“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
Howdy from the healing one
So I am back home (as of Friday) in the next stage of my recovery process after my Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)x4 surgery done on August 7th. I’m doing my best to take care of myself and follow my medical team’s instructions so I can heal up as efficiently as possible. I want to thank everyone once again for your kind thoughts and prayers as I move through this process.
E. Stanley Jones just tapped me on the shoulder…
I once went into the Garden of Gethesemene, there to spend the night in prayer, centering my whole meditation on what I thought was the heart and substance of the Gethesemene incident, “Not my will, but thine be done.” I expected to come away chastened, submissive, surrendered. But in those silent hours I found my thought shifting to the words of Jesus to the sleepy disciples, “Arise, let us be going.”
The known and the unknown
On August 7th, only a little more than a week away, I will be undergoing open heart surgery in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I very much appreciate your prayers! There are some things I know, and some things that I don’t know at this point.
Eschatalogica
“What I’ve taken can’t be broken, I will never see a finish;
What I’ve reached won’t fall away—I will never see it die,
I can grab all that I want now, it’s the man who hoards that wins it
Maybe if I keep on grabbing, I won’t see His weeping eyes.”
Cell phone is back in service!
…but you can always reach me
at my office line: 208.298.9083.
Come now, ye wretched…
Come now, ye wretched,
Come out of the Shadows,
Arise now and lift up your face to the dawn:
The Silence is broken,
A Word now is spoken
And all of the Shadows at once are all gone!
there is a RIVER
There is a River filled with tears
That courses through these broken years;
Caught up within the reckless love,
It lifts my heart to Jesus.
He bids me see His broken heart;
The wounds for me, His nail scars;
Caught up within the reckless love,
My tears and His co-mingled.
There is a River filled with love:
The tears of my dear Jesus.
Choosing What God Chooses: Rejoicing in Infirmities
Carl Beech has it right. Perhaps God doesn’t want to heal me.
There are those Christians who believe that it is always God’s will that we be healed, because that seems to make sense to us. God is good; God doesn’t want us to suffer, right?
Maybe not.
The Agnosticism of Inattention
This terrible, slow disease that we suffer from which destroys our compassion stems from what Brennan Manning calls the ‘agnosticism of inattention.’ …. In order to love, we must first begin to see.
The last dove’s flight into the world was brutally ended
An artist sees Michelangelo's Pietà in a new light
It was the angle of the light that brought me to utter ruin.
The light, golden and flashing off that sumptuous Carrara marble, the light that poured like liquid over Michelangelo Buonarroti's Pietà from behind Mary's left shoulder. It was only a moment, but the video briefly showed the sculpture in a way that utterly ruined me. Unlike every other image that I have ever seen of Pietà, this was lit far differently, and it was then that I saw it.
April showers bring more than flowers
When the storm is over, the new growth, tiny and light, timid-green, starts edging our on the buses and three limbs. Then Nature brings April rain. It whispers down soft and lonesome, making mists in the hollows and on the trails where you walk under the drippings from hanging branches of trees.
It's a good feeling, exciting—but sad too—in April rain. Granpa said he always got that kind of mixed-up feeling. He said it was exciting because something new was being born and it was sad, because you knowed you can't hold onto it. It will pass too quick.
Almost thirty years in the making, the river Beautiful will be published as a premium hardcover, a value softcover, and a very special online multimedia experience.
Select a chapter below to view exclusive content from the upcoming collection of new and selected works by Jason Christopher Hackwith.
original prose, poetry, lyrics, illustrations and typography
