From awhile back, reflecting

We as trees.
As a writer I consider myself much like a tree among many other trees in the forest. When you pare away the leaves you come to the branches. When you take away the branches you find the trunk or the body. Inside the body is the sap, the blood if you will, that brings life to the tree, creating the leaves, or the pages, for the rest of the world to see or read.
When ‘the blood is up’ the creative juices are flowing. The blood rises and generates the warmth of the thoughts that surge and push the life source outward to the edges, into the capillaries of the branches, the fingers and brain cells, feeding them, enhancing them, pulsing through them producing the leaves, the pages for all the rest of the forest to see, to read.
What makes my leaves better than the other leaves? What makes my pages more appealing? What is that entity in the sap that energizes the sap, the blood, that makes the leaf the way it is? There is no other leaf like that leaf. There is no other page like that page. What makes that page standout from the rest of the tree? What makes that leaf special?
I realize am not the creator. I never was; where once I considered myself the source, I now know that I am the creation, skillfully wrought. There is that spirit, that force within me that stirs and emboldens the life blood within my trunk. Cut me open and read my rings, my history if you will. What have I had to say all this time that is noteworthy? Am I just some woeful, plain elm with small veins in my leaves, that all look the same? Or am I a mighty Mulberry that grows tall and strong and bears sweet fruit in the end?
And will I stand as the winds of time blow strong and stiff against me, trying to uproot me from my place in the forest? Or will I bow low, bending to the course and sultry tormentor yet not breaking even though limbs are torn away and I am bloodied and beaten? How will I fare? Will I be sawn asunder by the public lumberjacks and cut up into some commercial cabinet to be put on display in some kitchen or used as firewood that cooks the meal?
How has the leaf grown? Has the fresh pollen, the experiences of the other leaves left anything of value for me to use? Am I not dependent on that pollen to grow and survive, unfurling in the breeze of life and riding on the winds of change with the rest of my contemporaries?
What place have I been given in the forest? Am I a prominent tree set upon the hilltop with long flowing limbs and portly trunk? Do the children play amongst my branches and seek safety within them when danger approaches and they are in need of refuge? Or have I been planted in the hedgerow amidst the thorns and thistle to be used as a climbing pole, covered over by the creeping vines of degradation and deceit; surely not.
 Nay, I want to stand tall and rise above my fellow ‘woodsmen’, reaching great heights. Not to be above the others mind you; just able to see what goes on around me without the encumbrances that so many other trees experience, being too close together to have their own opinion; looking the same and never progressing.
Oh yes, I feel the drama of the forest and would never make light of the fact that we are what we are, made in his likeness and skillfully, wondrously crafted and individually so. Just as there are no two fingerprints alike I see that there are no two leaves alike and I enjoy that reality ever so much.

...close by and looming

Di handed me a full page of printed material from an online friend.
It hit me right between the eyes. I wasn't expecting such a stern message more or less directed at me. It was as though it had been written for me and me alone.
I have read a lot of messages from people we know online and for the most part they have been very encouraging with exhortations meant to lift our spirits and cheer us on. This message challenged me in a way I haven't been challenged in a long time.
It more or less said, "It's all up to you." It put the ball directly in my court. Basically, it said that I could make or break my upcoming year according to my actions. I would either be successful or fail depending to how I reacted spiritually. That's strong; very strong.
It went on to say that if I don't "get right" with the Lord I wouldn't make it. Plain and simple, no beating around the bush, no pleading the case with a lot of slobbery dialogue, just a blunt declarative statement of the cold hard facts.
I received it. I actually believe that we are in the Last Days ...and if we are not careful we could lose our salvation by being too complacent and lazy and selfish. We have too much. The American life style has become extravagant and self serving. Too much of our daily life is built around our personal needs while too many others go without because they have too little. I'm not turning Communist here, it's just that I see how we waste so much of what we have and think very little about the future and what will or will not be available then. Is it just me, or do you see it too?
I've never been a doomsday person but from what I read in the Word and from what I hear and see going on all around me I get the distinct impression that we are a lot closer to the end of time than anyone realizes.

The Lord said he would come back like a thief in the night; when no one expects it. The stage is set for just that. Almost all the pieces are in place, as we speak, to make it happen and yet, too many of us are in the dark about it .
I have more urgency welling up in me than ever before. Do you feel it? It's like a huge, worldwide blanket descending on us, smothering the light so we don't see clearly.
If I'm not mistaken all that's left to come about is the 7 year treaty with Israel. Then the end.
Like I said, I'm not a doomsday person but I certainly get the distinct impression that something big is on the horizon; close by and looming.