Good tidings of great joy... all for people

 Jesus

Savior, Lord, Creator 

the Logos, the Reason, 

the ultimate expression,

flesh and blood indwelling,

 in the darkness shining,

the light, the bread, the living water;

the way, the truth, the life.

humbly you came,

to the homeless, the childless,

the wanderer, the poor, the forgotten,

the pregnant teenager,

 the late night laborer,

the searcher, the foreigner, 

the Persian, the Asian, the Jew,

the Samaritan, the African, the Roman,

the fisherman, the tax collector,

the sick, the hunger, the demonized,

the harlot, the sinner, the marginalized,

the orphan, the widow,

the young and the old,

waiting for a Saviour,

waiting and watching

for a light to shine.

they have seen your glory

the glory of the One, the Only.

New Photos Albums

No writing this last week, only sorting, editing and tagging  images. I finally edited most of the images that I have taken since I purchased my camera back in 2005 on my trip to Portland with Christa. I know, that was over 4 years ago. The result is 25 albums posted on my gallery. I tried to keep each album under 100 images so as to fit on one page but it was impossible with the Venice,  Seattle and wedding albums; so they have two pages. 

If 25 albums is too much, try the first one: "my portfolio".  It is 46 of my very best images: this will give you an overview of the other albums. The next six are thematic albums: crosses, doors, windows, pubs, sculptures and hummingbirds. (Many of these images are not in the other albums.)  If any of these themes interest you, have a look.

In addition to these I have added albums for Costa Rica: Tropical, Caribbean, Kaua'i, Florence, Tuscany:  vineyard tour, Siena, Rome,  Seattle and my garden.  I divided the Ireland photos into two sections: Tipperary and Kilkenny, adding photos and titles. I've also edited and added images and image titles to all of the albums except the wedding photos. (Sorry girls, but putting titles on photos with as many as 10 people was too overwhelming; maybe you two can put titles on these photos)

Here are a few viewing hints. There are three ways to view an album. Once you have clicked on it there are three buttons at the bottom of the page: Mosaic, Carousel and slideshow; each has it's own unique features. The slide show has the largest images and if you scroll over the bottom of the slide show,  a menu pops up to pause, go forward or backward at your own pace.  I'd love to know which ones your really liked. 

The Blessing of rain

I've spent much of today sitting out in the garden enjoying the unusual rainy weather; not like most rain in the desert where it pores for 10 minutes and the sun comes out; but that rare wonderfully gloomy overcast day when the rain comes in small spurts all day long. When you live in the desert you cherish these days as a special blessing from the creator. I often miss them, being on the road and my only view is when I throw open the rear door of the aircraft to get a glimpse of the wonderful wetness and a fill my lungs with the smell of rain in the air, before moving on to the next city. But today I'm home, and it has make my heart glad.

I hope my friends and family are enjoying the snow in Oregon as much as I am enjoying the rain in Arizona.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

and comes down from the father of lights...

James 1:17

But I say unto you love your enemies... that you may

be sons of your Father in Heaven; for he makes the 

his sun shine on the evil and the good, and sends rain

on the just and on the unjust.

Matthew 5:44-45

More photos

Fall from the Garden

Well, I'm back from my work week flying to and from the big island of Hawaii sitting once again in the garden.  I had a great time in Hawaii as usual, but I was sorry to miss my cousin Whitney's wedding in Grants Pass OR, and my grand-niece's dance in the Christmas special at Scottsdale Bible Church Saturday night. :( To get every Sunday and Christmas off, i had to work the rest of the weekend.

The weather here in Phoenix has finally shown some wintery signs but I would quite call it frightful. In fact, I guess it more like fall than winter; but that's as good as it gets in desert. It's overcast with a chill in the air. They say rain is on the way, but for now I still enjoying the outside in my big coat, and long underwear. (pants too) At least my roses are still blooming like a summer day in Oregon and the anna hummingbirds are still around. It's a strange world we live in; sweating in sunny Hawaii on Saturday and cool in the garden on Monday.

With the weather, it's feeling much more like Christmas, especially with the beautifully arranged Christmas Carols we sang last night in the service at SBC. Sean and Kim did an amazing job of leading us in worship with a  choir and simplified band of drums, bass, Kim on Keyboard, and Sean on acoustic guitar. I know how difficult it is to do christmas music with a band from when I played bass at Mosaic. For the first time for me, it really worked!  

(No Christmas tree yet Becca, but I did find Oregon Christmas trees in Hawaii of all places.)

Also, many of you have shown an interest in what I'm doing when working so, I started another blog with my travels called "from the Road". It has the posts from my trip to the big island last week. I added links to things of interest  especially for all my friends and family that homeschool their children. Additional images have been posted in gs thorne photography.

Dan and Christa's Wedding Photos (click here)

More Photos

Twilight in the garden

Stefi complains that my blog is too many words and not enough pictures, so here is 3000 words from the garden at sunset tonight.

Reflections on the Second Sunday of Advent

For you see you calling, brethren,

that not many wise according to the flesh,

not many mighty, not many of noble birth. 

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world 

to put to shame the wise, 

and God has chosen the weak things of the world

 to put to shame the things that are mighty; 

and the base things of the world which are despised God has chosen, 

and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are 

that no flesh should glory in His presence.

I Corinthians 1:26-29

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us 

and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father

full of grace and truth. 

John 1:14

This Morning, I went down to the new local Starbucks to have a cup of coffee before going to the morning service at Camelback Bible, where a I attended years ago.  Now that my mornings are free since I started attending the evening service at Scottsdale Bible, I thought it would to nice to attend a more traditional Advent service this morning and Camelback always celebrated the Historic Christian Calendar with a full choir, a grand organ and more traditional arrangements of the hymns.  So as I sat in Starbucks and later in the garden, I began to contemplate the Advent (Latin for coming ), the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the coming of our Savior. Traditionally, the readings in the liturgy are in preparation for the Second coming of Christ but my thoughts today have wandered continually to the first coming of our Lord. What begun to penetrate my heart today was not only the humility of our Lord himself but the humility of the persons to whom he choose to reveal himself with his first coming and continues to reveal himself today.

Who first beheld his glory? Who first was privileged to see the Word become flesh. Who first saw the revelation of the only begotten? To whom does he reveal himself today? 

He revealed his glory to the unwed pregnant teenage girl humbly seeking him. He revealed his glory to the forgotten child and young man out in the cold working late into the night. He revealed his glory to homeless wandering family that could find no place to stay. He revealed his glory to the eastern astrologer looking for him in the stars. He revealed his glory to the the old man in temple waiting for God's calling. He revealed his glory to the old widow serving God with fasting and prayer day and night. He revealed his glory to miserable business man getting rich off the poor. He revealed his glory to the rough and stinky characters of everyday jobs. He revealed his glory to all who sought him, who were blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear: the sinner, the adulteress, the woman with many husbands, the sick, the dying, the paralyzed, the suffering, the lonely, the marginalized, the forgotten and  the demonized. 

And in fact, in his first Advent, He hid himself from the powerful, the politician, the world leader, the influential, the highly educated, the religious, the rich, the famous. He was and is the God of the humble, the broken, the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourning, the hungry, and the persecuted.

Strangely enough, every conversation and both sermons I heard today: Tim at Camelback from Genesis 3 and Jamie at Scottsdale from I Peter 5, returned again and again to the same truth. 

Thank you Lord for reminding me today what I often forget:

You are God and I am not.

Give me eyes that truly see you and ears that truly hear you

as I remember your first advent in humility, grace and truth

and expectantly wait and prepare for your future advent 

in holiness, power and justice.

We worship in and with...

Spirit & Truth

Heart & Mind, 

Soul & Body

Invisible & Visible

Spiritual & Material

Emotion & Reason

Rest & Work

Surrender & Control

Freedom & Order

Mystery & Clarity

Noise & Silence

Brightness & Darkness

Simplicity & Complexity

Lightness & Heaviness

Private & Public

Corporately & Individually

Principle & Practice

Longing & Satisfaction

Creativity & Repetition

Spontaneity & Ritual

Improvisation & Discipline

Relevant & Traditional

Present & Past

Informal & Formal

Joy & Sadness

Laughter & Tears

Be Thou My Vision

I am like thin glass

frail, full of insecurities, 

and trivial desires, 

full of fear and anger,

easily hurt and broken, 

prone to wander,

so easily entangled,

money, power and popularity 

increase my insecurities 

and my self-doubt. 

What is surprising, 

is that i am surprised:

oh what pride!

Even my self-loathing  

grows from my self-love.

Self-love and self-hate 

head and tail of the same impulse.

Perpetually falling short 

of my own glory...

But then,

He opens my eyes to His glory.

In the light of the One,

the shadows of my trivial insecurities disappear,

in the brightness of His security, 

suddenly I am naked,

alone in the garden,

searching for my fig leaf of self-condemnation,

but alas, I am filled with true and real insecurity,

I fall on my knees and hide my face, crying out:

woe is me, for I am unmade!

from the alter in Thy presence

comes the fire that burns

the light that blinds

Looking to You

the creator and finisher

like Paul

my eyes are opened,

like Isaiah

my lips are healed

like Adam

my nakedness is clothed

I am a made new

Wide Awake in America?

My father says almost the whole world's asleep.

Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to.  

He says only a few people are awake, 

and they live in a state of constant, total amazement

--Meg 3 in Joe Versus the Volcano

"When you gonna wake up? and strengthen the things that remain?"

--Bob Dylan from Slow Train Coming

Let's see, where do I begin? How do I describe what's going on in my life? I'm not much of one for the detail and I often sadly wax philosophical with the most simple things in life, like the swirl of the water in the comode, but I'll try to keep it real.

The past few weeks I feel like I'm being aroused from a deep soul sleep, or at least I'm dreaming of waking. The spirit of God is convicting me of being asleep to God's heart for the world.  Asleep to my neighbors'  and my brothers' spiritual and physical poverty, sorrow, hunger oppression and persecution. I feel like I'm hearing the sermon on the mount (as well as much of the new testament) for the first time in my life. 

In addition to a new clarity of the scriptures,   I have wonderful new awareness of God's presence. The eyes of my heart seem to be seeing in color for the first time. I am continually filled with joy and thanksgiving for the unending blessings being poured down on us daily by our heavenly Father. 

For example, this Thanksgiving season with it's numerous personal and technological interactions with the family, has reminded me of the great privilege it is to part of a family, through blood, marriage and adoption that is so much a part the eternal family of God. So many parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces know and love God, creating an eternal bond, stronger and more real than blood itself. (I guess this is the real, true and eternal blood bond) Sadly this is not common place. It also brakes our hearts in prayer for those who have yet to yield to the Sovereign Lordship of our forgiving Father and loving Creator.

Shellie and I spent most of yesterday in the garden, encouraging one another with what God as been doing in our lives by talking, dreaming and sharing passages of Scriptures and reading from books that God is using in our lives. It may have one of the most amazing brother-sister times we have ever had! We kept returning to themes  of surrender, sacrifice, the detachment of our soul from things,  the blessings of Christian suffering, doing justice, loving mercy, a global spiritual awaking, spiritual warfare, continual thanksgiving, and intercessory prayer. There was laughter, tears and sometimes sitting silently overwhelmed by God's goodness and  grace.

Two books that God has been using as alarms to my sleep: 

1. The Heavenly Man, the story of the persecution of a modern day apostle and the Church in China

(not the best writing but one of the most amazing stories, I couldn't put it down)

2. Mark Labberton's, The Dangerous Act of Worship, given to me this fall by my brother.

Here's some quotes:

"so what's the problem? The church is asleep. Not dead. Not necessarily having trouble breathing. But asleep. This puts everything that matters at stake: God's purposes in the church and in the world."

... and we are "running the risk of investing astonishing energy in breeding and nurturing a yet more excellent sleep.

... many of our programs and privileges "can shroud the gospel in such middle- and upper-class consumer-oriented style and content that salvation subtly becomes more about providing a warm blanket of cultural safety than about stepping out into the bracing winds of spiritual sacrifice."

Yes Cara, I'm actually Blogging

I have had the most incredible evening catching up on everyone's blog and I have to say, I feel so privileged to be a member of this family. I am so ashamed that I have waited so long to read your blogs. I laughed, I cried, I was filled with pride, wonder, amazement, incredible joy and thanksgiving. Thank you so much for taking the time to creatively share your lives with me. You are all amazing writers, story tellers and even photographers. One of my greatest joys as a single uncle is being able to share with you God's incredible gifts of being young, marriage, nesting, adoption, child birth and rearing. Thank you for including me in your lives through these blogs.

So as you can see, I have been convicted and encouraged to give this blog thing a go.