Tuesday, August 19, 2008

:: a world of presence ::

"To experience presence is to enter that far larger world of reality that our sensory experiences point to but cannot describe- the realities of love and compassion, justice and faithfulness, sin and evil...and God. MOSTLY God. The realities that are Word-evoked are where most of the world's action takes place. There are NO "mere words."


Last night I got caught up in the book of Micah, a book of metaphors. A book filled with prophecy and remembrance, teaming with the power and justice of God. The opening excerpt is a portion of the forward to this book that so beautifully and eloquently records the masterful composition of the words of Micah:: "A master of metaphor. This means that he used words not simply to define or identify what can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted, but to plunge us into a world of presence."

The most brilliant aspect of the book of Micah is that is wasn't just the book that was filled with prophecy and remembrance, and teaming with the power and justice of God; but Micah's very life beat to that anthem. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks"(Luke 6:45). I want to plunge into and live in this world of presence; I want my words to be purposed as agents of change as Micah's were. In that desire there is the element of prophecy required to sustain it. Too often we rely on our senses to equate our reality.

There is SO much in this book that catches my attention, and challenges my spirit. Even more so challenges my dependence or outlook on sensory dependency, even what we call "sensing in the spirit."

In the next several days I'll be writing on a few of these ideas swimming in my head; but in the meantime perhaps Selah on the challenge of Micah's words, as I am. Purpose your words to be agents of change to "rebuild what human disobedience and mistrust demolished."


//meg

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

you have me so intrigued with all your talk about micah! now all i want to do is read it! haha

Unknown said...

I have been selah-ing ever since I read this post the first time. It's got me thinking, too. love it!