After These Things (Genesis14- 15:1)

After These Things: Believe, Hope and Endure

Abram refuses Bera's rewards and accepts blessings of Melchizadek

We all have trials. It is not that we have them but rather how we choose to deal with them. Abram chose to believe not in the arm of man but rather in God, to hope not for riches but for the blessings of heaven, and to endure his time of challenge with a strength and fortitude that promised him sacred opportunity, wisdom, perspective and promise.

Ancient Irrigation Techniques 

I have had many trials in my life. I imagine that many of my trials have not been too different from what Abram endured. The scenes and props may change but personal trials tend to be the same. We know from history that his time in history was one of where man attempted to gain control over mother- nature and create a sense of stability in his life.  As man gained a sense of understanding over crops, water and weather, he still had to deal with himself.  Through all of the innovations, inventions and discoveries and after all of this time, I have to wonder how much the true nature of man with relation to one another has changed?    Has the human condition improved? I believe Abram understood that the ability to truly change the human condition began with a faith in a power greater than his own.

Abram’s story of faith began in Genesis 14. As I was reading Genesis 15 my mind caught the words, “after these things.” What things? I went back to Genesis 14 and discovered a few important things that Abram had done. (because the chapter deals mostly with the wars between the 9 kings, it is easy to miss Abram’s important role) These things were prerequisite to his vision where “the word of the Lord came unto him.”

Before I delineate Abram’s role I want to set the stage.

There were 4 kings  that  “made war” with 5 kings. The four kings I will call Team A (for Amraphel king of Shinar).  The 5 kings I will call Team B for Bera king of Sodom

Team A: Shinar, Ellasar, Elam and Nations (Geneses 1)

Team B: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, Zoar (Geneses 2)

Who: Team A make war with Team B in the vale of Siddim near the salt sea.

Why: They had served Chedorlaomer (king of Elam) 12 years, but in the 13^th year they rebel.

What: 14^th year Chedorlaomer  comes with his 3 other kings and plumaged and smote the REphaims, Zuzims, Emims, Horites, the Amalekites, and the Amorites. In other words they were on rampage as a rebellion.

The five kings joined together to stop the slaughter. (Genesis 14:9) They came together at the vale of Siddim where there were slimepits. A slimepit is a plot of earth that is soft and mucky, usually of clay or very moist mud. The point of this reference is to help us understand that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah could not take a stand because the ground would not allow for it. It was a very precarious place to stand a fight against the confederate forces. They fled.

The confederates come and take the spoils of war: all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, all the food, and all the people for slaves.  And a ally of Abram comes to tell him of Lot’s capture.

What did Abram who dwelled in the plain of Mamre the Amorite  do:

• ·      He armed his trained servants (318 of them)
• ·      He pursued Chedorlaomer and his 4 kings to the land of Dan
• ·      He divides himself with his servants and attacks them at night and pursues them to Hobah
• ·      He slaughters Team A (all 4 kings) at the valley of Shaveh (the kings dale)
• ·      He then brings back all of the spoils that had been taken, “all the goods, his brother Lot, the women, and the people.” (Gen 14: 16)
• ·      He receives a blessing from Melchizedek
• ·      He pays his tithes
• ·      He gives credit to his  “most high God”.  (Genesis 14:22-24)
• ·      He meets out his reward with justice and in such a way to give recognizes the true source of his strength and virtue.

In Abram’s time the kingdoms vied for security through power struggle’s and war. Abram chose to follow a different path that allowed him to discover the power that faith in a true and living God brings.  When I considered what he had done and why he had done it, I was moved to understand the true nature of his faith.

Abram rescues Lot

Abram’s only heir was Lot, so that when he heard what had happened to him he took strength to defend him, but in defending his family the Lord gave him opportunity to testify and declare his allegiance to his God.  When Bera, the king of Sodom, wants to glorify Abram and give him the spoils of war, Abram refuses him, “lest thou should say, I have made Abram rich.” 

Abram who had left his father’s land and dwelled in the land of the Amorite, who at this point was childless, who had refused the traditions of his family and had returned to the God of Adam and Enoch and Noah, felt very much alone in the world. But yet he knew from whence his strength and power came.

And it was “After these things”, or after the trial of his faith that the Lord will bless him with a vision for his future.  After these things… after he stood strong for what was right, after he fought with strength born of virtue and faith, after he defeats all of the rebels using the tactics of division and nighttime warfare, after he uses the power of the Holy Ghost to help him outsmart the rebels in the valley of Shaveh, and after he refuses his “victors glory” and chooses to humbly give credit to the Lord, he is able to sit and contemplate just exactly what his faith has brought him.

While he is resting from his conquest and considering what he has in life, he is given a vision that brings him hope and a promise. 

The Seed of Immortality Genesis 13-14

Genesis 13: Abraham's Immortality.

13: 16  And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

At the turn of the 19^th century, when pioneers began to cultivate and settle the southeastern region of our nation, the Carolina Parakeet existed in copious numbers.  Their brightly colored feathers and intelligence made them popular pets that were often captured and trained. Highly sociable birds their distress over a fallen or wounded comrade kept them from fleeing when faced with an imminent threat of gunfire.  Afterward, many were known to perch nearby on branches or over their fallen friends unaware of the hunters’ malevolent sport.  By the beginning of the 20^th century this social behavior played an important role in their eventual extinction.

Extinction sends a permanent death sting to the last of a species seed. Without seed God’s creations are but a blink in his vast universe. Without seed all that the Carolina Parakeet could have taught us about compassion, sociability, loyalty, friendship, and innate intelligence is, along with their genetic memory code, lost forever.

If extinction means to loose the perpetuation of one’s seeds, what does immortality mean? If one could find a way that their seed were ensured exponential reproduction would they not be defining one type of immortality? Abraham would not live forever, but his moral beliefs, teachings, and increase of intelligence would, if he could find a way to ensure his seeds survival. And what of our God? Would Abraham’s survival not testify to his power and love for all of mankind?

 

As I was reading how Abraham was promised that his seed would become as the “dust of the earth, ” I wondered who were Abraham’s contemporaries? Other than the “Epic of Gilgamesh” which archaeologists had to search for and is dated before Abraham’s time, we don’t know. Yes there are civilizations in China, in Asia, and other parts of the world but where are there genealogical records that tell their story? Their records did not purposefully survive to tell their tale. The key words are “purposefully survive.” Why was Abraham’s seed able to not only purposefully survive but also purposefully retain a written historical record? The answer lies in the true covenant that Abraham enters into with the God of Heaven and Earth.

I thought about Abraham and about God’s role in helping his progeny beat the odds of extinction. Clearly life was treacherous. No civil law had yet succeeded in bringing sustainable peace. As Genesis 14 points out the kingdoms were at war and barbaric practices allowed them ransack and plumage their foes.  Although Abraham was given great wealth and promised great land, his desires turned more to the protection and preservation of his family.  In order to find immortality and defy extinction, one must begin to think less about self-survival and more about family and community welfare.  Was it part of God’s plan that Abraham had to wait and sacrifice for his own seed?

The Carolina Parakeet understood the principle of caring for one another. Prior to farm settlement their system of group protection had served them well. But faced with ever changing circumstances and the threat of immoral predators the parakeet lacked the power to find evolutionary answers. Abraham must have understood that a higher power would be needed to ensure the survival of his seed. The ability to perceive, believe and understand this higher power would need to be instilled within the moral code of his seeds genetic memory.

In a time when childhood mortality, war, natural disaster, disease, famine, drought, plagues, and other expected accidents bore constant threat to one’s survival, Abraham’s contemplation of immortality through the continuation of his seed might have seemed off centered, just a bit.  Abraham begins to consider his father’s idolic religion as empty and vain.  He turned to the prophetic counsel that followed Adam’s creeds and settled in his mind the reality of one God and one creator. He defies his father’s multiplicity of Gods and listens to only one God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. 

Abraham’s faith in the God of heaven and earth led him to understand God’s omnipotence. He becomes the chosen “son of Adam” to enter into a spiritual and binding covenant with a living and powerful God.  He begins to ponder how his family’s social behavior affects their prospect of survival. His recognition of his prosperity and success as a direct blessing from his "most high God" sets an example for his family and community.  When offered the plumage of warfare by King of Sodom, he refuses so that King of Sodom cannot say that he has made Abraham rich. (Genesis 14: 23)

 Abraham wants to make it clear where his blessings come from. He begins to consider that there are life events that he alone cannot control, but with the help of an all-powerful Creator, he might not only increase his chances for survival but through the power  and example of “exercised” faith he could ensure the survival of his seed as well. (Genesis 14:22)

Abraham’s decision to put away idol worship and serve one God sets into play a new way of thinking and considering life. When he hears God speak, Abraham listens. He teaches Sarah to listen. Together they begin a pattern of life that allows God’s power to direct and protect them. Abraham’s God is powerful. Abraham is able to converse and counsel with his God over major life decisions. Abraham is able to enter into a covenant that promises him all that he would need to ensure his immediate and eternal survival.

I love hearing stories about the Carolina Parakeet. They were not only beautiful birds to gaze upon but their behaviors toward one another causes my heart to pause and ask, “Why couldn’t they have flown away? Why couldn’t they survive? Why did this beautiful specie of a bird have to become extinct? What was lacking in their evolution that kept them unaware of the dangers? 

I believe the answer lies in understanding the importance of whom you place your faith. If we chose to place our faith in society and in our own strength we too might face extinction. But when we, like Abraham face our fears and believe in the inward power of faith in a true and living God we find a power greater than that of evolutionary selection.  Abraham became God’s man of covenant because he understood God's power of love and this inward contemplation of the power of love. He set in motion a new type of man, one that would worship not out of rote desperation, but rather out of a true power of faith. An obedience born of enlightenment and respect for divine truth. 

And this faith is what would ensure Abraham’s seed the possibility of not only the security of a happy life, but one possible of ensuring that his seed might one day be as numerous as the infinite “dust of the earth.”  

He Shall Send His Angels; Matthew 24:31, by Ann Y.

"And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect frrom the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matthew 24:31

Celestial

By: Ann Yoxtheimer

Angels are spirits of

Men that have thirst,

Not for glory themselves,

But for righteousness first.

Assigned to this world for

The saving of man,

To assist and instruct,

And help further the plan.

The army of God, those

With courage and faith;

Showing power of spirit,

Prepared for this day.

They gird up their loins,

With the armor of right;

The priesthood of God,

Is their sword in this fight.

But not just for fight,

Are they sent from the sky,

But to love and to save

All of us; which is why

Good tidings they bring,

From our God up on high,

To remind us He waits

For the day that is nigh.

The wheat from the chaff,

Will forever be split,

When our Lord comes in glory,

Till then they won’t quit.

They show us the truth

And the way of the Lamb,

Remind us we’re special,

And give us a hand.

We can all be God’s angels,

 There is work to be done,

Share the good news of love,

From the Father and Son.

Put on the whole armor,

Of God and show forth,

That the priesthood has power,

To cleanse Mother Earth.

Our Father has need of

Both women and men,

Who have enough faith,

In the gospel to win.

To prove to the world that

Our Savior was right,

From the ashes of death,

He’ll come forth in His might.

And we’ll stand with our God,

Both the angels and man.

His celestial soldiers,

                                            Who fought for God’s plan.


I know I write about angels a lot, but I'm fascinated by the idea that the servants of God are working both here and in Heaven, all for the "immortality and eternal life of man." Moses 1:39.

I hope that I am one of my Father's servants. I hope that I am one of God's angels on earth.

I will keep my promise Sarah

I will keep my promise (Genesis 10-12)

Sarah was a beautiful woman. Such was her beauty that it caused Abraham, the Egyptians, the servants of the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh himself to stop and consider the power of her beauty. (Genesis 12, 14-15)  In a time and place when women were renown more for their bloom than for their courage, she stands alone as a woman of God.  She is the first woman of the Bible to be spoken of as “a fair woman to look upon.” She is also the first to teach us about how the power of faith can deliver us.

            11  Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. (Hebrews 11:11)

God made a covenant with her husband and brother Abraham. (Abraham 1, Gen 17) Together in the prosperous city of Ur, in the country of Chaldea, they lived under the auspices of their socially connected and well-known family. But the trade that had brought prosperity had also weakened their family’s spiritual roots. Abraham’s father became converted to the Egyptian God Elkenah and tried to offer Abraham up for sacrifice.(Abraham 1:6) Hence the Lord’s admonition and warning for Abraham to “get out of thy country and away from they kindred.” (Genesis 12:1)

Abraham recommits himself to God and God covenants with him. He is promised a progeny that would number the sands of the sea. In return the God will use Abraham and Sarah to build his Kingdom of God on earth. It is through this line that Jesus Christ will be born. It is through this family that the Lord’s covenant people learn what it means to make and keep sacred covenants with their God.

The question to consider is weather or not Sarah is the other part of the equation?  Was this linage to come through Sarah or her maidservant Haggai?  Was the covenant with Abraham and Sarah or just Abraham? 

Sarah must have thought more than once:  “Surely the Lord was mistaken when he said Abraham and I, (Sarah) would have a great nation?" Abraham could have had his children through any woman.  Was Sarah alone the intended matriarch of Israel? She was after-all barren. How must she have felt? A promise made to her husband and she unable to fulfill it? What must she have thought about Abraham when he confided in her? And what of Abraham's feelings? Was Sarah, the woman he loved and made marital vows with to be the matriarch of this great nation? 

Sarah and Abraham are bound to one another through familial and social customs. Sara was the daughter of Terah’s (Abraham’s father) son Haran. When Haran dies in the famine that strikes the land, Terah (per custom) marries her mother and ensures his son’s families survival. Sara then becomes Abrams step-sister (Gen 20:12) and wife.  (Bible dictionary ..Terah) This makes her covenant with Abraham double binding, meaning she would have to answer to both family and society if she chooses to dishonor her vows or break her marital covenant.

It is interesting to understand that this is the first time that biblical record mentions a one to one covenant with God and man.  Even more interesting is the understanding that this covenant initially is between Abraham and God, but because it is a marital covenant, one must consider that Sarah stands as an equal part of it. But she was barren?

Coming into Egypt the Lord and Abraham knew she was barren. The Egyptians however did not know. Had they known it would have changed the game. Her beauty was to be gathered and  cultivated for the power of Egypt- for Egypt built its kingdom on their vanities of physical beauty. Also with being barren she would be able to maybe have relations with the Pharaoh and who would know? No child would come of it? Sarah knew that God would know. She would know. 

Why is this important? She is about to be placed in a most precarious situation.  When Abraham asks her to lie for him (so that the Egyptians do not kill him), it begins an act in her life that forces her to define the power of her faith. It helps her to determine how unconditional her love for God and Abraham must become. 

Consider if you will that Sarah left a societal position of great stature to wander in the desert with Abraham.  And that when she is taken before the Pharaoh he offers her the opportunity to have all that she had lost and more. While she is with the Pharaoh (and we are not told how long this drama acted out) she cannot tell the Egyptians that she is married to Abraham, for they will surely kill him, so that they can claim her and her beauty for themselves.  She is literally between a rock and a hard place.

She must stand strong in her faith that God will deliver her. If she gives in to the Pharaoh’s attempts all will be lost – for she will forsake her family ties and her marital vows. If she tries to bargain with the Pharaoh he will see their deception as an attempt to defraud them and surely they will both die. What can she do? 

She prays and she allows her belief to give her the power to be strong in the face of great temptation. Consider also that her father in law worshiped Elkanah and Abraham himself had converted  back to his families traditional religion. Where did Sarah's faith lie? She was about to find out. 

One account I read from historical records talked about how when the Pharaoh pressed himself upon Sarah to woo her, he was physically shocked and rebuffed by an angel of the Lord. (1 Cor 16:22) He understood that this was no ordinary woman.  He understood that a God that he did not know had come to walk with her. So he asked and when the truth was told the whole truth, he was relieved to be rid of them. So great was his relief that he gave them great treasures. This could only have played out this way with the help of the Lord. Any other recourse by Sarah, by Lot, by Abraham or any other member of their family would have surely meant death and the destruction of the family.

Sarah alone had to stand strong against the temptations that the Pharaoh offered. Abraham was separated from her and could not come to her rescue. This was Sarah’s temptation. The covenant between God and Abraham was yet to occur. (Gen 17) She had to choose between the Pharaoh of Egypt and Abraham ( a desert nomad).  She had to choose between political power and the power of faith. She had to choose between material wealth and the love of her God and her husband. She had to choose between wealth, power, vanity and her covenant with the Lord.  The Lord told her “I will keep my promise.” It was her place to believe the power of his covenant.

Sarah stood strong. In her hour of temptation when the Lord tested the integrity of her faith , she championed the cause of faith and in so doing she set the path that would eventually give her what she wanted more than the Egyptians vanity, more than the position of power, more than the comforts of wealth - a family of her own. Soon the Lord will make covenants with a barren woman and a nomadic man. This covenant will bring to Sarah the one wish of her heart - a family to love. 

But not just any family – Sarah’s family becomes the covenant people of God. A family where God's love is taught, practiced and revered. All because she chose to stand strong- for Abraham and before God.  

Genesis 9:2 Fear and Dread and Dominion

Near my mother's home is a tidal creek that bustles with nature: birds, butterflies, reptiles, insects and fiddler crabs. Fiddler crabs scurry across her yard and through her flowerbeds. They march sideways across her porch and hide under her garage door. Their homes are wholes dug into the mud that lines the sides of her drainage ditch. As I walk around her yard, I like to try to catch them unaware. 
   I never do. When I walk near the edge of the ditch they pop into their wholes. If i walk slowly toward the canal I see them dance across the dock. I hear their miniature crab feet rustle across leaves. If I'm quick enough I might surprise two of them waltzing on the dock, as if it were a stage.

  If I sit very still along the bank of the side creek they will come half way out of their whole, and with their largest claw in the air they will wave it back and forth, opening and closing their pinchers. Soon a chorus of claws will perform in unison, but only if I sit very still. If I move they stop, scurry and hide. As small as they are they know of my presence and they act in fear. Their "dread" of me causes them to always use caution and never trust mankind. 
   Mankind has lost its chance to coexist in peace with the animal kingdom. In studying and pondering Genesis I was made aware of a few thoughts concerning man's relationship to the animal kingdom.

Prior to the flood: 

•  Genesis 1:28 Both man and animal ate herb for meat.  

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there islife, I have given every green herb for  meat: and it was so. 

• Man had dominion over the animals. Genesis 1:28 This meant he was in charge of life on the earth. He was called to know and care for the earth. 
• The garden still existed. I have to believe that man and beast had memory of its great blessings to them. 
• Man's evil imagination escalated his actions to violence.   Prior to the flood there is no reference to animals need to fear man. But in fact it does say that God's hope had been in man's ability to learn to love one another and all of the earth and follow "his way."        Genesis 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all ^aflesh had corrupted his ^bway upon the earth.  His way was not the way we now know. A few things changed after the flood. 

After the flood: 

• Noah builds an altar and petitions God for a promise that this will never happen again. 
• God covenants with Noah AND every living beast upon the earth, that he will never again flood the earth. 
• God changes the nature of the relationship of man to the animals. No longer does man   have dominion over the animals but he also has lost his "right" to associate peaceably with them. God places in the animals a fear and a dread. Why? 
• I believe it was a way to try to protect the animals from man's unrighteous dominion. 

The corruption that man brought to the earth with his selfish and vain imaginations corrupted the earth. Did it also corrupt the animals? When Noah found grace with God and became one of only eight humans to survive the flood, did  that animals that came to Noah also find God's grace? The second time around God realized that the animals would need a way to protect themselves if man ever chose to exercise "unrighteous dominion" again. 

After the flood 

• dietary laws change. The definition of "meat" changes see Geneses 1:29-30 Genesis 9:3, 4
• Animals have the ability to protect and defend themselves from man and from one another. (this is to say that God's original plan might have "hoped" that this would not be needed." 
• Man looses the wisdom and insight of animals intelligence. We have to resort to study and science to learn from the animals. Were they once able to help us and communicate with us?

It is a daunting thought to consider what the flood took from us? As I watch the beauty and intelligence that exists within the animal kingdom, I am in awe of the harmony that binds them socially, emotionally, and intellectually. Did man once have the ability to share in this harmony? Man seems to believe that we are the more intelligent of all of God's creatures. Who became the biggest loser when the bridge of communication between man and animal changed? 

What was lost? What was gained? What does dominion bring if it is accompanied with unrighteousness? Why did God believe he had to delineate what meat could be eaten? Genesis 9:4  But flesh with the life thereof, which is the ^cblood thereof, shall ye not eat. Was it because of man's violence and his evil imaginations? 

All of this came because God gave man the power to have dominion. He never gave him the power to control another's life. Dominion? What does it mean to you? Why did man misinterpret it to the point that God felt the need to protect the animals by placing a "fear and dread" within them? 

What exactly can the animals teach us? 

Fishing At Jason's Lake

Journey to Jason’s Lake

We drove down narrow dirt roads, where sun-drops 

Splashed through the moss-draped arms of live oaks

To welcome us.

And fields of seasoned sunflowers lowered 

Their weighted hooked heads, as if to

Reverence this rite of passage.

We turned past tall patient bricks,

A fire hearth that long ago had cast itself, 

Strong and sure into the reels of time.

And we waded through wisps of luring laughter 

That taunted us to try our luck

As young ghosts of SeaCloud¹  once had.

When the car fished its way, jumping and wriggling 

Over the old footbridge, I imagined how other bare feet 

Had once sauntered over these wooden planks, 

With cane poles bobbing and lines dancing in the wind.

But now, it’s your turn to stand near the lakes edge, 

A lanky lad of fourteen years, silhouetted

By the drag of a still, summer day.

Your image hung against the southern sky 

Framed by marsh-grass and Egret’s flight

While tidewaters turn at your feet.

It’s your tale. Two young friends

Floundering with snarled lines 

Stolen bait, and gnats that buzz your resolve.

It’s your time. With your line cast and your tip low

The strike comes.

Then with a flash of scales, it wakes the water.

 Now you jerk to set the hook, and your stance stiffens 

As you fight the  unknown "monster of the deep."

Soon I hear you call out, “I got one!”

I watch and join in the excitement of the catch. 

You pull and turn this way and that, unsure

Until you arch your back and try once more.

Silently I savor the moment and I pray

That each time you cast,  you will wrap yourself 

six times around and back through 

Until your knot secure's itself 

Around the lake’s rain-dance, 

Around the Heron's flight, 

And around the joy that hooked us all

As we tried our luck rigging and jigging 

On Jason’s Lake.                

       Linda Conkey Shaw August 18, 2011

Erin's Pie In The Sky

Erin’s Pie in the Sky

The day started

With a deluge as

Water poured from the sky.

Deep from the night it began

And it ran and ran 

Down our streets and

Into our porch.

On into the late afternoon

It swam,

Filling our apartment and our hearts

With a soggy hope of deliverance.

But a thoughtful daughter

With a frame of beauty

Found in the kitchen

A place of refuge where

Damp doubt could not reach.

She took task and

Measured and cut

Butter into peas

Until she had transformed

Gloomy skies

Into a tartlet of shinny 

Round criss-crossed comfort.

That at the end of the day

Warmed all of our tummies

And our hearts

With the idea

That rain may wash

Through our hopes and our dreams

Or if we choose

It can wash away troubles

And renew us.

Like her flour and summer fruit

That turned us, all tart and sour

Into a circle of laughing,

yummy peach pie,

That smiled until

The clouds flew away

Like a flock of

Blackbirds

Linda Conkey Shaw July 28 2011

The summer has been filled with family, fun, hot sunshine, and moments when all seemed lost. But alas there is the role of family and how we can rely on someone to help us see what we will not. 
We were vacationing in a beach house when the "tropical" rainstorm managed to dump 8 inches of rain upon our island town. Electrical wires fell, water rose, roads were closed and eventually we were evicted from our rental because of sewer backups. 
We held it together and took the opportunity to ride our bikes in the rain, help Sam's lifeguard class find joy in the a battery powered radio, and soon after the sun came out (about 3) we were able to relocate our posse. And when we did we had such a wonderful 
pie to warm us. 
Thanks to Erin's culinary skills. 
Today marks her graduation from school and her movement on to new pathways. 
With love from Mom. 

Genesis 9:13 A New Day

A New Day

A new day 

Begs your attention

Whisps of white

Birds in flight

Flowers a bud

Trinkling grasses

Spinning clouds

Swirling wonder

A brooks sing song

Moments pass like 

sunbeams through water

And

You see

how truth floats

upon the breath

of each new day. 

L.C. Shaw C July 5 2011

The simple gifts of life are God’s way of teaching us truth. The man who refuses to hear again what he knows to be true because he already knows it, refuses to acknowledge his divine eternal nature.

Eternity exists on rounds that repeat and continue to teach even the most learned men.

The nature of creation is existence. 

A new Day

May 14, 1994 first written, 

Genesis9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.