Getting a grip on 'glory'

I'm doing some research on the word 'glory'. I'm curious what ideas, images, stories, or words, are associated with 'glory' for you. What comes to mind? Anything will do even if it's just a single word.

Will you leave a comment with your reply? Will you pass around this request?

Thanks!

It's a twister! and that's a beautiful thing.

There two, now three, now thirty dry leaves
persuaded (or pursued) from the winter ground
by the rushing rumor of Spring.

Up and round like a dizzied child
a force of nature, a dervish wild.

I waited, a benchwarmer, with book in hand
in relative calm till the turning leaves turned on me.
The hush grew rushed and the whisper howled
when the bated breath broke loose.

That wind shook the soot from the winter ember
broke through to the weak and eager heat,
and sparks were joined to the spiraling spiration.
My heart was relieved by the light-warmth.

---

That's a shot at a poem I'm trying to write about a little moment from today. I was at the park re-reading the end of a great book I've been in called "Gilead" by Marilynn Robinson. I read this paragraph:

"It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns into radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it has anything to do with fire, or light. That is what I said in the Pentecost sermon. I have reflected on that sermon, and there is some truth in it. But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?"

While I was thinking about it I noticed some leaves spinning up into the air. A cyclone formed about twenty yards away and I watched it, able to see the shape of the wind outlined by the debris. It was quiet where I sat, but the cyclone moved toward me and passed "through me" for a few seconds.

It was striking. The twining wind roared for just a moment and then passed. It felt like words of blessing, some kind of whirling baptism.

And it was in such a perfect context, having just read that paragraph from Gilead. I needed that grace today. I needed that respite. Beauty is never just beauty, it always carries the loving intention of our God.

the Accumulation of Calling

This past weekend, I was walking in the sea-wind on the Mississippi gulf coast with a good old friend who is a pastor down there. Somehow she and I began talking about 'calling'. This has always been a very ambiguous word for me and even a very frustrating thing to confront. I grew up thinking that you were supposed to have this absolute, kind of soul-piercing transcendent vocalization of the meaning of your life before you would be able to begin living it. There comes a point when that expectation either crushes you or breaks itself. These days I'm seeing calling has a cumulative quality. Kind of like relationship.

It's when I look back that it becomes more clear to me that God has been framing a context for how I participate with Him in His life now. There have been soul-shaping holy whispers along the way. The relationship with Jesus has changed as I've gradually learned what's important to God. Within the framework of exposure to God's life and work my desires adjusted in focus and my gifts have been developing. At this point, I am just beginning to stand back and observe that all this is going somewhere, that there is an intentional movement.

It's a very personal thing. I believe there is a general calling and mission that is shared by all who follow Jesus (and all who don't). We all are called in Christ to carry on his mission and work. Though that work is specific, how we flesh it out as real particular people often ends up volitionally vague. It's a creative opportunity though, relationship is. And though I have a general sense of the purpose of relationship, I sometimes have no idea what the heck I'm doing with it in any definitive way.

In the end, God is bringing his mission to life in me. Not through a singular explosive communication, but through familial attentive communion. I feel my gifts ripening and making sense and even reaching out into new possibilities. I see love among friends growing into new Kingdom Contexts. I am amazed to discover faith growing as the Father speaks the strength of his love against the sin that is "ever before me". The Story of Scripture, the very life of God, continues to give me a location in existence - a heritage (I came from somewhere) and an inheritance (I'm going somewhere). That means I have a place in God's life and work right now in the Present.

Calling then, has to do with Communion, with the accumulation of relationship with Jesus, with the ongoing maintenance of attachment through the Holy Spirit, and the faithful care and invitation of the Father to live as a member of his household.

ps. Please comment and share your experience of finding a place in God's life/story.