Things now possible.

I am down in the lovely South for Easter….and….the flowering trees are in bloom.
What a showing of new life.
Hallelujah.

And maybe it was the warmth, maybe it was because it was Holy Week, maybe it was the sunshine, but my cross-country trek to get here was just….glorious.

All I could think about was that Screwtape Letters quote:

“…The Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He {God} would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

Because in that sunshine, on that southward journey, I was thinking about the cross. I was praising the Jesus I love. For that cross, for the South, for the sunshine. It was a receiving of the “present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.” All things had come full circle because I realized that without that cross, there would be no present grace, no present pleasure to be thankful for, no sunshine, no warm South.

I mean…without the cross, without the resurrection—we’ve got nothing. And only because we DO have it are any of these other little graces possible.

I will not take graces for granted. No. They did not come at a reasonable price.



 

Grace is seen when "It is Finished"leads to....

 

 

"And the curtain of the temple was torn in two," bringing you and me into access with God.

And not only do we have access to God is really only worth much if that God is alive.
And, let's just clarify something. Who is the only person who rose from the dead--and then never died again? All other leaders, all other "prophets," where are they?
They're still in the ground, wolfies.
But not ours.
We do not seek our God among the dead.

Only the Living One, the perfect sacrifice, has a blood that redeems.

And in redemption...there is confidence, there is sifficiency. And freedom.

And freedom does not disappoint.

And freedom leads to a smiling girl on a South-bound road trip...

...who can reckon Mumford and Sons in her head as being a worship song...

...and people who see life through worship-ful eyes know that the sun sings a worship song of it's own....(Romans 8:19-22)

...and green grass makes this free, redeemed, thankful girl sing right along with that spring field.

Thank you, Jesus, for making these present graces and pleasures possible.

Opossum Comes a-Knockin'

*WARNING*-- Some of these pictures may give you the heebie-geebies. Because they do me…

Do you know what the most disgusting animal in the world is?

Meet—apparently—my resident opossum.

Oh yeah.

I was gone all week…and what do I come home to?

This nasty scavenger.

Barf.

Gag.
I think I just threw up in my mouth.

From the ghastly nose to the sordid tip of it’s filthy, nauseating tail, my contempt for the creature knows no bounds.

They say God created all animals. I almost disagree about these (and other such rodents). I believe these are a horrid mutation which is product to the fall.
Surely a good God couldn’t have created THIS.
Ha.

Do you know what the worst part is?

He seems to want to call my acreage “HOME.”

I don’t know about you, but something seems wrong with that to me. Yeah. I don’t appreciate creatures who exist off garbage finding my residence a place they are comfortable with.

Then of course my mind has to ask itself the question: What if it is not a HE?

What if it’s a SHE and what if that SHE is planning on being a MAMA???
At my house….??????????

Then what?

Clearly, I called my father about the situation.

“GO SHOOT IT!!!!” I yelled, frantic.
And in typical Devil’s Advocate, or should I say Opossum Advocate, well….now that I type that I realize it’s the same thing…In typical Devil Opossum Advocate fashion he responds to me with “What did it ever do to you?”

It existed.

Do I really need to elaborate the problem more?

And it existed at my house.

 I’m offended.

And I don’t know how my brain does this, but, needless to say, as I stood out there in my yard watching it, all I could think was how closely it does, in fact, parallel the devil.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that when you live in the country you do not put food scraps—garbage, as we call it—in the trash. No, we put it out in the field or the compost.

Well, it just so happens, that’s what this thing was eating.

All of my garbage.
It EXISTS because I have supplied it with garbage.

Now how true is that of the devil? Seriously!

Why does he feel so comfortable living at my house? Because I supply him ample amounts of garbage to survive on.

 Oh, Lord, have mercy on me.

 *Sigh*

If I wasn’t so disgusted I would laugh it off.

Not disgusted at the opossum. Not disgusted at the devil, no. Disgusted at me.

Because see, the problem is that me putting the garbage from inside my house to outside my house didn’t take care of the problem. It didn’t GET RID OF IT. It just moved it to where I don’t have to look at it as much.

And I do the exact same thing with the sin and “garbage” in my own life. Most of the time, honestly, I don’t get rid of it. I don’t take it to the cross, I don’t take it to the altar and BURN it (as God told his people for years and years and years to do), I don’t die to it. I just move it. I put it out of sight, so it’s out of mind. I don’t “go there” anymore.

Until…and this always happens…one day I find myself face to face with some kind of nasty creature, habit, devil, demon, emotion, hate, lust, fear, etc, still surviving. Still existing. Still living at my house and feeling Oh! So at home here.

Why?
Because I didn’t burn the scraps of flesh it survives on.

Why else did God tell the Israelites to, in essence, burn their sin? Why are we told to DIE to ourselves? Why are we crucified with Christ?

Because moving our garbage doesn’t get rid of it. Putting it out of our mind does just that—puts it out of our mind. It doesn’t get rid of it! It just welcomes scavenging flesh eaters to feast to the fill.
And goodness sakes, if I was one of those, if I was a “nasty creature, habit, devil, demon, emotion, hate, lust, fear, etc” that was being provided ample sustenance, why wouldn’t I stick around, terrorizing the house owner and continuing to survive off the garbage she doesn’t get rid of?

I suppose it’s only natural.

Post-fall, natural.

Thank you, Jesus, you have come to give us an escape of the natural (II Cor 5:15-17).

Written.

In the Bible study I lead for those girls they have been astounded a couple times over these handful of months.
Why, you might ask?
Because they would see that I have been writing in a new journal.

“Is that NEW JOURNAL??”

“What happened to the last one?!”

I think I always just smile and say, “Girls. I’m a writer.”

As if that suffices for a 13 year old girl.

So. The other day when they came over I thought I would pull out all the old journals.

 

Wolfies.

There are like 40.
Yeah.
For the last….let’s say ten years.

I don’t make it a habit of reading through them. There have only been probably 4 times in said decade where I have actually picked one, sat down, and read all the way through. Every once in a while I look up something I had written in one, just to jog my memory, but no. I don’t re-read them.

But last week I did a little.

And it’s funny because there are some entries that I know exactly what is being talked about. And then there are others which, although written with the same candor and emphasis, I have no idea what I am talking about.

“What situation was that?!?!”  

“HOW did I feel about that?”

“Why in the world didn’t I learn that lesson when I went through it the FIRST time?!!?!”

It was almost as if I was seeing those things for the first time. As if they had never happened. As if I had never waded through all of that.

Wow.

And I thought, “Those things I prayed for to happen in the early journals, I wrote down how it happened in the later journals; I was walking in the steps of my prayers.”

Isn’t that crazy? Like, all those years ago I had “cast” prayers ahead of me, asking God to prepare the way, feeling like I knew what was coming, asking for mercies as I was terrified my terrible tendencies would be tried. And then, as the journals can tell me, as the years go on I see myself day by day finally catching up with all those long-ago-uttered prayers.

I think in all the early years I assumed that life happens all at once. As in one day, everything would just fall into place or everything would fall apart.

But, apart from tragedies, life isn’t usually like that (and even in tragedy sometime we see it coming). Life doesn’t just happen all at once. It’s cliché to say, but I know it’s true: this whole thing in a process.

I did a photo shoot a number of year ago in which one of the props was a word painting.

Life is always in progress.

I know I have talked about this verse before, but it’s good.

Psalm 139:16 “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Isn’t that so interesting? Not only have I cast all those prayers forward, but really, what else am I doing? What am I recording in all those journals? I am writing down now all that he wrote down LONG ago.

I’ve said it before, and I will probably say it again, these are my pre-written days.
He knows what comes next. And I can rest in that.

~~~~

I know you all must be so bored with my posting pictures of photo shoots, but, well, winter lives on here…so I’ve got nothing else interesting to show you.
:)

 

Faithful vs. Cruel.

It all started one year in a collection of dorm rooms that happened to be in the same hall way.
It was something sacred, holy, I would say magical if I believed in that. Ordained? No doubt. I have a hard time describing it to people because it’s more than just “We all became great friends.” No. As Anne of Green Gables would say, “That doesn’t go far enough.” It was more than that. More than us just liking each other.
I know it sounds kind of corny, but if your soul could be linked to another, it happened.
There in that one year, at that college, in that hall way, for some of us girls. And we were girls—then.
It was the beginning of lives that will never again not know each other.
God connected people. For his glory, for our edification.
Oh sure, some of us remain closer to some than others, but that fact doesn’t negate what happened then. The time and space those relationships inhabited have changed all of my other times and spaces, does that make sense? Regardless of if a particular relationship proceeds through all time and space or not. What the relationship was prevails in us whether the relationship continues. There is a beauty even in things that aren’t permanent.
We came away changed women. Changed by all of the others, ourselves being the change in some. Iron had sharpened iron.

Isn’t it a beautiful thing, what the Lord can do between two people? Like, he can make you forget yourself for the benefit of the other.

Jealousy is gone, there is no envy, coveting. You want what his best for them is.
Which means that when they cry, I have cried with them.
When I need to talk, they have listened.
We have gone through losing parents, relatives, relationships, jobs, dreams, plans.
But it also means that when God is faithful to them, I feel his faithfulness in me.

I was blessed to spend some time with some of these beautiful creatures this weekend. We no longer live close to each other, but there are some things you make effort to get to.

Also curious is how a triggered sense can bring back memories and emotions and all that once was.

For me this weekend it was a perfume.
I was at one of my dearest friends’ houses and I was chatting at her as she was putting her makeup on when she sprayed her perfume—the same perfume she wore all those years ago.

In an instant, without my consent, everything that once was in a most special time and space all those years ago flooded back, and that coupled with what I was looking at in the present told nothing other than God’s faithfulness.

All of those years ago this—her current reality—was the dream: she was finally getting what she had desired and prayed for for so long.

And with the past crowding my senses, coupled with seeing this miracle taking place in front of me, in the same instant I realized that life had come full circle; He had fulfilled what He had promised.
And I was crying.
Not one moved to tears much, I love it when I know there is still some softness left in me. The world hasn’t beaten it all out of me.
Viewing God’s goodness to her stirred in me the memories of his goodness to me.

And then it happened again later in the weekend, with a different beautiful friend.
She is in her first year of marriage and her honesty is refreshing.
“Well, do you still like him?” I asked kind of joking like.
“I really, really love him, yes; but some days I don’t like him as much.”
We laughed. We both knew she was being serious.
It’s truth, though.

And she moved me to tears, too. Here before me sat a girl I knew all those years ago, a woman now, who has gone through some of life’s worst pain at an age too young. She has known the searing loss.

But again, her life displays God’s faithfulness.

And she said the most poignant thing. She helps out with a ministry to college-age women who always want to know about married life. But she gets the opinion that they want to hear all of the sappy stuff. They don’t seem to be so interested in the nitty-gritty. You know, the hard parts that you have to work on and overcome and get through? The parts worth fighting for.

“Our marriage works,” she tells them, “Because our marriage is centered on Christ. And Jesus fought for you and fights for you every day, which is why we fight for our marriage, because nothing good comes without fighting for it.”

Good.

That is good.
And it is also a profound truth I need to know more.

Like I said, I am not one given to crying much. Also not one given to sappy romantic stuff, but when she, the friend who in my estimation deserves (if one could deserve good) blessing and happiness and joy after what she has gone through, said to me, “Sometimes it scares me how much I love my husband. And there are times when he looks at me, and it scares me how much I know he loves me.”

Wow.

Their fighting is paying off.

How can I not be elated over the happiness of a friend? But it’s not even just the happiness, it’s the sacredness of what her life is centered around. Her faithfulness towards a faithful God.

That’s what makes me cry.

As I was on my travels home I realized that my faith is built when I see God’s work in the lives of those I am linked to.

And I found myself praying, “Lord, forgive me that I forget you are faithful. Forgive me that I don’t trust in that.”
Because it’s hard for me to believe sometimes. Or…no…I think it’s hard to believe. Maybe I am still shocked by it, and think it’s too good to be true.
The truth, though, is that He is so true he is good. Which is the only thing worth trusting.

I was reading in Proverbs the other day and I came across a verse which caught my attention. In context it is about The Adulteress. “Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house, lest you give...your years to one who is cruel.” (Proverbs 5:8-9)

I’ve said it once, I will say it again: Sin is a cruel mistress. She robs you of your best, and here it says she robs you of your years.

How devastating.
But you know what?
God is not cruel with our years.

Isn’t that so good to know?!!?

Our years, which in the scope of eternity are nothing, to him are not nothing. And these connections we make with people, how God changes the lives of people, individuals, even though they are not even a drop in the ocean in comparison to world populations, they are not nothing. To him they are something. Something enough for him to take care with our years. To not let them go unseen.

If sin is a Cruel Mistress, he is a Grand Master.

Remember that, Wolfies. She will take from you; she does not give what she claims to offer. Or actually, she might. But what she offers, is not what you want. Don’t think it is. You will be sorely mistaken. And in the process she will take your years with cruelty and without remorse.

But God is faithful. Faithful through the days, to the individuals, in all times and spaces. He is not cruel with our years. With care and grace he leads us through our years towards the holy, because that is who He is. And because it’s in the redeemed things which are being made holy that sometimes we see Him the most clearly. And wherever we see him clearly is where he wants us.

 

If Phoenix wasn't there.

Ok, so I love winter. I really do. Probably because I love boots and fur coats, but I think I have told you this.
All that being said, I found myself thinking today, “Really, another snow storm?” Boatloads of the white stuff fell last night, and I just am….kind of over it.
But, it’s water and with last year’s draught we will take it in any form it wants to come. Even if it is making me a little owl-y and making me wistful for days of summers gone by.

Why is it that I always think of things to tell you when I am on the treadmill? Probably because I am praying my mind can focus on something other than the feeling in my legs…and the side of my stomach…and this constricting feeling in my lungs that resembles being strongly out of breath.

No surprise here, running tonight made me think of how—to steal the line from the song—prone to wander we are.

When I was in the desert this fall my bestie and I went hiking. And as I was there, surrounded entirely by sand and gravel and cacti and nothing like home I thought to myself, “What would it be like if Phoenix wasn’t there? And all of this was just desert…all the way to Colorado? Thousands of miles of desert and I was in said desert?”

 

 

I would go totally bats. Like mad, delusional, clinical crazy. Way crazier than this stir-crazy the winter is making me feel.

I mean, WHAT IF PHOENIX WAS NOT THERE AND YOU WERE IN THAT DESERT???

After that little hike, I think I understood the Israelites better; those desert wanderers.

Why is it that whenever we read about them in the desert we are always so alarmed at their idolatry? Don’t we get a little shocked by it? We think, “How could they be so calloused, to literally BUILD themselves idols? Come on! You watched God part waters before you! He fed you manna! You saw his glory in the distance!”

I, too, must count myself among those who are stunned by their actions.

But really, I think it must be a feigned alarm, because I can’t be in true denial about MY wanderings, can I?

Probably.

The funny thing about wandering is that it usually involves blatant blessings, doesn’t it?

Think about it. Where were the Israelites? They were in the desert. And this is what we see! We see the arid conditions, the lack of water, the perceived scarcity of food.

But what does where they are tell us about where they are NOT?
Oh that’s right. They aren’t in Egypt anymore, are they? They aren’t in captivity any more, are they?
Sometimes I think I down play this in my life; the remembering that at least I am not in captivity anymore, or I’m not where I used to be, whatever.

This not remembering, then, tends to lead me to the wanderings. I feel like this must be what the Israelites’ problem was too. However, I can’t help but get over the fact that wandering usually takes place IN a blessing.

Like being blessed that they weren’t in Egypt anymore. I mean really…isn’t anything better than Egypt? Sure, the food’s not so great where you are now, but you aren’t under a foreign dictator who thought he was God anymore.  And that is a BLESSING. Great, grand, magnificent, beautiful, stunning blessing.

Yet they wandered in it.
The same is true for us, I have a sinking feeling.
I try to think of the things I wander to on a regular, daily basis. Things that get my focus on the THING rather than on blessing. Such blessed things that make me wander. And in that wandering, I complain. Bemoan. Labor. Show contempt.

Like unfinished work. I see the “unfinished” part, not the fact that I have work.

Or I see the dinner dishes that will wait until morning, forgetting the fact that I was blessed enough to have dinner.

The treadmill. Which labors me, really. And I can get so focused on the results this machine can produce in me, putting so much emphasis on that part of my life, giving it an elevated sense of importance to me. Wandering to it, while still complaining about how I don’t get the results I want fast enough. At the same time wandering away from the One who gave me the ability to run in the first place.

And what about all that snow? I have to shovel it around, I have to scrape it off my car. I could curse it if I wanted to. But no. How could I?

What I need to do is learn how to see that even ice falling from the sky is some type of stream in the desert.

Isn’t that what we pray for? Streams in the desert?  But we thought our prayer would be answered with rain. God, this is coming a little late…and not how I wanted it, I think. What about that crop of apples we didn’t harvest because you didn’t provide any?

“And yet,” he says, “You have somehow survived the winter. Even though I didn’t provide the kind of stream in the desert you wanted.” Maybe I can stop some wandering if I can begin to see that blessings come in forms unanticipated.

Maybe wandering stops when we stop. Stop wandering and give thanks for the present desert, which is its own blessing; because being in the desert means that at least we aren’t in Egypt anymore.

Oceans

I can’t believe I am going to tell you this. Not that I have never told anybody this before, I have just never told a lot of people this before.
Whenever I am in a cheeky mood I always want to watch one of the Ocean’s movies. 11, 12, 13, doesn’t matter.

I know, I know. It’s a series of movies about glamorous white collar crime.

Which is why I can’t believe I am telling you this.
Oh no. I’m not ashamed I like these movies…I’m surprised I am telling you what I am going to tell you next.
I admit there is something about each of them I find especially amusing. Maybe it’s the “brilliance” of the characters, the wit, the foresight, the way Brad Pitt is eating in every single scene or the way he and George Clooney don’t finish one single sentence to each other through the whole movie. No joke.
It all started during a Christmas break when I was in college and my family got snowed in. So, rather than travelling to grandma’s, who lives a handful of hours away, we rented and watched all three of the movies, in a period of less than 24 hours. Since then I have been hooked. Or shall I say…corrupted.

Ha.

The issue is this: Whenever I watch them I get an overwhelming urge. An urge brought out by nothing else. I will never forget the first time said feeling came rushing over me. A foreign feeling which I had never felt before and only now feel when I watch the movies (but I already told you that). It was one of those nights I had watched the movies and I was praying before I went to bed when, in this sudden outburst of foreign urge I yelled to God, “Oh NO!!! NO! NO! NO! Lord! This can’t be happening! Certainly I can’t have succumbed this soon! I am trying to be a good Christian woman here but ever since watching those movies all I want to do is rob people!!! NO! I can’t keep thinking about my friends ‘Now, if I was going to pull a heist, which eleven of you would make the cut?’ Deliver me from this madness!!”

Ha.

Hahaha.

It’s a cute story. Me being allured by a glamorous life of crime  and having to use all of my mad spiritual warfare skills to ward off those never-had-before-and-never-had-again desires.

I will be happy to report that, as much as the movie makes those things look like an attainable reality, I have never pulled any stunt or Vegas-robbing heist of any kind.
Nope.
And I won’t.
I don’t believe in crime…I’m a good Christian woman for crying out loud (just like I told God in that prayer)!

 *Smirk*

All of that being said, my humorous-only-because-I-will-never-follow-through feelings laid bare before the world, I watched one of them the other day as I was in my studio. Just for background noise.

I was in a cheeky mood.

And as I was watching it I of course imagined it was reality. “What,” I thought, “would real life be like for someone—a real life person whose real life was one of glamorous crime like in the movie—who got saved out of that? Where would they go and what would they do after Jesus entered the picture?”

The thought is almost more intriguing than the one of trying to figure out who my heist team of “11” would be.

But really, before you can figure out what life would be like AFTER, one has to figure out what life for someone is like BEFORE. As in, why would someone lead a lifestyle like that? What about it could be appealing?

Oh sure, there are the classic allurements. Women, money, parties, power over peers, pride of intelligence. All the classic things.

But why would someone rob people? And not just ‘someone’ but one who is already a millionaire, stealing from ‘people’ who will still be millionaires after you rob them?

It’s not as if you NEED the money.
I suppose you might need another ego boost….maybe?
Then I thought, “Could it really be that simple?”

 There is a line in the trailer for The Great Gatsby that goes like this: “The restlessness approached hysteria.”

And I think that is precisely, simply, the answer for why someone with no “needs” would steal “necessities” from someone else (excluding of course the case for people who are ill and just want to watch the world burn…).

Boredom.

Restlessness that approaches hysteria.

In the movie even, right before all the planning for the first heist happens, the main character says to the other, “Rusty, you look bored,” to which is given the reply, “I AM bored. Oh gosh I’m bored.”

So they come up with a plan to give themselves “something to do.”

The problem with all of this is that—well—I can’t just write it off. The thought nags my little brain, for, while I am not going to do some grandiose heist, I think I know the boredom. Or I at least have glimpses of it.

But…I’m a good Christian woman! That shouldn’t be happening to me, should it?

I mean, I already have the words of life pertaining to this issue: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.” (Psalm 62:1, 5)

So how do I settle a soul at rest, knowing beyond any doubt’s shadow that rest will come from nowhere else, with the small struggle of boredom?

Is there a difference between the two?
And I am not talking about boredom which comes from the lack of things to do. Like the kind that mopes around the house and goes, “I’m bored.”
No. I don’t care about that kind. That kind of boredom is a choice. What I am talking about is the restlessness. The deep boredom that can come even when you have a to-do list a mile long and work 80 hours a week.

I have thought about this a lot.

I thought of giving you the pat answer like, “We get bored when we run to other things than Jesus.” “Idolatry makes us bored.” “Complacency makes us bored.” “Apathy makes us bored.” Etc. Etc. Etc.

But then I thought that maybe I am coming at this from the wrong angle; looking at it from a negative perspective. Wanting to point out the wrong-ness of the WHAT they are running to rather than the truth in the WHY people run in the first place. Because it’s in the WHY that we find a great truth.

II Corinthians 5:1-5 "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.  Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."

Do you know what that says to me? It says to me that we bore because we are just so OVER this mortality stuff and all it entails. Kind of like a “Been there, done that, saw it twice, ate everything, still don’t care,” attitude. Don’t you think that the closer we get to Christ—to THE Immortal—the more we look at all this perishable stuff around us and go, “Yeah, it’s just not doing it for me anymore.”

And that is the beauty of “the run.” The beauty of WHY some could be tempted to plan elaborate heists for no good reason other than they could, so they did: because our mortality fights against itself and says “This can’t possibly be all there is.”

 In the book A Severe Mercy C.S. Lewis is quoted for having said ‘“Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?’ Then, if we complain of time and take such joy in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest? It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal {mortal} creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it—how fast it goes, how slowly it goes {boredom}, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren’t adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity {immortality} exists and is our home.”

Isn’t that brilliant? In a slightly different way of putting it I could say, “The mere fact that we feel boredom with all of this immortal stuff—stuff that will not survive the flames of the end—means that we do not naturally belong in the same category as those things. We find ourselves desperately “longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” because this tent we presently find ourselves living in is not our home. We can’t wait for what is mortal to be swallowed up by life.”

Why, you might ask, does our soul find rest in God alone? Because eternity is set in the hearts of men (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and therefore our eternal hearts are never at home, never at rest, unless it is with the Eternal One.