Autumn Oak

Island In the Sun

Deer Country

Paradise Island

Elysian Plain

The Bridge

Green Hilltop

Passage toward Paradise

The Meadows

The Promontory

World On Fire

Trunk and branch frame this meadow.

Our lives are framed by our acts. We are what we do. But we are unaware of most of the consequences of our actions, which ripple across space and time in this complex universe like a tsunami. Our deeds reinforce or interfere with themselves or with others', they build or destroy, cascading like a flood over an entire lifetime. Our impacts, and therefore ourselves, live forever even though the universe may have a finite existence. God provides an infinite multiverse with interactions that will persist forever.

We use the metaphor that God's mind embraces us as we experience heaven or hell. But our flimsy languages fail miserably to express it. Even art, a kind of language, is inadequate. But, like the Autumn Oak trunk and branches that frame this meadow, our souls frame the world for God's approbation.

Bright shore on a verdant hillside.

On the shore of an idylic island just this side of Paradise we can laugh, love an, but the next island over, Paradise itself, is always just beyond reach unless we get help. We get help from Jesus, our Hero in Joseph Cambell's sense of the word.

The historical reality of Jesus is irrelevant. The Jesus Movement is about a moot point. Why try to prove that Jesus is not a fantasy? The point of any Myth with a capital "M" is that it strikes a cord in our hearts and minds causing us to cling to it for millenia. Cling to Jesus, Campbell would say, since He is a Hero worth clinging to. We need our Heros, not antiheros.

Christ is no antihero in religion, art or literature. But, He broke social molds and parted with conventional wisdom and the culturally sanctioned cynicism of the times.

God helps us, not to survive yet another day, but to cross over to His Paradise Island where He will afford us all knowledge and show us his countenance, shedding Peace forever and ever.

Rabbits, quail and pheasant too.

Beauty is here because we sense the presence of good survival chances. A panarama of the surface of the moon is beautiful too because it evokes the same sense of curiosity, which is always positive due to the coherence and comprehensive composition of the scene and its evocative detail, but our hearts multiply it by minus one.

You wouldn't want to live there. Our evolutionary trajectory may return us to the moon or even to Mars and beyond, but God already gave us our home. To return to the garden, we must make it so again because God made us Responsible, in His Image.

And a crane. Can you see him?

The crane denotes the perfect resident of Paradise. Elegant and majestic, this symbol or serenity tells us that there is Peace here, where God walks alone, yet not by Himself.

We can be with Him if we try to live up to the high standards of Responsibility that He incarnates in His Son, Jesus Christ our brother. He is alone, is lonely, and He wants us in His Love. Therefore, love is Responsible, above all else, because to love is to nurture and protect as does a steward or servant.

Lord, teach us not so much as to be loved as to love, to be Responsible more than to be the object of responsibility. But, help us to accept love because we must assist others to excercise their responsibility too. There is a circle of reciprocity in love and responsibility that constitutes a truly stable, healthy and growing society.

Another way to see Paradise.

God can be seen from many perspectives. We worship Him from every angle that we can, in all cultures and in many ways, but not from all angles. We are limited. Our multidimensional view of His home is still beautiful, but we know there is more.

We do not want to constrain our vision with blinders that do not help us see clearly but induce a kind of spiritual glaucoma. Faith must be unrestrained. We must all be free.

This bridge cannot be burned.

We can carry our torch over it but it cannot be torched. It does not follow a straight path, because life is never like that. It is always worth it to cross over, however, as the future is always worth living. Life itself is worth living when we feel some trace of God's infinite Love when we know we are a part of a beautiful scene like this.

In a pine forest.

This study in green and blue gives the heart a place to rest. Plop down on the bench or sit primly on your sofa, but don't get lost in the labyrinth of pathways in this life. We need to be able to look up and find the sun, God's Son, to help us find our way.

This bridge over untroubled waters leads to within sight of Heaven. Like the world, we are stuck here because our skins may as well be rivers or oceans, mountain ranges or vast deserts. It is a barrier we cannot breach until we cross over by means of God's gifts.

Thank God for grass.

Pure peace and quiet.

Another sunrise over the West Dupage River.