The Cat's Meow

The Blessedness of Winter

2008-05-31T14:53:00.004-04:00

I wish I had written what follows, but someone (Madame Guyon) beat me to it by about 323 years. This sure describes the last 25 years of my life (a very long winter), and especially the last few months…anyway, this explains a lot...

The Blessedness of Winter

I see the season of winter as an excellent example of the transforming work of the Lord in a Christian's life. When winter comes, the vegetable world, it seems to me, reflects the image of the purifying which God does in order to remove the imperfections from the life of one of his children.

As cold comes on the wings of a winter storm, the trees gradually begin to lose their leaves. The green is soon changed into a funereal brown; soon the leaves fall away and die. Behold the tree's appearance now! It looks stripped and desolate. Behold the loss of summer's beautiful garment. What happens as you look upon that poor tree? You see a revelation.

Under all the beautiful leaves there had been all sorts of irregularities and defects. The defects had been invisible because of the beautiful leaves. Now those defects are startlingly revealed! The tree is no longer beautiful in its surface appearance. But has the tree actually changed? Not at all. Everything is exactly as it was before. Everything is as it has always been! It is just that the leaves are no longer there to hide what is real. The beauty of the outward life of the leaves had only hidden what had always been present.

The same is true of you. The same is true of all believers. We can each look so beautiful…until life disappears! Then, no matter who, the Christian is revealed as full of defects. As the Lord works on you to produce purification, you will appear stripped of all your virtues! But, in the tree, there is life inside; and, as the tree, you are not actually becoming worse, you are simply seeing yourself for what you really are! Know that somewhere deep within the tree of winter there is still the life that produced last spring's beautiful leaves.

No, the believer's inmost being has not been deprived of its essential virtue. He has lost no advantages. He has only lost something human, a sense of his own personal goodness, and he has discovered, instead, his utter wretchedness. He has lost the ease of following the Lord. That ease was born more of ignorance of self than anything else.

As with the tree, so with you.

The Christian, now spoiled and naked, appears in his own eyes to be a denuded thing; and all those around him see his defects for the first time: defects which were previously veiled, concealed by outward graces.

Sometimes such revelation is so devastating to the pride of a Christian he simply never recovers, and decides to be a Christian on some other level; or gives up following the Lord entirely.

Throughout the long cold winter, the tree certainly appears as dead as the very deadest of all trees in the forest. The tree knows no reality. Here is total destruction, it seems. But the truth lies somewhere else.

That tree is actually undergoing and submitting to a process which preserves its life and strengthens the tree! After all, what does winter do to a tree? It contracts the tree's exterior. The life deep within is no longer uselessly expended! Its life, rather, is concentrated within the deepest part of the trunk and in the hidden portions of the root. The life is forced deeper and deeper into the inmost part of the tree.

Winter preserves the tree, no matter how dead the tree may appear. Yes, its leaves have fallen away and its true, deformed state has been exposed; yet the tree has never been more alive than at that time! During the winter, the source and principle of life is more firmly established than in any other season.

In all the other seasons, the tree employs the whole force of its life in adorning and beautifying itself. But it does so at the expense of expending its life, taking its very vitality from the roots and the deepest part of the trunk. There must be winter. Winter is necessary for the tree if it is to live, survive and flourish.

Virtue has a way of sinking deep within the Christian, while totally disappearing from the surface, leaving the outward and natural defects in very conspicuous view!

If we have eyes to see, then we see that this is beautiful.

Grace operates in your life in exactly the same way. God will take away the leaves. Something will cause them to fall. The outward virtue will collapse. He does this that he may strengthen the principle of the virtue. The source of virtue must be built up. Something deep within the soul is still functioning. Somewhere within the spirit the functions that are the highest (in God's estimation) have never rested. What is going on is exceedingly hidden. It is humble.

What is happening is pure love.

What is going on in the inmost part is absolute abandonment and contempt of self. The inward man is making progress. The soul is venturing forth into the interior. True, it seems that the operations of God are concentrated on the external parts of the believer, and even a moment's glance reveals that the exterior things are not pleasant to look upon. Yet, in truth, no new defects in the soul have developed! Only the uncovering of old faults has come about! And, as they are exposed, they are better healed.

If you dare the spiritual pilgrimage, you need to remember in times of calamity, and in times of what appear to be dry spells, and in that time which men will call a spiritual winter: Life is there.
--Madame Guyon, circa 1685

Boy howdy
--Bill Terrell, circa 2008

Here Comes the Sun...
--John Lennon/Paul McCartney, circa 1968

Dancing With the Stars

2008-05-20T18:15:00.003-04:00

...those are some lonnnnnng legs you've got there...

There is nothing more exciting, nor that touches a deeper place in my soul, than celebrity worship. Whenever I hear that a celebrity has issued a statement or made known an opinion, on any subject (politics, for instance), I instantly flock to the nearest web site to read what they have to say. I hang on their words. I feed on their omniscient grasp of all subject matter. I yearn to hear the next statement uttered, knowing that my pathetic life hangs in the balance and indeed would become non-existent without their guidance and unfathomable wisdom.

I am all about celebrities. The very word evokes emotions inside me that I cannot even begin to describe. So I won't.

SO, instead, I'll mention a couple of things about a much more boring and uninteresting subject: the Universe and its Creator. Did you know that the closest that any star is to the next star is 30 TRILLION miles? Did you know that, if the Earth moved one half inch out of its orbit, or changed the tilt of its axis by a few inches, that we would cease to exist (yes, even celebrities, hard as that is to imagine)?

Did you know that, contrary to what most people believe (both Christians and those who oppose them), the Big Bang Theory actually PROVES "Intelligent Design", rather than opposes it? The fact is, the Universe DID begin with a "Big Bang"--the moment God spoke it into existence.

Did you also know that some of the most celebrated scientists (celebrities!!!) in the field of Astronomy, some of whom are Atheist or Agnostic, even, have gone on record as saying that there is no way such a Universe could exist without a Creator (which involves Intelligent Design, meaning that we celebrity worshipers are kinda left on our own, at least in terms of the Intelligent part).

I don't know. This stuff is way over my head (heh heh). I suppose I'll go back to worshiping celebrities. What time does American Idol come on, dear?

But if you get overwhelmed trying to keep up with the latest celebrity news, may I suggest that you pick up the book, "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist" by Frank Turek and Norm Geisler (with a Foreword by David Limbaugh), and see how it's actually possible to expand your mind, learn a few boring things about the magnitude of the Universe we live in and how it came to be (among other things), and maybe even discover a Celebrity you never even really knew existed (of course, merely "picking up" the book won't bring about any of the above revelations--you'll actually have to READ it). Not that I would ever read such shallow trash, but I thought in the spirit of Celebrity Worship, I'd pass it on to you, and give you the choice.

Oh, also there is this: when it comes out on DVD, while you're looking for a celebrity-laden movie to watch, see if you can pick up Ben Stein's "Expelled". I'm not sure if Britney Spears makes an appearance or not (although the subtitle IS "No Intelligence Allowed"), and I'm almost certain Paula Abdul is missing entirely (it's been a couple of weeks since I've seen it, so I could be wrong). But regardless, it's still a very good movie. I mean, if you go for stuff that involves actual facts, intellect, Truth--you know, that kind of thing.

Now, darlin', where's the remote?

The Milk Carton

2008-04-28T12:28:00.004-04:00

Have you seen this man?

Hello, folks, if any of you are still out there waiting for my next blog entry.

Just wanted to let you know that I'm NOT missing, although whatever it is that I was 3 months ago has left the building. Back in early February, partly due to my own stupidity, and partly due to uncontrollable circumstances that are much bigger than I am, my life pretty much fell apart, and God put me in a situation where I either have to trust and follow Him, or end up totally in the gutter. I'm speaking of separation from all I've been accustomed to, homelessness, and whatever else you want to imagine.

At any rate, I wanted to get on here and give you some sort of update, to let you know that I still exist, and that God is working in my life. Like never before. Also, regarding all my other blog entries mysteriously disappearing, I can only say that I just really got tired of reading my stuff, and how much of it was about "ME"--even the stuff that was speaking about GOD working, I managed to somehow point back to ME, and glorify BILL rather than GOD. So, I just took the crap down, and will leave it down until the off chance that God will say to put it back up (and revise the content). Otherwise, I suppose at some point I will begin blogging again, once I can do so in a way that glorifies GOD and keeps BILL to a minimum. Fifty years of BILL is enough for me. It's now time for GOD to be revealed in me--and that is a process that I'm in the middle of. Until I can find a way to put into words everything that's been happening the last 3 months, and until I can find a way to share what God has been doing in my life, my lips are sealed--at least as far as my blog goes.

So anyway, there you have it. Hope all is well with you, whoever "you" are.

meow