Touch the Spirit

“‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” Genesis 16:13b (NIV)

Touching the Spirit 

Well, it seems to me I’m an odd one. Why not when I think I can touch the Spirit. What you say? We’re used to just basing our faith on things unseen but what is this touching the Spirit?

My dear friend said: “We can lay our hands on spaceships, and books, iPods and plastic bottles, and we cannot touch a Spirit. HE can touch us, but we cannot touch HIM. So there's always that point of disconnect. Always that feeling of being out of step because the God we trust on we cannot touch with our hands, see with our eyes, hear with our ears.”

Gosh, when I read that my mind went exploring! It drifted off to the time I DID touch Him. I touch Him often and I assumed everyone else did also. I know after you read what I say you’ll say, Oh that, that’s not the same. It is very real to me. It is what makes me an oddball in the crowd. It makes me the crimson in a sea of yellow. 

Just so you know, while I can physically touch an iPod, I never have, the same goes for a spaceship, but my heavenly Father, oh yes, I’ve touched Him; my fingers brushed his robe, my hand held his hand, my arms wrapped around Him in an embrace but in Spirit form, it is like hugging liquid.

Ezekiel 1:26-28 “Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man. Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him. As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.”

I think maybe first you need to understand who and what He is. God is Spirit not a man, not sitting up on the puffy white clouds. God is not hiding from us in the shadows, He is in plain view for all of the world to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. When you stop seeing Him as ‘up there' sitting on a majestic throne in the icy sky maybe then you can intimately feel that He is within, without, He IS dwelling in every living thing. 

Psalm 139:7-12

"Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day Darkness and light are alike to You."

I think what makes me an oddball is that I believe and always have known I have more than five senses. Yeah, that just makes me weird that way. I think when you’ve died twice and then came back to wander among the human species you feel just like the astronaut who has been taken into space then brought back here to live out the duration of your life on earth, except one thing, when you die, you touch the Spirit realm.

When you touch a point of light and it streams through your fingers like liquid in your hand, or when you listen to music and it vibrates through your body like an electrical current surging through you, it is at those moments that spirit is passing through you. 

Take this statement as an example, “He can touch us but we can’t touch Him.” I mean no offense but that doesn’t make sense to me because my reality tells me otherwise. What is touch? Is it a physical, material object?

Acts 17:27-28 “that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'”

When my mother hugs me, I feel her love wash over me like a waterfall. I live well over a thousand miles away and I can still feel her hug in her voice, I can still feel that love spray over me. It’s no longer physical but I can feel her and know she is there. God is no different in that aspect, He can seem far away but still be within me.

1 Corinthians 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

As assuredly as I can touch my arm, run my fingers through my hair, softly scan my face with my fingertips, I can feel Him there. God becomes physical when I allow my very fingertips to caress any material object that He created.

1 John 2:16 ESV “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

The soil in my garden is dry and sandy. I tried many years to grow plants, veggies, food, but rarely did I get anything from my crop. I couldn’t afford to put rich soil in the ground, or fertilizers, so I had to trust the land to provide beauty for me because if the earth doesn’t provide then there is no need to plant. This year I threw my hands in the air and said I’m not planting and whatever comes up will have to be provided by God himself and I will tend the garden when it shows up. As you can see below, God showed up!

You’ll say when I tell you that my annuals come back year after year it’s because of seed drop the year before and you’d be right but still, my annuals sprouted from the ground and put on a display of beauty that I had no hand in except the watering of the garden. God touches us in the most mysterious of ways. The same can be said for us, we TOUCH Him in mysterious ways also but it is still TOUCH! 

When I stroke a leaf, I feel the swell of life surfing through my blood and I connect on levels most would never understand. The veins of a leaf are not much different than the very DNA flowing through the cells of my body. It is the sustenance of LIFE.

I think the problems with people are that they disconnect from God. They don’t see, hear and feel Him in everything. They place Him in a book, they shape Him into molds, and they form Him out of clay. He becomes a material when that was never His intention in ways to be among us. He is a spirit that dwells in us, the temple. When He looks at us, He doesn’t see us from afar, He isn’t out there in the world swirling clouds to make storms strike the earth because we were bad.

Storms form because of man's inability to restrain himself from filling the skies and land with toxins that create a mess in the atmosphere and a terrible storm is in essence, the clouds letting off backed up emissions, to put it simply, the clouds burp! 

2 Chronicles 16:9

"For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars."

Zephaniah 3:17

"The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

When someone says to me that I cannot touch God, there is no way to humanly kiss the Spirit, I have to digress. Contact is in different forms not just by handling. That’s like saying a man with no arms can’t paint a portrait, I’ve seen it done. I wasn’t there for the act but I’ve witnessed the fact. I challenge each of you today to look for the Spirit WITHIN and embrace what has been there all along. He has never left you for one nano second so don't ever give up on Him. Seek and you will find.

Isaiah 52:10 “The LORD has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations, That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God.”

Poetry Sunday ~ I See Him

Eph. 3:3-4 “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

I see Him in the light of day
I see Him in the clouds that sway
I see Him in the breeze He breathes
I see Him in the soul that seethes

    

                                             

I hear Him in the songs of praise

I hear Him in intuitive ways

I hear Him in the reprimand

I hear Him in the Promised Land

I touch Him in my daily need

I touch Him in diurnal deed

I touch Him with my active prayer

I touch Him with each wisp of air

I taste Him in the scented dew

I taste Him in His words so true.

I taste Him in the daily bread

I taste Him in the cross He bled

I see, hear, touch and taste

The scent of Him in honor placed

For all I see and all I do

It is my God I share with you!

God Bless you all

E.S.P of Writing: Part II

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin
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Have you ever heard of E.S.P.? It is short for Extra Sensory Perception. That’s not telling us a whole lot now is it? To me, I perceive it as an Extra sense. What? we have an extra sense?

Have you ever heard your mother say, “Don’t you have the sense God gave you?” Well maybe your mother didn’t but I’ve heard it a few times in my lifetime, and I always looked back and whispered, “Yes, my sixth one,” and as she would turn her back I know I had a tongue sticking out at her. I was just an ornery child like that.

We at f2k (the FREE Creative Writing Course) have a lesson that deals with the senses. We have the normal five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, but we have also added three more to add to the effect of your writing; time, space, and the unknown.

Eerie isn’t it, the unknown? Not really: As the sky opens up and unleashes a torrential downpour this late afternoon, I wonder if the newly born kittens are dry. Look at that sentence! The sky would be SPACE, late afternoon would be TIME, and a moment of wonder would be the UNKNOWN. It is THAT simple.

And to top it off the sentence is showing not telling. You get the idea here, right? Now try this on for size.

As I walked down the street in the afternoon sun, I wondered where the aroma of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation of finding the noisy outdoor bistro on the corner.

As I walked down the street (space) in the afternoon (time) sun, I wondered (unknown) where the aroma(smell) of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole (touch) to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation (taste) of finding the noisy (sound)outdoor bistro on the corner. (sight)

Notice how those two sentences, a small paragraph, used all eight senses? In our f2k lesson we ask for you to write a paragraph (READ my words, a PARAGRAPH) using the eight senses. Would you believe, it could take four and five paragraphs to use eight senses?
Keep in mind, many in the class are novice writers, but seriously?

Over six hundred people signed up for this free course, and many quit after the first lesson because they found that either, there are too many restrictions (thanks, we don’t allow porn), there are too many guidelines, (yes, when we say 500 words, we don’t mean 648)and this is my favorite, “I am a stiff shirt.” *loud laughter here*

I like kidding around with the rest of them, but really, this is a business I take quite seriously and in all of my eight senses, it tells me that this “stiff shirt” is going places, while the rest of the people continue to try and balance a ball on their nose and ride a tricycle at the same time.

E.S.P of Writing

Hebews 5:14 says: But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
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Are we being asked to exercise our senses? Darned tootin! For when our senses diminish, like the morning mist, we will also.

When we walk through the pages of life it is our senses that bring us from one place to the other. Without the senses, life would be an empty abyss shaped as a bowl full of nothing. A senseless bowl that sits there with nothing in it. Even if it was full of mashed potatoes and gravy smothered on top, if you didn’t have your senses, it would just be a bowl.

How would you know it was a bowl if you didn’t touch it to feel the shape? How would you know the bowl held mashed potatoes with gravy, nudging its way in a steamy mist toward you, without the aroma carrying the fragrance to your nostrils? 

Even without sight, you can tell that it is mashed potatoes. The texture, the taste, the scented aroma, even the sound of the plopping into the bowl would give you an idea that you are about to dive into a delicious something. Molecules of cooked potatoes are leaping at your nose!

You see what I’m getting at? Our senses will spell out a world of imagination and vibrant life. When one sense is lost, the others stand at attention waiting for direction, but really they need no direction because they are there just quietly activating without you even knowing it.

This is what we need to do when writing. We need to allow our senses to guide us through the words and world of imagery. Don’t think about what you’re going to write, allow your senses to lead the way into a tale of glory.

Your writing with the senses is a lot like faith. You either trust in it fully or you have doubts in your thoughts. There is no room for doubts where faith is concerned. Faith is diving off a bridge, arms flung wide open, and out of nowhere you are caught by a feather that places you in the water. A boat might come by to save you but faith is trusting that a boat will come by. Some might die, but faith will keep you alive.

You have senses to carry you through life. Taste, touch, sight, smell, sound, and in our f2k, we liberally added: the unknown, space and time. These are the senses that you will write with. These are the senses that will propel your writing to new heights.Be sure you have faith in your writing as the senses haul you from one place to the other and your reader will thank you for taking the extra time to touch them in ways no other has ever reached.

Come alive with your senses, they’re there for a reason, so use them to the very best of your writing ability. Our writing is a sixth sense of sorts. We need more than five senses if we’re going to carry our story to the heights that we see envision.

Write Right...

I'll knock some Sense into you!

Matt.17: 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
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Senses...the sweet sensation

When we walk through the pages of life it is our senses that bring us from one place to the other. Without the senses, life would be an empty abyss shaped as a bowl full of nothing. A senseless bowl that sits there with nothing in it. Even if it was full of mashed potatoes and gravy smothered on top, if you didn’t have your senses, it would just be a bowl.

How would you know it was a bowl if you didn’t touch it to feel the shape? How would you know the bowl held mashed potatoes with gravy without the smell? Even without sight, you can tell that it is mashed potatoes. The texture, the taste, the smell, even the sound of the plopping onto the plate would give you an idea that you are about to dive into a bowl of something.

You see what I’m getting at? Our senses will spell out a world of imagination and vibrant life. When one sense is lost, the others stand at attention waiting for direction but really they need no direction because they are there just quietly activating without you even knowing it.

This is what we need to do when writing. We need to allow our senses to guide us through the words. Don’t think about what you’re going to write, allow your senses to lead the way into a tale of glory.

I read one girls post in f2k. She said she wrote the dialog and then went back to fill in the tags. What? When you’re writing, the flow of dialog should come as natural as the flow of senses. You can’t go back and recapture what you wanted to smell or taste or say or do; writing needs a natural flow.

Your writing with the senses is a lot like faith. You either trust in it fully or you have doubts in your thoughts. There is no room for doubts where faith is concerned. Faith is diving off a bridge, arms flung wide open, and out of nowhere you are caught by a feather that places you in the water. A boat might come by to save you but faith is trusting that a boat will come by.

You have senses to carry you through life. Taste,touch, sight, smell, sound, faith is the sixth sense, the unknown, space and time. These are the senses that you will write with. These are the senses that will propel your writing to new heights. Be sure you have faith in your writing as the senses haul you from one place to the other and your reader will thank you for taking the extra time to touch them in ways no other has ever reached.

Come alive with your senses, they’re there for a reason, so use them to the very best of your ability.

Hebews 5:14 says: But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Is he telling us to exercise our senses? Darned tootin, he is! For when our senses diminish, like the morning mist, we will also.

Get some Sense!

Creating a world that is richly laced with the senses is what your reader wants. Have you ever read a story with none of the senses used? I bet it was a pretty boring story, eh? Senses bring your story to life in ways generic writing never will.

When we talk, we use our senses don’t we? When we communicate what we saw today, or heard on the radio, or ate for lunch etc. etc., we use our senses also. So why when you write wouldn't you want to leave the reader with a rich frothy taste in his mouth and weave your images into his mind like a finely crocheted afghan?

The best lesson I learned in writing was making use of the senses. It livened up my work like a fourth of July fireworks display and made my words dance to their own lively tune. This is what I want YOU to accomplish in YOUR writing.

When I was young, I remember my mother telling me to, "Act like you have some sense." If she only knew, I write like I have some sense, six of them to be exact.

Senses ~ Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, and the unknown.

Sight ~ The light shone through the window. The rays danced on the floor. The mountains basked in the glory of the dappling sunshine.

Sound ~ The drumming of my heart was enough to keep me awake. The shrieking car peeled out of the parking lot. The church bells played a somber tune.

Smell ~ Ahh the fresh aroma of newly cut grass. The scent of grandma’s apple pie wafting through the open window has me wanting some. The tang of vinegar tickled my nose.

Touch ~ The hairbrush was rough on my scalp. The stucco wall left dimples in my hands when I fell into it. The cars hood was scorching hot!

Taste ~ The dill pickle was bitter after eating pretzels. The lemonade was sweet to my tongue’s palette. Grandma’s apple pie tasted delicious after it finally cooled down.

The Unknown ~ I wonder if the sun always does a pirouette across the waves? I’m wondering if Grandma is thinking about me up there in heaven.

The unknown is the tricky sense that we use to bring home our thoughts. The unknown can be as exciting as the rest of the senses if used wisely. Use it in your writing so the reader can touch base with you, the narrator. It gives the reader a glimpse into your thoughts.

Can you see what is in front of you right now? On your desk?

Can you smell the pans that you left on the stove from tonight’s dinner? Old coffee sitting in the coffeepot?

Can you taste the leftover spaghetti in your throat? A lit match might leave a sulfuric taste.

Can you hear your computer humming? A fire engine racing by?

Can you feel the stiffness of your chair and how it is making your butt hurt?

Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you won a million dollars? Can you imagine what life is like on other planets?

Bring it home for me. Take advantage of the six senses in your writing. Make your writing jump out and speak to me. Go ahead, I know you can do it.