was taking a course in the prophetic, I learned from Murray Dueck, the leader of Samuel’s Mantle that prophets in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, were considered false and condemned if they prophesied out of their imaginations. He read a selection from the chapter at the top of the page from Ezekiel. I wondered if I could think differently about prophecy and the imagination.

“Maimonides suggested that "prophecy is, in truth and reality, an emanation sent forth by Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man's rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty." (Wikipedia).

On this website Prophetic Worldwide we ask:

What is your definition of prophecy?

Should prophecy engage the imagination, and if so, how?

Would you respond better to an overt word or a subtle word picture?

Does God speak to us through our immediate faculties, or in secret ways?

---

To quote from lessons on the empathetic imagination by Beth Kephart:

Open your eyes to open your heart.

Use your imagination as an arrow hurtling back toward what might have been or will never be.

Use the distance between the facts and your yearning to change those facts as your personal redemption.

Meander within the space of insufficient evidence.

Make your readers the agents of empathy.

Think of what might have been as a prayer.

Hope.

Define again the categories of our empathetic imagination, to get a little closer to the truth.

I am a storyteller.

The power of your forgiveness.

You have found your story.

Your greatest achievement is not behind you.

A house of memoir, she said. A shelter for the truth.

(Source: Wife/Daughter/Self:a Memoir in Essays, Beth Kephart.)

---

In compiling my stories for the work of fiction called Ageless Confessions I am launching this Friday night (see invitation) I drew from my own life experiences. I also drew from my imagination to recreate scenes of an area of Victoria called Fairfield and Rockland. Because I felt the preceeding short stories were necessary to set the tone or atmosphere of the novel, it is preceeded by about five short stories about various times in history and varying social classes. This I called a segue. Buy the book.

---

A woman should be like a fortified city, but so many women today have their walls and constitution broken down. It can be broken down by abuse, by health problems, and by neglect. It can be broken down by rape, by verbal abuse, and by stigma. Poverty never makes for a functioning citadel. What should we do to heal a broken down city? Studying the city of Cacassone has given me some insight. It's history is prophetic.

---

More on Carcassone . . .

The first signs of settlement in this region have been dated to about 3500 BC, but the hill site of Carsac—a Celtic place-name that has been retained at other sites in the south—became an important trading place in the sixth century BC. The Volcae Tectosages fortified it and made it into an oppidum, a hill fort, which is when it was named "Carsac".

The folk etymology—involving a châtelaine named Lady Carcas, a ruse ending a siege, and the joyous ringing of bells ("Carcas sona")—though memorialized in a neo-Gothic sculpture of Mme. Carcas on a column near the Narbonne Gate, is of modern invention. The name can be derived as an augmentative of the name Carcas.

Carcassonne became strategically identified when the Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made it the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcaso, later Carcasum (by the process of swapping consonants known as metathesis). The main part of the lower courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times. In 462 the Romans officially ceded Septimania to the Visigothic king Theodoric II who had held Carcassonne since 453. He built more fortifications at Carcassonne, which was a frontier post on the northern marches—traces of them still stand.

Theodoric is thought to have begun the predecessor of the basilica that is now dedicated to Saint Nazaire. In 508 the Visigoths successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish king Clovis. Saracens from Barcelona took Carcassonne in 725. King Pepin the Short (Pépin le Bref) drove them away in 759–60.

A medieval fiefdom, the county of Carcassonne, controlled the city and its environs. It was often united with the county of Razès. The origins of Carcassonne as a county probably lie in local representatives of the Visigoths, but the first count known by name is Bello of the time of Charlemagne. Bello founded a dynasty, the Bellonids, which would rule many honores in Septimania and Catalonia for three centuries.

Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209

In 1067, Carcassonne became the property of Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes, through his marriage with Ermengard, sister of the last count of Carcassonne. In the following centuries, the Trencavel family allied in succession with either the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus. In 1096, Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral.

Carcassonne became famous for its role in the Albigensian Crusades when the city was a stronghold of Occitan Cathars. In August 1209 the crusading army of the Papal Legate, abbot Arnaud Amalric, forced its citizens to surrender. Viscount Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was imprisoned whilst negotiating his city's surrender and died in mysterious circumstances three months later in his own dungeon. The people of Carcassonne were allowed to leave—in effect, expelled from their city with nothing more than the shirt on their backs. Simon de Montfort was appointed the new viscount and added to the fortifications.

In 1240, Trencavel's son tried to reconquer his old domain but in vain. The city submitted to the rule of the kingdom of France in 1247. Carcassonne became a border fortress between France and the Crown of Aragon under the 1258 Treaty of Corbeil. King Louis IX founded the new part of the town across the river. He and his successor Philip III built the outer ramparts. Contemporary opinion still considered the fortress impregnable. During the Hundred Years' War, Edward the Black Prince failed to take the city in 1355, although his troops destroyed the Lower Town.

In 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrenees transferred the border province of Roussillon to France, and Carcassonne's military significance was reduced. Its fortifications were abandoned and the city became mainly an economic center that concentrated on the woollen textile industry, for which a 1723 source quoted by Fernand Braudel found it "the manufacturing center of Languedoc".It remained so until the Ottoman market collapsed at the end of the eighteenth century, thereafter reverting to a country town.

(Source: Wikipedia)

---

"The French city of Carcassonne is one of the most perfectly preserved walled cities of the world and the largest walled city in Europe. The fortification consists of two outer walls, towers and barbicans built over a long period of time. One section is Roman and is notably different from the medieval walls with the red brick layers and the terracotta tile roofs. One of these towers housed the Catholic Inquisition in the 13th Century and is still known as ‘The Inquisition Tower’. Portions of the 1991 film ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’ were shot in and around Carcassonne." (Source: https://www.touropia.com/walled-cities-in-the-world)

---

Carcassone is one of the 22 most impressive walled cities in the world, third after Jerusalem. The city given as a metaphor for the Holy City in the Bible is Jerusalem, and her history is depicted by scribes, saints, and Biblical scholars down through the centuries. Those living outside her gates were those rejected by society. They lived in the desert, and were in the company of shepherds, and other rough characters who lived in the wilds. This is typically where prophets lived.

To live within the gates of the walled city is to be fortified. This is a description of safety. Today in modern times it also refers to the food supply being fortified by various vitamins and minerals to prevent disease. When you eat a fortified food, you feel safe. You think that you are getting the minimal amount of vitamins and minerals you need to prevent things like scurvy, beriberi and pellagra. The idea that our diet is fortified is somewhat deceptive. So is the walled city. Why would someone choose to live outside it, for instance?

There is a desire to return to the natural state of food, as there is a desire in man to be a survivalist and return to the wild. A prophet is someone usually unrefined, so they prefer to be unfortified also. The natural state of the desert is closer to the natural state of being with God, without many possessions, without family, without distractions of the acceptable life. Without the security and provisions of the fortified city and those that belong to the common good citizen. Eventually, in the modern age we will seek a return to natural materials, and clothing, linen, and textures that exemplify the desert colour patterns, and rough feel. This is akin to our roots, of travelling nomads, living in tents around the time of Abraham. 

I buy a lot of the material in my house in linen including bedding, tunics, and long dresses, coats, some of it flax linen from Europe. I try to furnish my house with solid wood furniture, and with bamboo, and jute. I have hyacinth baskets in my living room that smell like a tobacco field. This return to natural fibers, materials, and smells gives a sense of the nomadic existence of the desert. This is also sometimes called transience. I think I have lived in fourteen residences of my own or with roommates since I left home at eighteen. I think it is a worthwhile gift to develop your roots, your reputation, and stay in one place but the Lord has also used a nomadic perspective to not let me get too deep for everyone to understand or relate too. I like the idea of living in one place, but I feel now that I live in the desert outside the city and that I am rejected by most. I am accompanied by a couple of rough-looking shepherds, and we pitch our tent, and have a campfire most nights, and eat under the stars.

Living with little and having little, is also a skill that allows us at points in our lives to draw nearer to God. It simplifies communion with the Holy One of Israel. It brings out our strengths, our fortitude, and our self-reliance. I try to feel joy in these circumstances, but sometimes it is absent. There is almost a long silence between you and God. He is working, but in ways you cannot see, taste, touch, or smell. It is beyond the senses. 

---

Song in the Night   

---

"Are you in a desert experience? Let your thirsty soul be restored and refreshed through the daily devotions in the NIV Streams in the Desert Bible.

At some point in our lives, we encounter the trials and deep mysteries of the Christian faith. And when we do become like a thirsty traveler, what we most desire is for hope, comfort, and encouragement to burst forth like a sparkling, clear river.

The hopeful daily readings in this Bible promise to revive and refresh you--one of today's generation of faithful sojourners--by providing daily devotions in modern, easy-to-understand language that beautifully captures the timeless essence of the original. These devotionals are presented alongside Scripture using the popular New International Version of the Bible.

While the devotions in this Bible were originally written by L. B. Cowman--a pioneer missionary in Japan and China from 1901 to 1917--this devotional Bible has been edited by James Reimann. It maintains the beauty of the original Cowman writings while making the devotionals more accessible for the readers of today."  (Source: Goodreads)

Buy Streams in the Desert

 

There is more to life than being a wimp. This refers to our softness on ourselves when it comes to living the gospel. We need to have good posture. We need to exercise what we know. Living it out is a daily practice, not a monthly one. Exercising once a month won't get you in shape. Going to church once a month won't make you fervent. Hey wait. . . isn't fervent a little too intense?

Kindness and softness are not the same thing. We need to be kind instead of soft, encouraging others to rise to their full potential. Everyone has a destiny, not just the pastor. He gets paid, but you are being you out of your own free will. Your response is free.

We need to be somewhat stringent to really come down to a person and a relationship, not a religion, method, or structure. The reason is, Jesus can be found in many colours, many faces, many beliefs, many buildings, many structures, in the hearts of men. We can't quite pin it down, and this is good. When we want to make Jesus into something we can control, it has lost its life. There is already the understanding of what a dead church is, of the image of an old church building whose tithes and parishioners have dwindled down to nothing. A church full of people, with no life. A building where people come but don't mean it. Nominal holiday attending blank faces. The church is meant to be alive. It is meant to be a flame, a controlled fire of love. But be careful you don't put out the fire entirely with the hope of controlling the flame. Every believer has a flame in their hearts. They need those with their candles lit to light their hearts to flame. This fervency is what you see in a real believer. They have the capacity to light others.

We can rejoice that the real church lives and breathes, but it exists through pain and persecution. It is birthed by solitary prayer. It happens when we are alone with God through the trials in our lives and come face to face with who we really are. The persecuted church exists today as much in North America as it does in Asia. There are Christians who live out painful lives, crucifying their flesh until they know the reality of Christ in every country. That is how they know it is real. Jesus himself lived out human life in all its pain, and as a lamb, finally crucified the flesh once and for all. Halleluiah!

There are widows and orphans everywhere, and many mouths to feed. There are the poor on every continent who can tell you stories about the light of a church feeding them. There is both physical hunger and spiritual hunger, and both require our dedication.

---

When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.

"Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

They discussed this among themselves and said, "It is because we didn't bring any bread."

Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?

Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?

Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?

How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Matthew 16: 5-24