earth heaven Elizabeth Barrett Browning Archives

Life is Fragile

Perhaps now is the time to remind ourselves that life is fragile. We have all experienced a greater measure of our own bodily fragility ever since our world declared a world-wide pandemic. We realized that there are viruses that not only make us sick but can even kill us. And the virus has killed young, old, and in…

Something Heavenly downhere

downhere is the band I wish I had found sooner. I did not discover this band until their 2008 album, Ending is Beginning. The album is brilliant and contains songs like “My Last Amen,” “Something Heavenly,” “Coming Back Home,” “The Problem,” “The Beggar Who Gives Alms,” and “How Many Kings.” “How Many Kings,” reprised on…

Glory or Horror

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.” Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, 1952. “The internal struggle continued. Who was it that had killed him? Well, first he had to decide who he was himself. Was Ray the good guy or the bad guy in this TV series? Was…

The Great Beyond

Those who read this blog regularly may want to check out my latest project, a book entitled The Great Beyond. While it is a novel, it wrestles with significant issues related to how we see life, death, and the spiritual world. Here is the summary from the back of the book. Ray did not expect his life…

Where to Now St. Peter?

“Where to Now St. Peter?” is a song that I have been listening to for about 4 decades. There is much I like about the song and its meaning continues to intrigue me. It is a song about death and what comes after death, written by Bernie Taupin and Elton John. Taupin provided the evocative…

There is Nothing to Match it Anywhere

Perhaps as a follow-up to my post of a few days ago, these words of the great science writer, Lewis Thomas would be appropriate. Of all celestial bodies within reach or view, as far as we can see, out to the edge, the most wonderful and marvelous and mysterious is turning out to be our…

Earth Day

My band, Key of Zed, just posted a new song at ReverbNation. The song is called “Earth Day” and it is dedicated to Jordyn Katherine Haeckel who was born on Earth Day (April 22) in 2014. Here are the lyrics. Earth Day Life marches ever onward Thousands of years come and they go Constant…

Soul Building

Difficulty, pain, and suffering are things that all of us would like to avoid. We would prefer that God would simply make our lives beautiful and perfect. We would like to have God give us a perfect job, a large salary, abundant health, the ideal spouse, and wonderful kids. Some preachers would have us believe…

Breathing

Prayer is relationship. It is much more than asking God for something every time we come into his presence. These words flying out of my keystrokes are really just the confession of a pleading soul. I can easily fill any empty space with wishes, gentle beseeching, or all out demands for God to do my…

Resurrection

“The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice,…