The Miracle That Isn't

Seeing that we were created in the image of the Highest, it makes sense that sympathy with Divinity, identification with the heart of God, would be life at it’s best. 

I daily aspire. 

But is that aspiration alone enough to water the ground where this miracle grows?

Or wait... Is it really a miracle?

I remember slipping between the sheets after a string of days full of giving, and asking if I might be made more sensitive, more sympathetic, more caring about the things on God’s own heart…

--only for my soul to hear this whisper: 

For that, you need no miracle. Just time. I can’t do your part and Mine.

It is not easy to find sufficient time for communion when on the trot. I’m not going to lie. 

It is only barely easier to find time for communion when at home. 

But of this I have become convinced: 

Activity is no substitute for communion. 

"O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself:
it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23

One Life To Give

I’m sitting in my own room, long before sunrise, on my own bed, lost in my own thoughts. You know a summer has been extraordinary when your own space feels extraordinary. When you’ve used your pillow just 11 nights of the past 84.

I’ve made a lot of new friends in the past 12 weeks. Flown a lot of miles. Preached a lot of sermons. Prayed a lot. Trembled a lot. Looked back towards the light. A lot. Loved a lot of broken lives. Witnessed a lot of salty tears.

But sitting here, I have a refrain much like Jeremiah’s running through my head.

"Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.”  [Jeremiah 9:1]

Oh that I could do more, be more, weep more.
The sheer magnitude of fear in the world is enough to make the bravest man pause at times. The sheer magnitude of pain. The constant white (black?) noise of performance without transformation.

I’m not afraid though. I just wish there were more hours in the day. I wish there were more beats of my heart. I wish I had more lives at my command to spend spreading light, and clawing away at pain. I wish my heart were large enough to hold a piece of the sorrow of every person I love without imploding. Or wait… It is. But barely.

Once again, this stunning limitation settles into my consciousness.
I have only one life to live. Only one chance to love the hurting world.

Oh, let every breath count.

While It Is Still Summer...

[Jeremiah 8]

These mournful words grip me tight, leave me with none of my own— 

"Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?

Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” 

Maybe they've never gone to see Him? Maybe never applied the balm?

Now instead, they stand there and watch the saved world go by, and look at each other and sigh:

"The harvest is past. 

The summer is ended. 

And we are not saved.”

Horror unspeakable.

My God, let us not neglect so free, and so great a salvation.

The Great Clarifier

[Jeremiah 7]

I like knowing where I’m headed.
And what’s more, I prefer to know how to get there.

That’s not always a reality though. And when it isn’t, I wonder why…

"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 
Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?"

One possible (Biblical) cause for confusion and indirection? Self-service.

The service of Christ directs, clarifies, confirms, and comforts.

Whose servants ye are.

For The Sake Of Just One

[Jeremiah 5]

The ancient city has filled her cup. Vice runs down the streets like sewage, and the dishonor is enough. Love will mercifully let her go in a storm of raining fire. And her ashes may never be positively identified. Such is the lot of Sodom.

One man stumbles out though, one man and two daughters, themselves tainted by the derangement of the place. The wife they leave just outside the city, a saline statue perfect in detail, with the longing eyes of a woman torn from her treasures.

More amazing to me than the epic destruction though, is the fact that God would have saved the city, if He could have found nine more men. Just nine.

And more amazing yet; that as history progresses, so grows His mercy.

Ten men would have saved Sodom. A booming metropolis wreaking with vice. I don’t know how many people lived there, but I know this: 10 men would have been the remnant of the remnant.

But run through the crowded streets of Jerusalem, generations later. “The joy of the whole earth,” where vice runs in the gutters, and children are offered as sacrifices to the gods, and incense burns, and chants are heard, and all is iniquity. All that should be music to the ears of God is turned to blasphemy.

"Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof,

if ye can find a man, 

if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth;
and I will pardon it"

Never underestimate what Divinity will do for the sake of just one.

The Cost of Fidelity

[Jeremiah 3]
She stumbles in again, after the night of wandering. (Yet another.)
Like always, He’s been sitting up, waiting. She’s defiled the ground under the last tree on on the mountain, with another relationship that only lasted an hour. He’s been waiting outside His front door, staring into the starlight. She’s not the kind of person any of us would want to spend our lives with, but He is not like us…

She returns with a torn soul,
He awaits with strong arms.

And His words aren’t what she deserves.

"I am married unto you.

...and I will bring you to Zion" 
(Jeremiah 3:14)

For God, fidelity is not a response. It is an identity.

This Much

Sometimes it's the things I've known longest, the things most taken for granted, that break me widest open...

Like there, opening arms as if to a long-lost friend, pausing with abandon-joy to savor the song that is the sea-- the crashing sound of surf, the salt on the breeze, the endless blue.

His words come out of nowhere, His tone utterly casual. But His eyes twinkle.

So, you know how much I love you?

No, how much?

This much.

Standing on the edge of this expanse as endless the circumference of a circle, my heart gives way, before a truth I already know.
He loves me, this much.

And the salt in my eyes then doesn't come from the sea.
Or does it?

All Is Enough [in Ninety-Six Words.]

Out of the blackness of night, and the wonder of the morning, this thought--

All of human fullness is emptiness. Still, we have the audacity of inviting God in, to inhabit some corner. Or even three corners.

The Holy God is far too great, far too deep, far too beautiful to fit in the corner.

Holy God looms too large to fit in all eight corners of three-dimensional infinity. 

But then this miracle. When suddenly no space in my small heart is reserved unto myself; reserved for my use...

It is enough. 

All becomes enough.

Notification Center, and the 5 Questions [Do I Love Jesus More?]

I figure my phone deserves to rest at night. So, unless I'm "on call" for someone, it slips into airplane mode at or around 2100.

Unremarkable practice.
Albeit, the implications of this simple habit have recently opened my eyes to a stubborn and surprising reality, and caused me to be confronted with this question I'm now passing along.

- - -

There are a good many factors that go into making a day great. And also a fair few that can ruin a good start. I've found one of them. It's those first 60 seconds after the alarm sings...

I reach for my phone; sigh all content. Blink, blink, blink away the last of sleep. (I was only half sleeping.) A swipe of the phone sweeps Waves into memory, until tomorrow this time. Another swipe and the little machine reaches out to the invisible, to start downloading the day.

Do I?

If I'm brave, my feet are on the floor before it starts to buzz. Notification Center all alight. I have friends on every inhabited continent, so in my world it's always day somewhere. Maybe they liked my last photo on Instagram?

That right there is where it starts. I can predict with almost unerring accuracy the sense and sensitivity at my disposal in the day to follow. By who I check in with first.

It's such a little thing. 
Yes. But these little things are pledges of allegiance, of which we're sometimes quite unaware.

And anyway, don't knock little things.
(Bullets are little things.)

- - -

The 5 Questions. (Time for a self-test.)

1. At the start of the day, which comes first: Facebook Notifications, or an hour of Scripture? 

2. At the breakfast table, does the prayer come from a heart actually full of gratitude, or does it sound suspiciously like yesterday's?  

3. At school, which drives harder: Desire for grades, or desire for God? 

4. At home, which seems sweeter: An hour of entertainment, or an hour of intercession?  

5. In bed, which lingers longer: The frolic of the day, or thoughts of heaven?

- - -

I've learned a day is worth too much to lose, by reefing through notifications before I've read my Bible. And not because my notifications are my enemy. Because at the end of the day, my priorities are making a statement to myself. 

So, I won't anymore. And I've found, I no longer care to. I'd rather meet God first, declare to Him and to myself that in Him is my greatest pleasure; would rather let the whole world wait, make notifications come and stand in a line at attention for an hour, while I take my time.

Oh, and it's not that I don't care. If you sent me a text at 0200 this morning, I can't wait to read it.
But...

I still love Jesus more.

Australia in Retrospect [This is My Confidence]

The highest heights are often to be found in the least expected places...
Least expected, that is, to a world quantifying success with finite formulas.

I've been to the heights. And not standing on a stage before thousands. Nor on some glittering crest of conquest. (As high as those honors are...)

One thing is always the same. I'm always shorter on the highest heights... By the distance of heel to knee.

PC: James Tregenza doanddare.org

This time, it was on a dusty bit of ground surrounded by benches, throbbing hearts, deep attention.
I have never climbed higher. Never seen the world wider than I saw it then. Never looked smaller in my own eyes. Never felt closer to Heaven.

Surprise?
No surprise.

To those who have found eyes for higher glory, though the beauty of the high places always surpasses our dreams, it is never entirely unexpected...

"As long as I live, I will remember his words-- 

'...Mostly, I've met God properly.'

That broke me wide open As though standing on holiest ground, I was filled with a smallness; a trembling... How is it that I am even allowed to touch what is this holy?"*

Though every memory fades at least a bit eventually, my wonder will never cease.
Nor will love for new friends with a beautiful foreign accent.
Nor will firm faith that we'll meet again, if not on this round earth, then inside pearly gates.

"Hey-- remember when...?"

Yes, I remember.

morning stars: checkout | PC: Jasmine Tregenza

Before it was over I had the opportunity to try to crunch the essence of 40 pages of worship notes and days and days of prayer and pondering onto 5 minutes of film. 

This is my confidence.

peace

morning and miracle bend

later: snowy mountain living

friends in Victoria

*journal entry, January 20, 2014

Christmas in the Family

We watch the world go by at speed limit, all in two rows, shoulder to shoulder as if we were connected there. Because we are connected there. And hearts glow like the stars outside, and mouths move and out comes one joy, then another.

Youngest sister dodges sleep; little head leaning light, little hand on my arm. Pretty as the ice-coated night. The rest discuss the favored Soprano during Messiah, (the first one in red, please) the old Tenor who stoops more than he did last year-- and we hope he has many more years in the Methodist choir. (He, our general favorite.) 

We giggle re-dwelling the funniest antics on the rink, discuss the performance of the less experienced (stellar), decide whether or not to spend the balance of the evening making bagels in the classic country kitchen warm as summer. That is, if the power is actually on at home...

We stop where the wires are down across the road, turn around to find another way home. Shout "Thank YOU" out open car window to the utility men who'll be here wrangling icy copper until daybreak and beyond.

And once again, the holy joy that makes a day a holiday is wound around this beautiful gift, family. 

We don't deserve it. Them. But here we are, loved, loving...

- - -

And right into the middle of this warm-heartedness this word sinks like a cold dagger-- 

Abandoned. 

And not that He was... (He was.)

But that He did.

That He walked away from the adoring, from everything and everyone familiar... That He left companionship. That comfy spot between beloved shoulders... The little hand on His arm, the little head, the perfect sleepy face, the warm chatter, the laughter at the end of an unblemished day, He left it. 

He told them to scoot in to fill the gap, to be the pillow He'd been. Stood up and walked to the gate, swung it open, waited for the click, walked way into the universe to spend His first Christmas all alone.

So we could have Christmas at all.

This I Can Do

Meander is a good word.
I've gone to answer a silent call unmistakable. Over two fences and down a sandy draw.
Wherever my gaze wanders, my feet follow. From rock to creek to giant anthill and back.
These are the best hours of the day, and they belong to God...

But you know, it is most often in the very cradle of these moments, --these hours that slip away into eternity leaving behind them a quiet deep and peace so sweet-- it is in these selfsame that I experience the worst agitations, and the deepest discontent.

Because on the heels of every happiness comes the agony that is the reality of another's pain.
Someone said love and pain go together. How right they were.

Every time I taste the sweeter sweet, I suddenly start up, all taken by this wild desire to distribute.
And that wouldn't be so bad, if every starving soul would actually take it!!


Maybe that's why I pace. From creek to anthill and back.
From joy to yearning and back.

Finally, this:

The very best you can do to bring the beautiful hungry to realize the fullness of joy that is in Christ,
is to be constantly realizing that joy yourself. 

You seek. They'll find. 

Believe the Impossible?

"Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations. . . He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God."* 

See, that's the essence of triumphant faith to me. And the reason why Abraham received the impossible.

Because he believed the impossible. 
Hope against hope.

You've heard perhaps that "God will be everything we let Him be..."?

Maybe God can't work what's impossible, because I only believe what's reasonable.

*see Romans 4

Triumph [Like a Pearl]

It is the triumph of the Christian faith that it enables its followers to suffer and be strong...

To maintain a grip of steel, then willingly give.
To love, and lose, and dare to love again.
To believe in promises while relinquishing the right to personal claims.
To accept tears as glittering gifts.

To believe that I am perfectly loved, even when suffered to drink anguish.
To perfectly love what (Who) I don't understand.

It is triumph.
To suffer softly. To remember that His feet are washed best with tears. To remember He has never once made a mistake. To remember there is a reason I am trusted with every sorrow.
To remember His name is made great when His children love Him anyway.

-  -  -

Now it's my turn. My turn to stand in the bottom of the grave and help tuck in the treasure. Me thinking this is the worst kind of personal loss-- watching some of "my people" lose something beloved. We work in silence. Wind blows and dust flies, and just like her name, around a speck of a thought layer after layer of luster is laid, while I contemplate Love.

I remember the last group ride; remember my turn on the brilliant beast while the trusted friend worked a kink out of her older sister. They're both gone now, the Diamond and the Pearl, sister jewels black as stellar space.

Like a little boy about Christmas time my mind scratches at the cold blast of circumstances has build on the windows-- the windows of my heart. The boy might be wondering the price of the Christmas Lionel caboose. I'm looking for the same thing I always look for first. Searching for where love might be hiding its best, right about now.

Silent and strong as always, friend-more-like-brother works on the other side of the cavernous hole, till the job is done.
Our girls, out little sisters; they've lost their friends, also sisters. (is that what makes us family?)

Later, after thoughts and words and prayers and tears have finished their work for the day, what is left is a lesson worthy of the gift through which it came.

But of course; Faith doesn't mean that if I believe hard enough, pray hard enough, I'll love the outcome.

 Faith is believing I'm loved, regardless of the outcome.

Thanks girls. For all kinds of beautiful memories, and for standing up tall and graceful.
And trusting Merciful God. Again.
And thanks friend, for letting me love her too.

My Everything

Stars swim outside windows high. Like pinpoints of light on ripples of water. Through water?

He hangs up the phone. We know what it means already.
Nobody calls at 0200 for no reason. And seldom for a happy one.

Anyway, what follows prayers in the dark are these words burning like fire.
The reason I love anyway--

"Every beautiful thing you have ever been given to love has been given first for this purpose: 
That when the hour of sacrifice is come, you might have something to put on the altar."

I see in my mind's eye the young faces of the friends to whom I gave those very words months ago; feel this resolve of mine to love turning to steel again.

"What we do, we do for Christ. Only Christ.
And for Him, we give away our everything.
Because He is everything."

A Gift Called "Together"

We heave and breathe and pour sweat, and bump fists.
And we chant audacity (in the form of "oh yes you can!") and mouth corners upturn under flaming cheeks. And we cut another minute off the mile, add another mile to the course.

We flop down in green grass and laugh.

And I realize that what I once said would never be, is.
What I always said I'd do only for the sake of relentlessness, I do now for the love of the doing...

Together.
That changes everything, you know?

I soak up blue sky and run fingers through grass while we stretch; listen to the student of strides give us the latest science; quip that we need a team dietician.

And running isn't anything like it used to be.
It used to be heart-pounding, step-sounding solitude where the only one there to believe I could was myself.

But it isn't the love or the running that strikes me so deep.

It's that together word.
That's the gift.

Apart, some are fast, some are slow.
Others never try. Never know what they're made of.

Oh, and don't get me wrong. There's a place for solitude. I was born a loner, after all...

But I've been given a gift I hope to spend the rest of my life passing on to people around me who've never tried. Or who've quit believing.

And I dare you to do the same.
To be the same.

To the lonely soul; To the trembling child; To the one who wants, but is afraid to dare; To the one who would, if one soul would care--

I want to be together.

Because together, everyone gets stronger.

Why Love Always Wins

In that place between wakefulness and dreams I wrestle with the risk of liberty. I ponder the rules of war. I wonder how it is that Love succeeds even when it seems to fail... And then I see it.

.  .  .  .

Upon the slopes of Sinai stand I, eyes on a drama unfolding below. Two great armies fill the plain; meet in the midst in a perfect line. Their commanders sit upon regal horses, men both of great stature and commanding presence. At the first glance, and from my distance, the sides appear indistinguishable.

Motionless stand they, and grave. For I perceived that though the one side cares nothing for the rules of engagement, they dare not disobey them when confronted by this host.

I wonder for what intent they have assembled here. I have not long to wait.

Suddenly a disturbance in the ranks on the left, and the whole force is in motion. With a calm and assurance that breathes of victory already, the great host rightward makes their advance. The clash is tremendous. I assure you, you have never seen a fight until you have watched angels in conflict.

But I see the wonder: there has comes from one mouth on the left a cry I could not hear. Not for my distance, nor for the noise of the battle. But Someone heard it. And suddenly the one Commander stands up in His stirrups; raises a glittering Sword high above His head. And there is a great and terrible silence. It seems as though the entire host on the left is suddenly paralyzed. As though they had every one of them suddenly lost the duel with his antagonist, and now stand at sword-point, desperate, but dumb.

Dumb, except for their commander. Who stands up also in his stirrups and roars unthinkable blasphemies.

And then I see him. The one who'd cried out. Two great warriors cross the battle line, weave through the throng, take his hands and lead him to the other side. Theirs, the only motion in the whole of the plain

A prisoner? think I.

Nay, for behold, he is straightaway given a sword.

I turn to a silent watcher beside me. What means this?

This is a battle for a soul. One soul.

These armies, indistinguishable to the untrained eye--
They are made up of mighty angels, and common people.

And one thing most notable sets them apart. (Besides the character of their commanders.)

The one has gained its every recruit by impressment, imprisonment, deception, and coercion.
The other accepts only volunteers.

The rules of war are in our favor.
When in the midst of battle one of ours defects, he is allowed to go, though chains await him. 
When one of theirs believes, we go in and get him.
That's fair.

And we have the Sword. 
And we have the Lord Glorious. 

They are all slaves. 
We're all loving servants.

Of course Love has the advantage.

Her Name Was Mary

"Ok, tell me everything you know about this girl."

I'm on a quest of discovery. And I'm after everything my friend might know.

"Well, she's a really pious woman."
                                                "Or... wait."

-  -  -

Yeah. My thoughts exactly.
Almost without exception, her contemporaries thought differently.
For after all, she was the girl who'd been robbed of parents before she was ready to stand on her own, and had subsequently turned to find love where it can never be found. She was the one who, whether intentionally or accidentally, had thrown away her innocence, her youth, her purity, her piety in the crime-soaked business of human flesh for sale. And to boot, seven times she'd bowed to the dark side, and become a currier for the worst kind of darkness.
She was.

But then, then there was that awful day when she was caught in the act... Dragged from the bed to the street, and thrown in a cowering heap before the Lord of Glory.
And there was that beautiful moment when her broken shame, her stripped-bare necessity, appeared in the shadow of the undiluted Love of Infinite Eternity.

And she got it.

She got it.

Of course the pharisees would always maintain that Jesus regularly ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at a prostitute's house.
Of course they'd say that what was could never be fully erased.

Of course, we say the same of others. We say the same of ourselves.
You know, that a crippling past must necessarily have a strong effect on one's usefulness future. That this girl should never know as she might, what it is to trust. Or that, at the very least, it might take a lifetime to learn. And love? Well...

Yes. We often say those things.
And of course, there is an element of truth to them.

But there's a reason this girl named Mary (which name means "Rebellious," by the way) is my new favorite Bible character.

Because her story is the story of the power of grace to overcome, and to turn my past into my greatest advantage.

Let me gently remind the world that the home she shared with her big brother and sister was the place Jesus always came to when it was time to rest. That these were, apart from His very own, His best friends on earth. And that after her turning, this girl gained eyes for things everyone else missed.

Because the brokenness of her past was the richest possible backdrop for the truth about Grace, and the power of Love.

Remember that in the midst of the noise of a traditional Jewish party, while everyone was consumed by the festivities, one girl had the presence of mind to anointed her Lord for burial. That when everyone else was consumed with the protocol, this one girl sat at the feet of the Desire of the Ages, and watched Him, all ears, all eyes, all heart.
Remember that on that dark friday, she was there. When they carried Him to the tomb, she was there.

And let me remind you that on resurrection morning, Jesus appeared to one, and only one friend. And that friend was neither Peter, James, nor John.

Her name was Mary.
And she was a former prostitute.

I can't help but wonder, might it be because she understood something about Love that everybody else missed?
And might that be because God makes "all things work together for good..."?

"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."

 "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Ro. 5:20

-  -  - 

Shoes kiss the pavement over and over. Rhythm of breathing and stride. We push miles behind us one at a time, while the truth is soaked in silence.

And I? I'm so taken.

"So, you see why this story, this girl . . .". . .

When Words Save Lives

I settle into the airway seat while we wail down the interstate. Mental checklists line up like a rabble of elementary boarding scholars waiting for roll call. All set. Light blue latex waits on my lap. (Medium please.)

The radio crackles; they've called the bird. We almost always do on a rollover.

At long last we cross the median to join a parade of flashing lights.
The secondary beat us there by three minutes, but this is our territory.
It's mayhem. The kind of mayhem an overloaded pickup truck leaves on the road when it tumbles.
And it looks like the Army, Navy, Marines, and National Guard are all on scene too. (figuratively.)

We elbow in.

Patient looks remarkably good considering. Ugliness on his hand and shoulder and sticky swelling questionableness on his head, but awake and talking. Just one thing:

"Does anybody speak spanish??"

I've got the head. We load him just in time to escape rotor wash. The bird hot drops a crew and takes off again.

"I kinda do."

Medics from three crews on one rig. And FD and LE orbiting around the outside, circling for turns at the open door, to fire more questions in.

I lean down to hear him. Me, the link between him and the guys that know way more than I do.
I've got the chart too. And I ask him questions, and I ask them for procedures and numbers and assessments. And I put everybody's answers on paper.

Then after ten minutes start to finish, I'm back in the airway seat with my feet up, headed for base.
He'll fly, we'll go back to listening to the radio.

It's in the peace of a quite firehouse that it hits me.

Language.

Love it. Spend almost an hour a day, every day, learning a new one.

But how many times has Heaven come to my rescue, sent down it's agents, stopped an interstate to land the bird,
and been almost entirely unable to give me any real aid at all, because I didn't know the language.

Because I'd never taken time to learn it.

To hear the voice of God is one thing. To understand it is another.

Better Part of Town [Distance between Virtue and Vice]

I hate to tell you this.
Or maybe I don't...

Have you ever noticed that the most despairing realities all have this flip side that makes them cradles for hope when Grace steps in? When you shift enough to give them a look from the other side?

I walk down main street and my American sensibilities are shattered by the irony of this Southeast Asian reality.
Mansion, shack, mansion, shack, shack, mansion. What?

I meander down almost ancient streets in Latin America, find myself striding with purpose (and maybe a twinge of fear?) past one doorway, strolling past the next with perfect calm.

I guess that's how they do it here. The distance between the good part of town and the bad is the thickness of a brick wall.
Seems so barbaric. Here, you know, we insulate ourselves. Our neighborhoods are zoned. And so we can rest easy on our sprawling front lawns knowing that all our neighbors are at least average citizens, and crime of any kind is at least 62 blocks away.

Whatever.

Do you know what has been pressed home to me this week?
Pressed home by the wanderings and returnings of my own heart, and photos of lands I love?

There is only one difference between the greatest bastion of virtue, and the "strongest bulwark of vice."
You know what it is?

"One sin fostered."

They're built on the same street. In fact, they share the same address.

I don't know about you, but that scares me more than a little.
And makes me run to Grace.

Jesus, forgive us.


The distance between the good part of town and the bad is far less than the thickness of a brick wall.

"The strongest bulwark of vice in our world is not the iniquitous life of the abandoned sinner or the degraded outcast; it is that life which otherwise appears virtuous, honorable, and noble, but in which one sin is fostered, one vice indulged. 

 To the soul that is struggling in secret against some giant temptation. . . such an example is one of the most powerful enticements to sin."

It doesn't take long to turn from light to darkness.

But then, it doesn't take Grace long to turn one from darkness into light...
Glory be.