Light Breach

How, then, do I become conscious? Theories abound and people make it up when they have no idea. I’ve tried meditation, drugs, yoga, new religion, discipline, nature, free-love, aggression, self-mutilation, deja-vu, past regression, hypnosis, séance, information dissemination, skydiving, risking my life, adrenaline, tattoos, alcohol, women, work, money, men, friendship, hardship, war, research, philosophy, action, inaction, food, humanitarian efforts, psychology, psychoses, loss, gain, wealth, stars, planets, crystals, running, swimming, digging, building, cleaning, organizing, meeting people, starting projects. At this point I felt my world narrowing because I was exhausting everything I could think of yet wasn’t waking up – where are answers? Who has them? Someone must. I couldn’t be alone in this ever-shrinking idea of life or satisfaction. I could tell if I kept going on like this the transition to outside the diminishing circle would kill me. I’d have to get the directions to just... find myself out there in free space. Is that cheating? To skip the work? Can you do that? New pursuits, ruination, eastern religions, art, poetry, fashion design, buying things. I couldn’t stop and I was reaching the end of me – where haven’t I looked? The whole world; there’s nowhere left. Vandalism theft, prison, insanity, hurt, children, marriage, assault, divorce, depression, hate, rebound love, fire-walking, fire eating, brick-oven pizza. 

I went to the park and sat on a bench. Head empty, ears ringing with screams of loss, dissatisfaction, the improbable and the impossible. A man sat next to me and the voices died. I awakened to the park, the sound of leaves and birds, the sun on the grass. I swear it was the first breath I had taken in years. I looked to my right at the middle-aged man with a beard in need of shaving. He saw me looking. “Beautiful day, huh?” he said. His voice popped up on the ‘huh,’ indicating I could only agree. It took a second but I croaked out a yes. He smiled small and turned to look at me, his eyes kind and blue. He just saw me for a minute and then he blew my mind.

“Life isn’t hard, we just think it is because we think we can get it wrong. We think by changing others, or our circumstances or habits we can find peace, but that’s like picking the apples and expecting oranges next time. Then we blame the tree for not meeting our expectations – blame ourselves, others for our dissatisfaction. You have to start with good ground and the seed you want – then focus every good thought and action on its growth and cultivation and in no time you’ll have what you desire. Merely setting yourself toward this end will occupy you and make you well because you’re moving, doing consciously the thing you are meant to do, that is: actively choosing the life you live. Then everything , Every Single Thing will feed the seed and the tree will be beautiful and fruitful and it will be yours; will be you. But nothing can happen before its time. Attention is the only thing you have – not resources, funds, time – all that depletes or has human valuation or doesn’t exist – you don’t know how much time you have. All you have is where you fix your eyes. Are you reaching toward the light?”

The City The Country

Today I rode hours in the wrong direction twice and spent about 10 minutes in the ocean, my goal.
It really is about the people you're with because I was devastatingly lonely. I wanted new friends, and then I didn't, I wanted old friends, but wanted to be free with them. And then I just wanted fellowship, where the thing is just the thing, and God gets the glory.

Mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers
until mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers,
and then mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers again.

You have fond memories of a place because of the associations that were made there, with the people whose voices are echoing in those memories. People are the investment. It's not discovering how strong I can be on my own, just how independently I can function so I might know a new kind of life somehow. We are meant to work in relationship, to fellowship, to move, and exalt, and mess about, and screw up and increase through it all.
Everyone on couchsurfing says 'I like open-minded people' and 'I'm fun-loving' and 'spontaneous'. We have ideas about who we want to consort with, but that says little about the connection that arises between people. Either you are for each other or you are not; either you are both for the lord or you are not. It's a yoking issue.
I've got a couple days here still, and a date tomorrow morning, so we'll see how this expands.
____

My heart's in quite a state. It's been gripped and grappled; I guess it's tender. Freedom, choice, deliberation, and smarts. Execution is my problem now. I see myself independent and blessed... achieving things that I alone couldn't possibly do, but am alone, save God. It's messy, this impression. 

So I'll write a book.

When I am sad
   I will smile.

"It's not what you do that defines your quality of life, it's who you do it with."
"It's not what you think that defines who you are, it's what you do."
So what you do defines you and who you're with determines your quality of life? Can that be right? Platitudes are lazy and all-encompassing because they're generally true and sound poetic and wise enough that people say them because they have to say something when they don't know what to say.
Man's mind is a pit of snakes, and when, like Indy, we fall into it, we are lost to ourselves. Intervention by the arms of another are what save us when we cannot be.
The head and the heart are two separate things - one a driver, the other for recreation; one for inception, the other for implementation. Can you see which is which?
____


The date went well.

Letters for Edification III

April '12

I like that in the email you just sent, the content was more about your heart and honesty than about the thing, because in God the thing is not the thing. All we go through and all we do is the father putting a thing before us to show us ourselves: where we stand, what we desire, what we judge, what our faith weathers and where it withers. This is about about fathering. Many teachers you have but few fathers, so where do we get our identity?

Rev 2:17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

We are a generation of bastards, raised by mothers who've done their best, but were not designed by God to form men. Christianity today is about mothering - birthing babes in the faith that are left to die because nobody is willing to raise them the way a father is supposed to give his life for his children. It's not to blame anyone - this is everyone's fault and everyone's problem.

But not really.

satan has been successful, but the seeds of his own destruction are in his very machinations. God's won. His children have it at their disposal to become again what it is they're meant to be through the search for fathering.
Mothering happens.
In the beginning, you are born and can't do much yourself. Mom tells you it's okay and gives you milk (the word) that satisfies you and is easy to digest. As you toddle, you are taught little life lessons. As a teenager, you make stupid mistakes and suffer for them when you assert your know-it-allness and your independence, but you're free to make those choices. At some point, your body must move from milk to meat. Meat is tougher because you have to work for what you get. Even if it's set before you, you've got to cut at it and chew it up and the body takes a long time in its digestion. The word becomes a harder and more concrete truth, something more real and satisfying. If you still desire milk, you might resent the toughness of the word. But God has said you are strong, and if mom's been reflecting Dad as you've been raised up, you'll know that truth and it'll be part of you, so you can stand in the face of conviction when YOUR strength and YOUR pride of life are called into question. God's said you're righteous: what have you to be proud of? The point is that at some point my parents stop smothering me with care and affection and the onus is placed on me to seek them out. To PURSUE the heart of my father, my dad, my spiritual father, my elder, the one who HAS WHAT I NEED, and the one who loves GOD enough to be straight with me. To tell me the word with the spirit on it so I might go free from what has been entrenched in emotion and mindgames and social obligation to what is Liberty and Life; that which propels me into a walk that is upright and the world judges as freakish and outside the norm. We are peculiar people for a reason! But mainstream christianity is mixed and muddled and soft and outspoken and either full of hippie-love for everyone or judgement on all people and there is no balance and no real life.
There are few fathers in the homes, and there are no fathers in the churches. Every struggle I have has to do with my idea of being a man. Taking care of my finances, considering the girl or not considering her, eating well or taking care of my body, saving for a house, getting a real career so I can support a family, considering myself [anything] rather than a child of God. These things are all ideas I've picked up somewhere, heard with my ears, that have found a place in me to take root. And I let them and held them. I didn't know it at the time, but these roots have gotten deep, and now when I am confronted with these mindsets (all works, mind you - the things that God doesn't accept? the ones that don't get you into heaven? because righteousness doesn't come from the law but by faith?) I falter, because my foundation is being torn up by their uprooting. I have let these things become my peace: I will be happy and a real winner in God when I am good with my hands and can make a matching set of furniture. This sets my satisfaction and identity in my deeds and in the future when really God is with me here (loves me as I stand or sit or fall or shake) and now (because he dwells outside of time:backward and forward, yes, but we can't yet conceive of this so being Present is all there is).
Fathers are meant to teach us these things, and as we grow in prowess, trust, faith, the gifts, the word, the truth, the child-like faithfulness required to perceive God, then we can begin to pursue Fathers. It is the glory of God to hide a thing, but the honour of kings to search it out.
The most spiritual man I know is facing God. He has no pride, is ugly as sin  and will give me every moment of the day that doesn't impede with his caring for his family. He is ALWAYS communing with God, so he is ALWAYS facing forward, and I must ALWAYS go to HIM to get whatever he's chewing on. He's growing, but I won't get any of that if I don't go to him. Whoever is with him benefits from his gleaning, but they must glean from his reaping! They must humble themselves and recognize what they already know: that this man has something I do not yet have and I want it so much! He is my father. Any man older than me, any spiritually guided man to whom I must humble myself and call Lord (all authority is of God, and if my faith is in God then HOW could a man wrong me?), any man who doesn't look like I think a holy man should is a challenge to my faith (the unwritten law that says a holy man has good stature and nice words and tithes consistently and doesn't swear), and God speaks through asses...Do we listen? (Donkeys btw represent humility. Go figure.) To be fathered by the Father is they cry of our hearts, and we have been told we were abandoned, which is why Jesus, a man, loving us so much, speaks so greatly. Real love is strong - affectionate, but more than that: True. It lasts and once we have heard the Truth we are without excuse. Grace is to change, and the word is written on our hearts. How are we not free?
Freedom is a lot closer than we think. It lies in understanding sovereignty, knowing where to find what you need, humbling yourself in order to get it, and letting go of whatever you have held in order to receive it.
This is what your story's about. It's about the Real. About the State of things. About socialism that says I'll work and your lazy ass will benefit, because a mother will dote on a child she thinks deserves the world. It's about the strength of the arms of a dad when our mess-ups consume us and he still says 'well done, son'. It's about my not being approved by my works because I'm loved in spite of my failings and to spite my successes. If I sat here and watched tv for the rest of my life I'm still loved. It doesn't matter what I do - God's love for me is all-consuming. It literally is me. My breath is his realization. I am in His image. Masculinity? A man is one who seeks hard after fathering. It has nothing to do with how much he can lift, who he can provide for, what he looks like, how he sounds: All these things come from his faith (either in the father (where all are perfected), or in those things being the mark of a man). I am that I am. I am no less a man because I fell for video games for years and thought satisfaction would come by that. I am no less a man because I lied to my dad at age three. I am no less a man because I proposed to a girl because I thought it was what I should do. Being a man in God isn't an issue. Taking on who he is is what it's all about. But I'm free, so if I never do take on who he is, it doesn't matter. I'm still loved and still can't win satisfaction by my deeds.
So be what you are, Elijah, Hans, free from the bondages you held to. Be liberated in heart, by spirit, unto the Father, the one who loves you beyond reason and beyond comprehending. You are a gift and gifted, not to glory in, but to give glory to the one who is the beginning and end. This is what you're story's about: about finding an identity, not in choices or action, but in who the father is - even the physical one, despite his shortcomings, because all are flesh and have the flesh to contend with (EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T CONTEND WITH FLESH AND BLOOD), yet it's a veil we've been given to believe has been undone. The veil of the flesh is the hardest to get through because it's the man before me I can decide is low and dirty, the one I can say in my heart does not come in the name of the lord, and so I remain hard-hearted and the same. But we grow from glory to glory, line upon line, precept upon precept, and God's faith does not waver.


_____

April '12


I am elated to get this. I saw that it was a chunk mail and not just a line or title and went 'holy crap', because that sort of staying power in writing means there's something legit inside.
Congrats on the baptism. It's incomparable to be submerged into a new way of life. It's not just about the washing: your old man is left there, in the water, and a new one rises up. You no longer need relate to things in the old way, how you always have, but you are free. Free to breathe. Free to receive grace to walk a new way. Grace is to change. I like you man, and whether I judged, judge, or will judge you, matters nothing to Your walk. Our walks are individual. It's me and God: when I feel judged, that's NOTHING to do with the other person - the judgement's already inside me. God doesn't demand you do anything, so neither can I hold you to some 'do this/don't do that" standard. God's about freedom and walking free. Obligation isn't freedom, performance isn't freedom, lies aren't freedom, murder isn't freedom, lust isn't freedom. Only grace is freedom. We MUST get our eyes off the earth to perceive that Grace covers our actions and inactions, but that our walk isn't even about our actions. Actions stem from the heart: if you do things to be a good person or to get man's approval (I do this constantly), your actions show you where your faith lies because if your actions aren't good enough your satisfaction and peace is stolen. If you do things because it's in your heart to do them (you'll know when you do something because you 'should' (obligation) and when it's simply in you to do), then you are free, because the lord impressed something on you and you were propelled into motion. I love you man, and my heart is very much for you. I am excited for this new walk and eyesight, this energy you've entered into. Another name for the holy spirit is 'energeo' (sp?) which translates to energy. Light is energy.
On Easter we saw a guy in Sydney lugging a cross on a wheel up the city street. It had something something 'Christ' written on it and I sort of laughed. What is this man's faith that he would go out with this giant attention-getter to... what? Save people? How's he gonna do that? We saw him about 20 minutes later further up the street. He was yelling at a guy 'You are a coward! You are a coward! You are a coward!" as the guy walked away from him. And then they had some more words, I suppose. We kept walking. It was remarkable. God's people are different because they are in him, moving to a sound the rest of the world doesn't care to hear. This man was told that he had to be a martyr for people, had to reach out to grab them from the grips of hell before Jesus returns on the clouds, and this is how he figured he could do it. But the great commission doesn't say 'go and witness', it says 'as you go, bear witness' which means 'you're going: bear witness to the light inside of you and others will see it.' If grace says all you are is safe, and sovereignty says that nobody (God included) can demand anything of you, how could Jesus say 'Go!' and make people go? People go by faith, and I can EASILY say that my coming to Australia was a move in Faith. And in my going I have born witness to the changes God has wrought in me:  the longevity of my faith, the staying power of my salvation, the way my peace remains in the face of adversity because GOD IS BACKING ME UP AND I KNOW IT. Minister to God WITHIN you, and you will see his works occur without you. You cannot save a damn person, but you can bear witness, learn to recognize the spirit moving in your heart, and a word of deliverance might come forth. If you shout down someone with 'you need Jesus!' or 'You're a coward!' that's okay, it's just not really in line with the word.
Let your mindsets concerning Who God is and How He operates come down, because He was never who I was raised to think He is. He doesn't look that way, he doesn't show up like that, he isn't far-off and his nearness doesn't feel the way it used to or 'should'.
Most people live with earthly wisdom, and give lip-service to God, because they haven't been schooled in the True God (the one with real and powerful Grace, the one who saves, the one who backs us up, and the one who visits us every freaking day but we don't see), because we have many teachers but few Fathers. We are a religion of bastards, brought into the fold by men who wish to see God's kingdom increase by numbers, and then left to fend for ourselves the minute we are born. So we raise ourselves with the words everyone else uses, taking on the judgements and values of everyone around us because if everyone's doing it it should be right. It's safe to say a buzz phrase in the christian world is that 'there's something wrong with Christianity today', so pastors dress young to reach kids, and try new music to get the congregation out of their comfort zones, and buy more lights to attract more people and it all becomes the next big attempt at reaching a God who hasn't changed since the beginning. Psychology isn't the answer, self-help isn't what it's cracked up to be, and marrying a good, christian woman won't save you the way you think it will.
To walk in Christ is to be radical, but not like you think. It's a departure from what you have been living into something that is alien. It effing hurts because it's separation from the identity you have spent 25 years forming. But everything is given back to you. You only Ever have anything to gain because God is working ceaselessly on your behalf. We have turned from our first love, but when you desire to recognize the Lord, do something more than go to church and put your hands up. Seek out those who have him. Spiritual elders who are at peace and those who have the spirit. You know them. They're REAL MEN because they have something, a sound, maybe, that other people don't. Seek the spirit AND truth, because to have one but not the other is a travesty and misses the mark. But nothing is in vain.
I have great hope (expectation) for you, because if you stay the course God will not disappoint you. It's NEVER a pass/fail thing, and God won't EVER reject you, because you are NEVER beyond his reach. You are loved, brother, even when you don't feel it. We simply learn to recognize love as He is, and then we will be like Him. The feeling does go away, because feelings are soulish (earthly) - it's what you do when they fade that shows you where you stand and what you're heart's become, where you can still increase, where you might grow, and if you can testify in Truth in the dry times, you will be the spirit-man you desire to be. If it's just when you're high that you can say 'I love life!', then you don't really love life.
Rockin'.

Mr. Bombastic

I picture a wall of water, as thick as your thumb, that you walk freely through. It shimmers, and when your face breaks the barrier you open your eyes and breathe in new life you've never known (like crossing through the Stargate). This is Christ: a removal from all things that have been and entry into an entirely liberating plane. I cross this barrier three times a second, and I am only ever new. I am not conscious of the things that have made me myself up to this point, but focused on God and his will, so directed forward. It's not a mindset or a state of mind, it's a propulsion and instinct where faith toward God is breathing and Every thing is fresh and new. At this point it's ceased being about me and my hangups, or even my growth, because  *inhale*  Christ - the measuring of the depth of my redemption in God.
I'm reimagined six times a second.
I'm revolutionized nine times a second.
And God is constant.

There's a Way

I've perceived a line with 'Love' and 'Law' at the other, where God's the balance between. Being part of a body where I lived in constant (crushing) awareness of others' perception of me, I have lived on the Law end for a while. I just asked myself how to dial down the law and dial up the love, to move more toward God's balance and yogi-bliss, and the fact that this is super 2-dimensional man-thought hit me.
I saw love and law come together on God to form one point. In the same moment I saw the line grow upward, outward, and sideways into a three dimensional universe in which the God of the center expanded as a ball of warm light into the very reaches of the still-growing everything. It was a cool impression.
I'm not apart from Him even when I'm in the law because there's love all over it. The law is just the way. It's the weight of the law that's not of Him.

In seeking God, I've been looking for something that's super foreign to me. I was trying to study it like I studied Spanish culture in high school: with little enthusiasm and because I was told to. I've tasted the life of him (far better than flan), and have gotten lawful on myself because I should dive in to all I can. I haven't. In school I worked for A's; in real life I aim for intangibles which are far harder to measure. So why measure? Isn't any progress advancement? I went for good grades to please people, but my momentum in God begins to mount when I realize I've been walking without knowing it: He doesn't leave, so we're always hanging out. I'm constantly seeing Him and myself in Him, I've just been trained to believe there's nothing exceptional about it so everyday has more on me than I have on it. God wants me free and I want to be free. I don't have to go anywhere or look like anything to be free - it's an inalienable right.

In reading the bible I'm reading about myself - I've never seen myself that way. You know, powerful, able, faithful, true; doing big things because I was called to regardless of how insane they looked. He told me again today that nothing about my life is mundane. This must be true because he's here right now, and when does someone so creative do anything unintentional? Zone out for a bit? When is God's downtime? He lives in peace and rest still doing things, but unhurried and without pressure. We say 'well He's God' as if that justifies the how of anything he does. But he's knowable. Everything he does he does so we would know him and his presence, his power and love. We are his likeness and image for goodness sakes, how different do you think we are? Jesus said we'd do the things he did and more, so why do we think an active and living God who doesn't take a break from caring for us is unreachable, hard-hearted and impossible to comprehend? Who the hell is this? He sounds capricioius and mean-spirited, like a Greek god. We admit one thing with our mouths (testifying of His goodness and grace) and do the obscene opposite (believing and so living that he's untrustworthy and going to punish me unless I can do well), hypocrites that we are.

Moving forward in God means aligning yourself with him, like a marriage. I put off my old self so that my new identity might be more like his; we are the Bride, after all. He presented the Bride to himself without spot or wrinkle, so I'm clean and wonderful before him. Where every day is a chance to be less of what I used to be (and hated), and more of what I desire (the one I've chosen to spend my life with), nothing's mundane. We don't grow familiar with each other, we grow more expectant and excited: He's made himself available. When I draw near to God and put off my old patterns of thinking, perceptions of him and who he is, perceptions of who I am or how I'm supposed to be, concerns and fears and hangups and wishes and on and on...when I willingly lay those at his feet, then I am free to be loved. And he's rapturous. I get red in the face reading Song of Songs because it's about me.

There is a way; it's through the bride. It's from a father who makes a son, through the mother that produces him. It's being part of a body who will shape you and raise you in the way you should go. It's submitting yourselves one to another, confessing your sins, building one another up and blessing those whose hearts have been given to you. All of this because we have a mediator and because we are cared for by the one who loved us first. He's made a way where there was no way, and it's nothing like we understand or imagine.

Purging Fire, Burning Pyre

The reason and purpose for this baptism (fire) is to give the power of this pursuit from the zeal and passion of G-d for His house to purge continuously, purify eternally, and be expectant perpetually. It will surely divide rightly with clarity with what fire we are of, for the day will manifest it.  

[[The baptism into fire enables (gives power to) this pursuit (power traded from God’s stock of Zeal and Passion) for us to Purge Continually, Purify Eternally, and Expect Perpetually. It divides rightly and clearly what fire we are of, because the light manifests it]]

We do burn, but with what fire? 

Ischus is the wind for the flame, dunamis is the the ignition. I've received this baptism [to whelm, to cover wholly with fluid] unto fire - the purifying flame; strengthening, powerful, inducing.

Losing myself to the fire doesn't make me any less holy or without God - it makes plain where the Lord is winnowing my flesh. The smoking furnace and burning lamp are a testimony of His faithful pursuit. My temple's been a mess, but he erects a pyre and burns up the junk so there won't be any more money changers in this temple.  

Burn up my idols! 

I was convinced today that I couldn't be faithful - that I must put off those I've known as 'faithful' and be off, lose myself or die. Quick, that. Rather than leave it at this, I look at the rationale that led me to this conclusion: What so moved me that this sovereign King, Son of God, would abdicate his throne and take his own life? 

It was all how I saw; how I did the job, how I relate to those I'm with, how I can earn my place in God. I was lied to, quiet while a snake whispered in my ear. Be active, Man! Zakar! Remember who you are! Stand on the Word, Jesus, and be affirmed. It's never a matter of circumstance; it's a matter of position in relation to the light: are you looking to the light or gazing on your shadow?

I

m just 

here

to watch the fireworks.

I watched my shadow today, when, immediately and without my knowledge, I was talking to God about it.  I was crying out to him that I couldn't complete what I was trying to do - it was brought on by the works of my hands, painting, but the issue was tied to my heart. I saw the pain of my association in an entirely different light, and praised God for being faithful. I moved from the outer court to the inner, and back again, smoothly. A first, I think. 

And all of this, the thoughts, emotions, ties, perceptions, reactions, rejections, false images, all the stuff that makes me a man and a sinner are nothing to God in light of Christ. Because I receive him and the measuring of the depth of my redemption, my heart is turned, uprooted, washed, planted and tended, harvested, separated, burned, made clean. The pure was always there, is always here, but it's the fire that destroys the stuff that can't stand up to the Word. There is more to me than there used to be because I bear witness to active display of God's recreation in me. Ha! He's re-created me, and recreates here too. He likes fireworks, so increasingly, I let his fire work. He's always known his work was Love for me, I just couldn't see it. 

A vessel of light

of honor dishonor

of pain patience and practice

of glory and fruition

judgment and fluidity

of friction and purification

an open demonstration of 

power. 

I am measured and 

not found wanting. 

little lies grab my attention

I give it (to) a-way,

a different way,

my choice.

Until I step into 

the Great Fire of the Lord

where everything around me burns

and I cry out to the Strong One

who reminds me he's with me

and that what I've been hoping in

was dead and dry-

perfect fuel for fire.

His water rushes over me

reviving my lips and eyes

and I see him and speak him

and he's everywhere

and everyone

and I move through the garden again

Thank God for pressure and high heat that shows us what burns and what we're made of.

Tattoos and Light

I was subject to a ball of light today. It was a large sphere of pulsing yellow brightness with flares of light jetting out. It was so bright I couldn't tell whether it was heavy or super-light. And in a moment of clarity I realized it was potential energy. I had been put in a situation with eyes to see it, and the light was the energy that would become whatever I chose: negative (heavy) or constructive (liberating). There's no pressure in God, just a growing clarity to choose him faster, more often, and with greater ease. My world is in my hands, but I give it over to God; I can make my life, or I can let him do it. He's a far better creator than I. So I chose the lighter path, prayed into the Father, and any sense of burden I carried regarding the interaction vanished like vapor. The brightness of that light became me and I grew light. I grew lighter (less heavy), lighter (more transparent), and lighter (more glorious), all at once.

The Lord's tattooed me before: Righteous across my arms and chest from wrist to wrist, Faithful around my throat like a necklace, but today I received an intricate design. It is a tree whose roots begin at my groin, whose trunk rises up, narrow, through my navel and solar plexis, and whose thinly leaved branches extend broad across and over my pecs, leaving off at the tops of my shoulders. It is beautiful and becoming, instructive and living as I am living.