What transpires within the heart of a dog,

 created for a purpose

 to love and adore his own Sun and Moon.

When that Sun, that Moon have left the sky?

This dog sees only clouds of late,

The Moon has left, the Sun obscured,

Yet he waits, in anticipation, for clouds to part.

Even a moment, is enough for now.

There are others who provide comfort,

The lady, who smells of love and cuddles,

The man who often frolics and plays.

Other dogs who help pass the time.

All very nice, all appreciated, all loved,

He is grateful.

But they are not his Sun and Moon.

So he waits and hopes.

Oft he hears a voice, a car, some sound,

the Sun, the Sun, it comes!

Sun fights hard against the darkness,

and often shines for only a moment.

Oh but this moment,

for the dog,

is bliss.

It lends more strength to wait.

It is his purpose you see,

To love the Sun, to love the Moon

The Moon has left but there is still hope for the Sun to return.

So he waits, will wait forever or death come.

He is loyal

He is patient

He holds out hope

He is dog.

  Much has been written about the poem Renascence, written in 1912, by poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Many say it speaks of personal death, some say it speaks of the death of a child, and some say it speaks of the death of a soul and its rebirth. I would be in the latter category. To me it speaks of an injured soul, a wounded soul coming back to life, seeing things from a different perspective, being reborn, stepping from darkness where death is sought and desired, back into light where life is beautiful and precious.

 The poem is beautiful and haunting. I try to read a little bit of poetry here and there, and it was interesting that this was the poem that came up for my reading today. On the way to work this morning I was thinking about all the sorrow in the world, all the suffering, thinking about how things will be when God one day makes all things right, thinking of His grace poured out upon a suffering world, and how my Lord must feel when He looks down upon us in the midst of suffering. He was always most compassionant of the downtrodden ones, when He walked this earth so long ago. He Himself is well aquainted with suffering. All of this was on my mind this morning.

 And then this afternoon, I opened up my book to this poem. It seemed to fit so well with all that was stirring in my soul today.

 The poem is long, but it is so very well worth your time in reading it. I read it aloud, to myself, for some reason sometimes words sink in all the more for me when I read them aloud.

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line 
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from; 
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.

But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And -- sure enough! -- I see the top! 
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight 
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire, --
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more, -- there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and -- crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see, --
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, --
I know not how such things can be! --
I breathed my soul back into me.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;

Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!

Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Further information on Edna St Vincent Millay can be found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/edna-st-vincent-millay 

 Last night at a little after midnight we were awoken by the sound of enormous thunder. A crash of lightening lit up the sky like the daylight. Samson (the dog) who had been asleep at my feet leaped several feet into the air and started barking.

 I arose from my warm and comfy bed to go and open the back door for him, as he was determined to see what was going on outside. In the short walk from my bed to the patio door the heavens opened up. I mean they OPENED up! It was as if a gigantic bucket, in the hands of a thousand angels was being tipped out over my house. Walls of water, solid sheets of water hammered the house. Samson of course quickly decided that he did not need to see what was going on outside and went swiftly back to bed.

 I lay awake for some time, listening to the heavy sound of the sheets of water pouring over the house. It was so intense I fully expected there to be leaks going on somewhere. Surely when I awake tomorrow in the light of day there will be puddles of water inside the house, it simply is not possible to contain such amounts of water in such a short time.

 That is how it rolls in New Mexico, we go for long periods of time with no water at all, no moisture. Everything becomes dry and parched, and then all of a sudden, the heavens open and all that rain comes down in the space of about 5 to 20 minutes.

 I do love the rain, love the power and intensity of a good thunder storm, love to watch the water cascading down the roads, washing out my backyard, overflowing from everything that can contain water. The more powerful the storm, the harder the rain falls, the more I love it. I even love walking in the rain, and have many good memories of such walks.

 I learned to love walking in the rain when I lived in England, many years ago. There, if you want to walk, if you intend to take your dog out for a stroll, you simply cannot allow rain to stop you, and there I learned that walking in rain is actually a very enjoyable experience.

 Years later when my firstborn son came along, I taught him to walk in the rain, we used to get our boots on, and our raincoats and go for walks with the dog. We made it a point to step in every puddle. I sure miss those days. So miss the laughter and the innocence of that time.

 My younger son and I had our moments in the rain also, walking through the puddles and later on driving through the puddles. We got stuck in a huge puddle once, and by the time we got the truck out it looked like it had been dipped in chocolate. We still laugh about that, near every time we pass that place.

 Somewhere along the way, we forgot how to laugh in the rain, the troubles of life have been like a huge storm, sheets of sorrow falling down upon us. We have sat, huddled in our skins, waiting for the storm to pass, and yet the waters continue to rage. It is time to put the raincoats on, time to go out and splash in the puddles, time to dance in the rain.

 This journey, started a few years ago, and still ongoing, has taught me a lot. God has been working in my life, drawing me closer to Him, teaching me about Him, teaching me about trials and hardships and how to continue walking with Him, trusting Him, even when things are not as I would want. I have learned a lot, and have finally come to a place where I have peace in the midst of the downpour..........but I hear Him calling me forward.........we are not done in this journey yet...........He still is trying to teach me how to have joy in the rain, how to dance in the rain, how to raise my arms to the heavens, throw my head back and laugh out loud to the God of creation.....right there in the middle of the storm.

 Don't you desire that? Don't you long to laugh in the rain? Don't you long to feel that joy in your heart, that carefree joy, even when it is raining?

 I believe it is possible, and I believe it is desired. I am not talking about happiness. It is not possible to be happy when someone you care about dies too young. It is not possible to be giddy when a family loses a young father and now walks without him, it is not possible to be carefree and giggly when someone you love battles against darkness and depression. I am talking about joy, not happiness.

 Have I forgotten that great beauty comes from suffering? How many beautiful diamonds are made swiftly and without pressure?Most natural diamonds are formed at high temperature and pressure at depths of 87 to 120 miles in the Earth's mantle.That is a huge amount of pressure!

 And can you just pour molten metal into a mold and have a functioning sword come forth, one that can stand up against another blade without breaking, one that is a thing of beauty and grace? No! Why even a fork poured out in such a way would not stand up to life. God is in the act of creating! He is the Creator! He is fashioning something beautiful, something wondrous, something useful. The rain, the downpours, the thunder and the lightening, the pressures and sorrows of this life can be a means to an end, if we simply submit to the hand of the Creator. Dance in the rain! Lift up your hands to the heavens and sing! God is crafting something beautiful!

 Yield to the fire, fold to the beat of the hammer, absorb the water to quench the heat, step into the fire to allow the reheating, and fold upon fold, quench after quench, and fire after fire.....and one day from the water is pulled such a sword!

Take a moment and read up on the ancient art of creating a masterpiece sword. I have often thought of the art of sword-making as a means of seeing God's hand at work in our lives. We the material, He the Master Smith. Not all metal is strong enough to endure the crafting, and not all metal is intended for swords. It takes much pressure, tremendous hardship, and lots of pain to turn steel into tamahagane, and it takes much crafting to turn the tamahagane into a sword fit for the hand of a King.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/samurai/swor-nf.html

In mineralogy, diamond (from the ancient Greek αδάμας – adámas "unbreakable") is a metastable allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at standard conditions. Diamond is renowned as a material with superlative physical qualities, most of which originate from the strong covalent bonding between its atoms. In particular, diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any bulk material. Those properties determine the major industrial application of diamond in cutting and polishing tools and the scientific applications in diamond knives and diamond anvil cells.

Because of its extremely rigid lattice, it can be contaminated by very few types of impurities, such as boron and nitrogen. Small amounts of defects or impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) color diamond blue (boron), yellow (nitrogen), brown (lattice defects), green (radiation exposure), purple, pink, orange or red. Diamond also has relatively high optical dispersion (ability to disperse light of different colors).

Most natural diamonds are formed at high temperature and pressure at depths of 140 to 190 kilometers (87 to 120 mi) in the Earth's mantle. Carbon-containing minerals provide the carbon source, and the growth occurs over periods from 1 billion to 3.3 billion years (25% to 75% of the age of the Earth). Diamonds are brought close to the Earth′s surface through deep volcanic eruptions by a magma, which cools into igneous rocks known as kimberlites and lamproites. Diamonds can also be produced synthetically in a high-pressure high-temperature process which approximately simulates the conditions in the Earth's mantle. An alternative, and completely different growth technique is chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Several non-diamond materials, which include cubic zirconia and silicon carbide and are often called diamond simulants, resemble diamond in appearance and many properties. Special gemological techniques have been developed to distinguish natural and synthetic diamonds and diamond simulants.

  Walking about today with a sense of something, an unnamed something, as if I stand on the edge, on the cusp, waiting for something, anticipating something.  I feel somewhat unsettled, but at peace, if that even makes sense to you, I cannot find the words to describe the feeling I have. Is it anticipation, is it premonition, or did I simply eat something that has my system off a bit.

 I decided to take some time at lunch today, to just walk and enjoy nature, to get away from everything normal and into a different setting. So I journeyed to the Bosque for lunch and walked along the Rio Grande River and prayed and pondered the feelings that I cannot quite place.

I had a dream last night, one which I cannot remember all the details of. Someone came to see me, she was radiant and joyful, very childlike, and she was laughing, she told me not to worry, that everything was going to be okay, that it would be “more than okay”, there was more to the dream, but I cannot remember anything else no matter how hard I try…..just this feeling that there was more and that it is hidden from me. I have a strong sense of my father also, as if he too were in my dream, but I cannot recall any details, only a strong feeling about him, a strong memory of him, but an elusive one. Again I must apologize for I know these statements I am making are contradictory and yet they remain the only words I can find to describe what I feel.

 I do not often think much of dreams, for the most part mine are meaninglessness and quickly forgotten. I might recall something silly upon awaking and by the time I have had my coffee it is gone. There have been only a handful of times where I have dreamed and felt that the dream was important.  All of those dreams of which I felt were important are recalled in detail. I can still remember them. How strange that a wisp of a dream, with only one small part of all that transpired remembered, would seem to fit into that important category.

But what I do recall is “everything is going to be okay”, “more than okay” and her laughter.

So I walked along the Bosque thinking on these things, praying about them, and praying for those who are heavy on my heart. It was a beautiful time to be out, the sun was shining, the skies a vivid blue, the clouds a pure white, the trees all golden, the river peaceful, the mountains majestic. You simply could not ask for a more peaceful place. I stood amongst the giant cottonwoods, in their various stages of yellow gold and brown, they are such majestic trees. As I stood, eyes lifted to the heavens the wind began to gently blow, and low and behold, my ears opened up and I could hear the trees sing!

 Winter is coming, soon the cottonwoods will sleep, their leaves all fallen to the ground, they will slumber until spring, and yet they sing, their many leaves a melody as the wind twists through their branches. Perhaps the feeling of standing on the edge of something is nothing more than a change of seasons, perhaps nothing more than helping me to see that the seasons have already changed for my family, things are not like they were yesterday, they will never be as they were yesterday, but tomorrow is a new day, a new season, and there is nothing to fear.

When the Trees Sing

When the trees sing,
It doesn't really matter
If you know the song,
Or if you know the words,
Or even if you know the tune.
What really matters is knowing
That the trees are singing at all.

May 6, 1998© Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek

Click the link below and listen Carefully and tell me if you too hear the trees singing?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Xn6_HTufE

Make me a channel of Your peace

Where there is hatred let me bring
Your love
Where there is injury
Your pardon, Lord
And where there's doubt
true faith in You

Make me a channel of Your peace
Where there's despair in life
let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy

Oh, Master grant that I
may never seek
So much to be consoled
as to console
To be understood
as to understand
To be loved as to love
with all my soul

Make me a channel of Your peace
It is in pardoning that we are
pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to
eternal life

Oh, Master grant that I
may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of Your peace
Where there's despair in life
let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy