he called..

Can you see the thread?

(recognize the calling card?)

• "Let there be light", and light "came", was itself called into existence...

• and he called the light Day…(& this darkness he called Night)..

• Adam & Eve heard the sound of the ONE who IS (& was, & will be) God, walking in the garden, and they….[ joyfully answered his call. They walked out to meet, greet, then to walk & talk with, such a "caller"!..?].... No! Their previous death was now made plain; when creative love itself called in, they "went and hid"... but 

• in the line of descent (from Adam, but 7th) from God, one called Enoch answered the call & went walking with God, not just once (some texts say for 3 hundred years). And God called him on (it doesn't explicitly say, but in that list, the change from.."And he died." to the phrase "And he was not." seems to imply, God called him on before death got him).

• A voice calling in the deserted places… "make ready the way for the Lord", he is about to call in again

• "Come & see"; "Follow me"; "The time is fulfilled… …. God in his role as leader (on a shared journey) is calling in, "Take heart, he's calling you..", give up all your own alternative agendas [sewing fig leaves, making "shelters" (better homes & gardens), & the mechanisms we utilize to achieve these etc], get onboard with his calling (let's go for a walk together through this land I am giving you).

• Stories like the 4 impossible callings (end of Mark 4, and all of Mark 5): Jesus calls out to a life threatening storm, and calls it to submission and obedience [no problems there]; Jesus calls in on an "imprisoned" man, calls OUT imprisoning unclean spirits that were beyond "normal" ("dead") human authority to call out; Jesus calls on a shy, retiring, secretive, 12-years-shamed (by constant unclean bleeding) woman to reveal her self (& her situation?), and calls her his daughter, and calls her to move forward, in his thriving peace free of that suffering; Jesus calls a 12 yr old "little girl"(meaning, who had not yet known unclean bleeding)  's tragic (& still unclean) death a "sleep" [& it was!, then he called the sleep to end, by softly calling "Talitha koum!" [Little girl, I say to you, arise!]. Then he called on them to "..not speak of this to anyone" (obviously though, as with the apostles' own call to "tell of this to no-one - until the Son of Humanity has risen"; the word got out, and they probably just had no need to tell anyone themselves), but they may well have been allowed to, after Jesus had risen. Stories like that of Bartimaeus (end of Mark 10),  not able to see, and thus walk, without someone to lead him, who loudly calls out & identifies Jesus as the Son of David, to whom then people call "Cheer up! He's calling you!" & after he has come to Jesus, to whom Jesus asks "What do you want me to do for you?", then, the text says "The blind man said, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’ ‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. Mark 10:51‭-‬52 NIVUK

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he called..

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In early stories he told to his kids

(his own offspring, he hoped to raise - like him)

he called them to arise and walk, and bids

us still to do the same, as kith & kin.

At first as tiny "babes" they heard the call

and nothing could then daunt them as they learned

to stand on two feet, step, then lunge, & fall,

and they would try again. Their pain they spurned.

Until they could then, step by step, walk free,

& unencumbered run along themselves.

So then the call went deep, let friendship be

a thing that grows, that has no taint of hell's

own limited & capped, encasing view,

that brings in coffins to embalm the dead,

& claims this as its gift, that sinks down to

the dust again, from which we were raise-ed. 

God speaks and says a thing into his world,

almost as dream he shares with us as well,

and we his children play our parts unfurled

as we respond, and walk, and simply dwell

along with him, within this world of his.

For by responding, when to us he called,

we then allow our "sleep" to end in this..

this call to rise and live, not be appalled,

but joyful secrets to live out and keep

his word to us - leads through such deathly sleep,

and into list'ning (maybe still to weep),

though eyes now opened, see more than a peep.

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