Monday, December 12, 2011

December 12th

Keith's training mission began yesterday, and all day long the cannon fire from the tanks shook the house.

In the morning, before he had to leave, he paced around the house with restless energy, continually checking his pockets and ticking items off his mental checklist for the hundredth time.

I later learned that, while in his hurry in the shower, instead of grabbing his shampoo, he accidentally picked up my Scarlet Blossom Fine Fragrance Elixir body wash.

He didn't realize this until he had lathered his head and began to get a sinking feeling at the growing cloud of delicious scent.

"Oh crap," he muttered to himself.

This must have been why he smelled so good when he kissed me goodbye at the door.

"Can I stay home with you?" he asked, beseechingly, on the doorstep.

"Go tear some crap up," I told him cheerfully. "You know you love it."

No doubt the delicate scent of scarlet blossoms quickly gave way to the smell of sweat, grease and cannon fire, against which I'm sure the elixir couldn't stand a chance.

I got to stay home and blog, and mend some items and watch HGTV and generally enjoy the peace and quiet- except for when the windowpanes rattled.

This morning, I saw this on my dad's facebook page, and loved it:

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild,
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for the child.

"After Annunciation"
-Madeleine L'Engle

So, a couple days ago, I was rereading John, but I read a part of John that I haven't in a while, basically the second part of that book.
I noticed this, when Jesus says:

If you keep My commandments [if you continue to obey My instructions], you will abide in My love and live on in it, just as I have obeyed My Father's commandments and live on in His love.
John 15:10

It seems that there is a difference between having God's love and abiding in God's love. We all have God's love- because the Father loved the world while we were yet sinners. So, we have His love.

But we can also make ourselves at home in it. In order to make ourselves at home in it, we must keep His commandments, which is to love Him and our neighbors.

So, it seems that in order to dwell in love, we must give out love.

Isn't that interesting?

I noticed something else, too. When Jesus said that one of the disciples would betray Him, the other disciples looked at one another and discussed among themselves who it could be.

Jesus was right there- in the flesh, in person, right there! They could see Him and hear Him and touch Him.

And yet their first instinct was to ask one another. Why?

That's not the first time, either. The disciples are often discussing among themselves what He could have meant by something He said. They seem to be frequently huddling.

Why? Jesus was right there. They could have asked Him anything!

Why wouldn't they just have asked Him?

Actually, come to think of it, it was when they felt they might have done something wrong that they tended to huddle.

Like, when they forgot the bread, and Jesus was warning them about the yeast of the Pharisees. They felt guilty about forgetting the bread, so instead of asking Jesus what He meant, they huddled together and worried.

Or when they were arguing along the road about who would be greatest. When He asked them about it, they clammed up. They didn't want to ask Him straight out.

Here's another thing I've been thinking about- in the parable of the prodigal son, at the end, the father says to his oldest son, "My son, you have always been with me and everything that I have is yours."

I can't help but think that if the eldest son had wanted to, he could have put his hoe down, gone in search of his father, and said, "Dad! I love you! I miss you! I'm working my butt off out there in the field and you know what? I just want to spend some time with you. Let's kill the fatted calf! Let's go fishing! Let's hang together."

I bet the father would have been overjoyed and opened his arms to his oldest son.

And they would have gone fishing, or something.