Approaching Zion: Desert Healers

(Artwork in this post by American contemporary impressionist, Erin Hanson, born 1981)

Previously in the Approaching Zion series:

Childlike Consecration
Polygamy
Beauty and the Beast
The Doctrine of Christ
The Pure in Heart
One Heart and One Mind
A Refuge from the Storm
Go Ye Out of Babylon
The Seventh Seal
Watchmen and Waste Places
The Seven Heavens
The Kingdom of God on Earth
The Destiny of America
The Mystery of the Atonement
Walking with God
Enduring to the End
​Dreaming of Justice, Longing for Mercy

A Desert Blooming

   He will make her wilderness
   like Eden,
   and her desert
   like the garden of the Lord.

       ― Isaiah 51:3

I flew into Phoenix on Saturday for work.  I love Arizona because my family roots are from there.  My grandfather (George Merrill, 1920-2015) grew up in St. David, Arizona during the Great Depression.

He used to tell me stories about growing up in the middle of nowhere, before electricity and indoor plumbing, just 100 miles from the Mexican border.  On Saturday nights his family would heat water in a metal tin tub, taking turns bathing, from oldest to youngest.  He was the youngest of seven children ― he joked by the time it was his turn, he would come out of the bathwater dirtier than when he entered.

As is often the case, the lands of our youth have a way of seeping into our blood; we carry our childhood home with us for the rest of our lives.  I think that's why my grandpa felt a lifelong connection to the dry Arizona dirt.  Wherever he went, he surrounded himself with desert art, Native American keepsakes, and wore fabulous turquoise rings as symbols of his past.

Deserts, though, are dangerous places.  The wilderness is not welcoming.  You and I inhabit a spiritual desert.  The land is parched, "its water dried up" (Rev 16:12).  Our religious leaders present themselves as an oasis in the desert, but so often they lead us only to a mirage.  No other can give us the water we seek: we must dig deeply to tap into the aquifer of God's peculiar treasure (Ex. 19:5).

Personally, I find being wanderers in the wilderness, pilgrims in a strange land, to be a blessing.  Yes, I know it is 'hard living' ― but because of it, we have grown lean and wise.  We know survival comes from knowing the earth, her songs and ways.

For here, in the wilderness, away from urban noise pollution and convenience stores, far from the nearest religious interstate, we hear the word of the Lord more clearly.  His voice shines upon the crystal sands as the light of the sun, transforming the desert floor into a field of diamonds.

The stillness of night is punctuated by the call of coyotes, the rattle of snakes seeking the lingering warmth of stone, and the sound of desert owls rising with the moon.

Can you hear the desert rousing itself?  Can you witness it blossoming as a cactus rose?  The Lord is terraforming the spiritual landscape.

   Behold, that which you hear
   is as the voice of one crying
   IN THE WILDERNESS―
   in the wilderness, because you
   cannot see him―
   my voice, because my voice
   is Spirit; my Spirit is truth;
   truth abideth and hath no end;
   and if it be IN YOU
   it shall abound.

(D&C 88:66)

In this remarkable verse we discover where truth is found: not 'out there' ― not among the mining companies who labor for fools' gold.  No, truth is buried deep within us ("in you").  We are the Lord's treasure, his precious gems (3 Nephi 24:17).  The truth we earnestly seek, the pearl of great price, is woven into our own souls.

Let us gather round the campfire the Lord has set here in the desert, now that darkness spreads.  Bring your canteen for the Lord to fill; come warm your hands before the flame and listen to Him stir our hearts with stories of worlds-to-be, and feel the peace pouring from His face, aglow in the firelight.

For here in the desert we shall find healing.  Fitting, isn't it: for who would have thought that here, of all places, we should find living waters in the barren wilderness?

"[Be][hold] me"

   And [Jesus] went aside privately
   into a desert place.

        ― Luke 9:10

The hotel I was staying at in Phoenix had a restaurant.  I found a seat in the lounge and ordered water and beef short rib tacos.

While waiting for my food, I opened my phone and sorted emails.  I texted my wife.  I observed the others in the restaurant, mostly golf-types who were celebrating the end of 18 holes with beer and burgers.

I sipped my water, sitting alone, though I didn't feel lonely ― for despite appearances, no matter how alone we appear, we are not denizens of solitude; none of us is spiritually cut-off.  We walk among unseen hosts; we swim in the currents of angelic concourses; we labor in the presence of, and beside, God himself (Jacob 5:72).

The desert crawls with life.  We serve within a highly-developed spiritual ecosystem that stretches outwards and inwards, worlds without number, connecting all generations of time.

I checked Facebook, looked at the news, and ― still no sign of those tacos ― I opened the scriptures on my phone and began reading from Isaiah.

  I said, Behold me, behold me

(Isaiah 65:1)

Here the Lord is speaking directly to us, and those words hit me like a charging buffalo.  "Behold me!"  Where?  "Look!  Do you see me?"  Gileadi's translation makes God's plea even more emphatic:

   I said, Here am I; I am here.

(Isaiah 65:1, Gileadi Translation)

From the sound of it, I expected God to be waving His arms trying to get my attention.  I looked around: no chariots of fire, no Beings of blinding glory anywhere to be seen.  I saw a weary-looking bartender, a middle-aged waitress wiping down tables, and groups of sunburned friends finishing their drinks.

​How does one find water in the desert?  Where can one find God in these forsaken wastelands?

   "Can I get a refill?"

Poor Moses

   [They] lusted exceedingly
   in the wilderness,
   and tempted God
   in the desert.

        ― Psalm 106:14

Are you familiar with the Desert of Zin?  It is a place Moses won't soon forget.

The Desert of Zin is a rocky region in the Negev where the Israelites couldn't find water.  Things went downhill quickly for Moses from that point:

   And there was no water
   for the congregation:
   and they gathered themselves
   together against Moses.

(Numbers 20:2)

No good deed goes unpunished.  The Israelites were pretty good at blaming their leaders; I have to remind myself not to fall into the same trap, not to expect our leaders to quench our thirst when only Christ's living waters can sate our need.

​   And the people strove
   with Moses, and spake, saying:
   Would God that we had died
   when our brethren died
   before the Lord!

(Numbers 20:3)

Joseph Smith warned us to not "depend" too much upon our leaders.  Dependence puts negative pressure on leadership while impoverishing the faith in their followers (who, instead of trusting the Lord, trust the directives coming from Headquarters).

And so in spiritual matters, I have personally determined to take the Lord's counsel to "stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world" (D&C 78:14).  I will hold myself accountable for the kind of relationship I have with the Lord; it is no one else's job.

   And wherefore have ye made us
   to come up out of Egypt,
   to bring us in unto this evil place?

(Numbers 20:5)

Often people will leave a bad situation only to find the new one equally intolerable.  We keep searching for something "better" out there, not realizing that the betterment we truly seek lies within.

   It is no place of seed,
   or of figs, or of vines,
   or of pomegranates;
   neither is there any water
   to drink.

(Numbers 20:5)

We often find fault with our circumstances, as if more money, or a better job, or some other improvement will finally 'do the trick.'

Moses could have given the people pomegranates, and would they have changed their tune?  No, because the underlying cause of their discontent was dependence on an external source, thinking Moses was supposed to solve things for them.  The power of God is self-empowering; dependence upon outside authority is spiritually depleting.

   And Moses and Aaron gathered
   the congregation together
   before the rock, and he said
   unto them: Hear now, ye rebels:
   must we fetch you water
   out of this rock?

(Numbers 20:10)

One of the downsides of a hierarchy is that it deprives the people of wrestling with the Lord themselves, so that they struggle to become spiritually self-reliant.

   And Moses lifted up his hand,
   and with his rod he smote
   the rock twice: 
   and water came out.

(Numbers 20:11)

Whoops: Moses didn't follow the Lord's instructions, and therefore was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.  You see, a hierarchy is also bad for those on top, who become negatively influenced by the demands of their followers, as Moses demonstrates.  The Lord said to Moses:

   For ye rebelled
   against my commandment
   in the desert of Zin,
   in the strife of the congregation,
   to santify me at the water
   before their eyes.

(Numbers 27:14)

Moses was so wearied from the murmuring, he took his eyes off the mark for one brief moment, and look.

The sin of the Desert of Zin was to place the focus on the water instead of Him who is its Wellspring; to credit the rock instead of the Stone; to look to leadership instead of the Lord for answers.

Ironically, members of the LDS Church (and those in most religions) have postured themselves towards their leaders as the ancient Israelites did Moses.  In the Protestant context, they likewise fixate on an ideological interpretation of the Bible ("creeds") over the living Word that inhabits the fleshy tablets of our hearts.

How did we fail to learn the most basic lesson of the desert? 

"I give waters in the wilderness"

   I will even make a way
   in the wilderness,
   and rivers in the desert.

    ― Isaiah 43:19
​
In the hotel lounge, I continued reading Isaiah (still no tacos).  I love the words of Isaiah because they teach that God's love is the work of healing across spiritual dimensions as well as dispensations.

Love is the work of restoring Israel ― and individuals ― to wholeness.  Love is the means by which we irrigate our hearts; love is water seeping into the desert soil we thought lifeless, but in fact contains seeds beneath the surface just waiting for new life.

God says:
​
   I was available . . . .
   I was accessible.

(Isaiah 65:1; Gileadi)

According to Merriam Webster, "accessible" means "capable of being reached; something within reach; easy to speak to or deal with."

Who among us in the desert hasn't cried out with chapped lips, "O God, where art thou?  And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place" (D&C 121:1)?

Among city slickers it is easy to miss Him, where skyscrapers block the sun at noonday, and religious leaders occlude the light streaming down from above.  But in the desert all is laid bare beneath the bone-bleaching stare of God's piercing eye.

   I held out my hands all the day
   to a defiant people . . . 
   who sit in sepulchres

(Isaiah 65:2, 4; Gileadi)

If we want to find God, we don't have to "go" anywhere: He is here.  His hand is graspable.  The way we grasp it is through faith and repentance ― which, to me, means the process of self-healing under the care of a wise Master Healer.

A "sepulchre" is a tomb, a place of burial and death.  The Lord found us shriveled in the desert, sick and prey for vultures, fainted and forlorn.  Taking pity, the Lord reached down as we lingered in shallow graves, and said, "You sleep, but rise," and lifted us up (3 Nephi 27:15).

But the Lord is not an Elevator.  We don't ascend Jacob's Ladder by pushing a button and skipping floors to the sound of soft music; that is not what the atonement is about.

No, if we wish to ascend to the Father we must climb, taking the stairs.  The Lord is our strength: in His strength we press forward, step-by-step, day-by-day, until the "perfect day" (D&C 50:24).

The Lord cannot impose healing; He will not infringe upon our agency (Matt. 13:58).  This is why He can only show us the way, and offer His companionship and comfort, and nourish us so we have hope to press onward.

But the mystery is that becoming like Him (the great I AM) is something He cannot give us ― for it is ours already.

The rungs on the ladder represent spiritual growth, which means increased consciousness or divine awareness (what we might call "intelligence" or the "spirit of truth").  As our spiritual awareness grows, our "eyes" begin to see a hidden reality: the God we were climbing toward was with us all along, in every step, for He is us ― and we were, in fact, God returning to Himself.

   [Who] spend nights in hideouts

(Isaiah 65:4, Gileadi)

But we don't realize this truth, or "see Him," because we hide our face.  Not from God, but from ourselves.  Why do we hide?  Not from God (that's impossible) ― why do we hide from ourselves?

Why do we shun mirrors as if we were Medusa?  Why do we cling to this veil like a security blanket, clenching our fig leaves with tight fists, thinking we are separate from God, trying to impress Him with works that Isaiah calls "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6)?

In the desert we return to nature, and become naked once more, stripped of rags, becoming little children: and from the Red Rock of Christ's blood we weave robes of rainbow light, unashamed of who we truly are: sons and daughters of God. 

I want to suggest that to ascend the steps of heaven requires us to face ourselves, warts and all, in the mirror, and observe our fat folds and unseemly parts, and the testimony of years spent beneath a summer sun etched upon our wrinkled skin, and not turn away.  To comprehend God, we must comprehend ourselves, which comes from healing our wounds.

The final frontier is not in outer space.  It is the exploration of divine consciousness and celestial-knowing in the infinite intelligence of the Creator, of which we are part.

​My stomach growled; I roused myself, looking up from my phone.  Where were those tacos?

Who's on the Lord's Side, Who?

   The child grew
   and . . . was in the deserts
   till the day of his showing.

        ― Luke 1:80

The story of St. David, Arizona begins with the Mormon Battalion, who passed through the San Pedro River valley in 1846.  My direct ancestor, Philemon Merrill (1820-1904), was part of the Battalion and later returned to settle St. David.

Born in 1820 in New York, Philemon joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1839 after his family moved to Illinois, and was ordained an Elder by Hyrum Smith in 1840.

Following the martyrdom, he left Nauvoo and marched with the Mormon Battalion.  Then Philemon was called on a mission to the British Isles, where he spent the next five years (while his two wives back in Utah struggled to support themselves and their children).

In 1876 Philemon received a call to go to Arizona and settle.  Passing through St. George, where the temple had just been dedicated, he received his second anointing.

The fledgling community lay within the Chihuahuan Desert and brushed up against the Apache tribe and Geronimo.  Conditions were rough.  Many of the settlers left.

On October 7, 1878, apostle Erastus Snow visited the small church and blessed the land, prophesying that the day would come when the San Pedro Valley would be settled from one end to the other with Saints.
​
​I admire the pioneer spirit of our ancestors who eked out a living from the unforgiving soil, but I mourn the fact that they, like us, often prioritized religion-building over spiritual healing.  They saw themselves as "building the kingdom of God" through grit more than grace.

Like them, we pride ourselves on digging wells and sending out missionaries and counting church membership as one would head of cattle, erecting mighty edifices, and so on ― all the while thinking these things demonstrate our faith, when in fact, faith is hope in that which is not seen (Alma 32:21).

And this is why there is so little faith upon the earth today, despite appearances ― despite the popularity of religion and its bustling pews, the burgeoning budgets and building sprees, despite the materialistic metrics we boast in: faith is dwindling.

Why?  Because, as we've hewn granite blocks in which to worship, we have neglected the work of inner spiritual healing, which is the real work of faith.

As a result, our families and communities lack a sense of wholeness and peace.  We see this in the fact that Church culture is not very conducive to inner-spiritual work, which includes the need for acceptance, nonjudgment, and authentic self-expression.

​​   who eat swine’s flesh,
   their bowls full of polluted broth

(Isaiah 65:4, Gileadi)

The path of spiritual healing begins with trusting our own divine heart-knowing.  It's almost a farce that we're given the gift of the Holy Ghost but then told to follow the Brethren, because, for practical purposes, if the Brethren's authority is paramount, we might as well have no Holy Ghost at all.  And thus we are taught from a young age to "deny the gifts of God" (Moroni 10:8).

There is an ongoing cosmic contest, a War in Heaven, that is very real.  There is a simple reason that religions invariably fall into idolatry and priestcraft, like in olden times, keeping us asleep and blind to our divine nature.  It is because Satan lies to us about who we are so he can more easily manipulate us into servility.

   And the angel said unto me:
   Behold the formation
   of a church which
   is most abominable . . . 
   which bindeth them down,
   and yoketh them
   with a yoke of iron,
   and bringeth them down
   into captivity.

(1 Nephi 13:5)

There is no need to try to assign which "church" this is talking about (as Bruce R. McConkie tried to do), for the Great and Abominable Church is all of them.  That is, we find in every religion aspects which spread darkness and lead to our spiritual subjugation.

But wait, please don't misunderstand: mercifully, the Lord has also planted in all religions enough light that we can find Him, too, if we look to the spirit rather than letter.  In this way God respects and entices our agency.

The choice is ours.  You see, the choice isn't just which Church to join, but which aspects of our churches we'll choose: the part that is godly or demonic?  Using our divine discernment is the real test.

Sadly, we have witnessed the spiritual blood-letting of priestcraft in our religions, making believers passive, to be "acted upon" rather than to act in God's strength.

The temptation to be "acted upon" by external authority operates to darken our minds.  What is really pernicious is when the devil convinces us it is good to be "acted upon" ― even (especially) by God.  This is one of the deceptions that Christ called an "abomination" (JS-H 1:19).

This may be discomforting, because we've been taught Christ will save us!  "Tim, I want Christ to act upon me!"  This is very subtle, but let me suggest that Christ will not "act upon" us because He honors our agency and will not infringe in the slightest degree upon our free will.

For this reason, it is an eternal law that the Lord "worketh not among the children of men save it be according to their faith" (2 Nephi 27:23).  The way Christ saves us is not by acting upon us, but by us acting through Him.

I would be wary of any teaching or message that promotes self-mistrust or shame or repression: for such things are deleterious to our spiritual makeup.

Many Christians have experienced a weakened sense-of-self and thought themselves holy for it, and the devils laugh; many of us have sought salvation from an external entity we imagine as God, not realizing we are inviting negative spiritual beings to prey upon our vulnerability like vampires who appear as angels of light, who whisper promptings in our hearts.

Instead of doubting our doubts, I would encourage us to sit with them: what is their source? Interrogate them, listen to them, dig into them until we arrive at greater understanding.  We must resolve doubt, not bury it, in order to maintain spiritual balance. 

The work of healing is for the living.  But religious leaders are more like archeologists than doctors.  They oversee religions that resemble fossil museums, celebrating the giants of the past.  "Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah!"

We fill our churches with the reassembled skeletons of great dinosaurs, like Jesus and Joseph Smith, their bones standing motionless, unmoved, just as we’ve posed them.

But Jesus is not the picture painted on temple walls: He lives in us.

Was the Sun the Same
a poem

 Was the sun
   the same
 
or did it shed itself
when mammoths
 
   multiplied
   across snow-crusted canyons
 
and giants cast crumbling shadows
hunting,
 
   mating,
   breaths stretched between drum-faces
 
rimy spears raised against the graupel
blackening Pleiades in a vault of wind​
 
   a song-cage for cheating fear
   smokeless as spent coal
 
lingering the color of days’ old blood
in the shallow bed of setting suns.
  
   We pay museum admission
   to relive
 
their story (nothing more
than a curator’s guess).
  
   Who can bear witness
   to the mephitic passage
 
of time taut for cutting?
Dispensations are

   wooly creatures
   masticating buttercups

interrupted 
by cataclysm.
  
      Was the sun
      the same

or did it shed itself?

Grace Healing

   When the poor and needy
   seek water, and there is none,
   and their tongue faileth for thirst,
   I the Lord will hear them.

​   ― Isaiah 41:17

​Practice Pointer: I have learned repentance is the process of self-healing, of integrating our body with our mind and spirit.  The scriptures call this becoming "a new creature."

Divine healing requires gobs and gobs of grace.  Grace is a state of mind, a condition of the heart, which bears the peace of knowing, "It is well."  Not that things are 'well' in the relative view, from where we stand ― but from the objective view of God who orders all things in one, who sees the end from the beginning.

In the immediate view, there is much unwellness.  I do not wish to dwell on the sickness of society.  And Zion is not well.  But nevertheless, we need not worry, because in the eternal view, It is well.

While we see the principle of grace fully manifest in God's bosom, we find it also in each other: for grace is a quality of consciousness that is inherent in all sentient beings, and radiates from those who are spiritually balanced.  Grace is the scent we smell around Intelligence.

When the trinity of our mind/ body/ spirit (that which makes up "self") becomes imbalanced, we do not feel "well."  Imbalance is easy to spot: just look for signs like short temper, or stinginess, or feelings of low self-worth.  All of the graceless qualities we frown upon are symptoms of spiritual imbalance.

For Christ to reconcile us with God means the reconciliation of our own flesh and spirit, at which point, we "know" or see God as He is because we have become like Him (Moroni 7:48).

"Well Tim," someone says, "Then it's hopeless, because I am not like God!"

Well, that is a mistaken notion; you are created in His image.  I would suggest that what we perceive as alienation from God is actually the feeling of being cut-off from our true selves.  To know God, we must know ourselves: this is the work of healing and spiritual progression.

The Lord is our co-healer, but He cannot heal us without our involvement, for He will not infringe upon our agency.

So He waits.  He waits for us to desire wholeness in Him, to enter in the way and walk the Path with Him, the Path of Pure Love.  No lasting healing can arise from fear; all spiritual work is done in the womb of God's lovingkindness where mercy claimeth her own.

Hold all things in an open palm: if it is based in love, it shall remain with you without any compulsory means whatsoever; if the thing is not needful, it shall fall away of its own accord.  There is no need to force anything.

Now the key to understand is this: just as grace multiples when we find peace between our disparate self-parts, so too is grace magnified when separate beings find balance with each other (what the scriptures call becoming "one").

As two, or three, or more people achieve this, they integrate with a larger spiritual network, which I shall call the "spirit of Christ": they act as electrons of spiritual power spinning and ordered to the center nucleus, God, who Himself balances the electrons together into a valence, a family, an energy field that, itself, one can deem a Father composed of many.

The Path of love begins with healing, and healing begins with faith.  Faith is turning to God, which is to say, inward, where divine intelligence dwells.

A Desert Prophecy

​   Jacob shall flourish
    in the wilderness,
    and the Lamanites
    shall blossom as the rose.

          ― D&C 49:24

In this verse we see the Lord putting an interesting twist on the Old Testament prophecy regarding the desert blossoming as a rose, applying it specifically to the Lamanites (D&C 49:24).

In the immediate verse to follow, He says, then:

   Zion shall flourish.

(D&C 49:25)

So there we have it.  The New Jerusalem will not "flourish" without the Lamanites, the children of promise ― the desert wanderers who renew the spiritual heart of Zion (which had flat-lined).

   And they [the Gentiles]
   shall assist my people,
   the remnant of Jacob,
   and also as many
   of the house of Israel
   as shall come,
   that they may build
   a city, which shall be called
   the New Jerusalem.

   And then shall they
   assist my people
   that they may be gathered in,
   who are scattered
   upon all the face of the land,
   in unto the New Jerusalem.

(3 Nephi 21:22-24)

   Q No. 1:  Who does the Lord call "my people?"

   A:  The remnant of Jacob (not the Latter-day Saints).

   Q No. 2:  Are the Latter-day Saint Gentiles in charge of building the New Jerusalem?

   A:  No, the Lord promised that the New Jerusalem will be built by the remnant of Jacob.

   Q No. 3:  So what is the role of the Latter-day Gentiles in the building of Zion?

   A:  Our role is to "assist" the remnant of Jacob.   

   Q No. 4:  Will all Latter-day Gentiles be able to assist?

   A:  No, only those who have:
   
      1.  Hearkened to the voice of the Lord; and

      2.  Not hardened their hearts; and

      3.  Been numbered among the remnant of Jacob.

The Puebloan people have a tradition that when the first souls rose up from the earth, the first gift the earth gave them was water.

As they emerged through a crack in the earth, a creature named Maasaw (who I like to think of as a hummingbird) greeted them and instructed them to become stewards of Mother Earth and honor her.

According to the Hopi Indians, Maasaw gave them a sacred quest to fulfil, which they spent the rest of their lives pursing: to "find the Center Place."

I cannot tell you where the Center Place is: it is someplace we must each explore and discover for ourselves.

But the real "center place" of Zion is not Jackson County, neither can it be found on any map ― for the center place is found within.

Desert Tears

​"Tears reveal the depths at which and from which we care."

   ― Richard Rohr 

Back in Phoenix, my tacos finally came (it took an hour, but I can't complain since it gave me time to read Isaiah chapter 65).

I returned to my hotel room, my heart (and stomach) full, and sat on the bed, and prayed.  When I was young, I would claw heaven's walls seeking a way in, not realizing heaven was within me.

I entered heaven.  It is easy to think of heaven in materialistic terms, as a glorious city of gold and light "out there" somewhere, near Kolob, like Milwaukee (but with better weather) ― when in fact the pearly gates we must pass through begin with our own inner demons.

I wept.  When was the last time I had cried?  Not a trickle-tear in response to a sappy TV commercial or touching piece of music ― but the soul-wrenching, ugly crying of grief and longing clenched deep in the bowels, hoping-against-hope?

The fight was never between prophets and golden calves, between political parties and rivals, the Sharks and Jets.  The fight is what happens inside each of us.  Call a truce, a cease-fire: show yourself charity.

An easy test for whether we are spiritually balanced is to see what disturbs our peace: disquiet and negative emotional reactions are a sign we have work to do.  For Christ urged, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27).

Turning to God, we find a peace that does not depend upon the First Presidency, or Trump, our boss at work, or even our spouse.  This is the peace that Christ offers ― ("not as the world giveth, give I unto you") ― and it is found in healing ourselves through walking the Path that Jesus walked, hand-in-hand, which is to say, to find the Father within.

   I and my Father are one.

(John 10:30)

Yes, other people's actions and policies affect our lives, and we render under Caesar his coin ― but the difference is, being God-centered, seeing things through the heart of eternity, we sense and come to know: It is well.

That doesn't mean we get to kick back and retire to the Country Club (I refuse to be translated so long as Taco Bell continues making delicious Mexican Pizzas): there is yet a lot of work that needs doing.

Love is on the frontlines of ameliorating the harm and hurt we see all around.  That is why I continue to write, and blog, and pray: we will never give up on God (or each other).  Looking you squarely in the face, I say to you, "Don't give up on yourself."

​No matter our sorrow or present care, know we are seedlings that need only water and sun, love and hope.

We were planted on this earth to grow, to learn, to acquire knowledge and wisdom and evolve as eternal souls through experiences of all sorts.

The best spiritual practice I am aware of for developing heart-balance, to integrate our mind and body and spirit, is the soulful giving of thanksgiving to the Supreme Creator.  Not only for the big things, which are their own reward: but thanks to God for the normal stuff, the small things, the trials that bring tear-water to our cheeks ― for the greatest is the least, and the least is all.

Carla Rueckert said:  "Those who seek the truth are destined to follow a mystery, and much is gained by trusting that mystery, to trust the basic nature of the self, and to ask not to become something he is not, but rather to become that which he most truly is, for each of you has the pure and perfect light within."

​There is nothing so mysterious, and as magical, as following a desert Sun to new horizons.
 
   I will set in the desert
   the fir tree, and the pine,
   and the box tree together:

   That they may see,
   and know, and consider,
   and understand together,
   that the hand of the Lord
   hath done this, and
   the Holy One of Israel
   hath created it.

​(Isaiah 41:19-20)

I leave you with my love; while it may appear a paltry thing, held in your heart it shall burn more brightly, in the bosom of you who are desert-born, and grow into something everlasting.

[Below: a picture I took on my last night in Phoenix at sunset as I walked a desert trail]