So this is a post republished from CV NEWS....it is written by Genevieve Pylypiw. My summer youth coworker. She is telling a story about our recent discipleship time with God in nature.

It was a beautiful day, a perfect day to work outside. I was standing under what appeared to be an apple tree, though before that day I had not realized the existence of it's fruit bearing abilities -- a strand of Macintosh at that. It had been a couple of weeks since Rob had announced to me that we were going to prune the apple trees on the property. "Apple trees," I had exclaimed, unknowing that we even had one. We have four! Four (decent kinds of apple) trees in the backyard of the Cambridge Vineyard. One more new discovery since I've started working here six weeks ago.So, there I was standing under the first chosen tree to prune, apparently a first experience for both us. Rob was already fully immersed in chopping off limbs and branches at the top of the tree when I walked over.

I had a memory flash of an apple orchard and thought out loud, "Aren't apple trees supposed to be fairly sparse in branches?" Rob grinned and chuckled as he jumped out of the tree and answered me, "Yep. Apple trees are generally sparse -- we've got a lot of cutting to do," and he handed me the clippers.For the trees to bear good fruit they need partial sun and partial shade, so the branches need to be spaced in a way that allows the sun to shine through, yet at the same time provides some coverage from too much heat. This is why typically the structure of an apple tree is shaped like a pyramid/triangle. The tree we were standing under was shaped like a big sphere. It took me a little while to figure out "what branches would get to live or die," as Rob so eloquently put it.

At first I was timid and thought I was going to screw up the tree if I cut the wrong branch, but after my first few cuts I started seeing and understanding the process a bit more. As I looked up from the ground and surveyed the direction the branches were growing in, I was able to recognize what branches were good and what one's were deterring healthy growth."This is why we can be thankful that Jesus is gentle and only prunes us a little bit at a time." Rob's one sentence sermon ended as he finished sawing through a large branch with a 3.5-4" diameter. I should say it was more like the top of a limb he was cutting off. It was full of leaves and looked healthy, it had many smaller branches sprouting from its thick trunk. The limb fell to the ground with a thud. The leaves rustled and shook from the impact, then rested peacefully. "Yea, it's a good thing Jesus is gentle," I thought as I witnessed what looked like harsh treatment of a perfectly fine living structure, "..because the chopping off of a limb that size on my own body would really hurt."I think it's hard for us to recognize pruning because all it really feels like is suffering. We may have a branch that is bearing good fruit of love and joy, but because of the great abundance of goodness there begins to sprout a lot of branches. So many, in fact that the weight of the branches become overbearing and because of the coverage, the limb begins to die from lack of warm sunlight. This may look like weariness, bitterness, resentment or frustration.

This is a good branch that the Father needs to prune. Pruning may be Jesus asking you to step back from leadership for a while, or it may be needing to ask your son or daughter to choose only one sport per season. It may be making the decision to commit to only two nights out a week and the other three you stay home or it may be resolving some conflict between you and someone. Whatever it is, it is usually uncomfortable, hard and possibly hurts a little bit depending on the situation.Well,

I have now turned Rob's one sentence sermon into a six paragraph thought. I'm going to bring it to a close by saying, I'm really glad that I have Jesus to stand under me, look up and see the branches that are deterring good fruit from growing. And I'm really glad that He doesn't just walk away and leave me to grow into something that the Father did not create me to be. He only asks me to trust and obey.Over-growth and bad fruit is self produced.

Bono-Easter and Lent

April 19, 2009
Op-Ed Guest Columnist
It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?
By BONO
I AM in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.
I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.
"Glorify your name," the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea.
Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...
Carnival — rock stars are good at that.
"Carne" is flesh; "Carne-val," its goodbye party. I’ve been to many.
Brazilians say they’ve done it longest; they certainly do it best.
You can’t help but contract the fever. You’ve got no choice but to join the ravers as they swell up the streets bursting like the banks of a river in a flood of fun set to rhythm. This is a Joy that cannot be conjured. This is life force. This is the heart full and spilling over with gratitude. The choice is yours ...
It’s Lent I’ve always had issues with. I gave it up ... self-denial is where I come a cropper. My idea of discipline is simple — hard work — but of course that’s another indulgence.
Then comes the dying and the living that is Easter.
It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need.
Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of "a peace that passes understanding" as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea.
•
Last Sunday, the choirmaster was jumping out of his skin ... stormy then still, playful then tender, on the most upright of pianos and melodies. He sang his invocations in a beautiful oaken tenor with a freckle-faced boy at his side playing conga and tambourine as if it was a full drum kit. The parish sang to the rafters songs of praise to a God that apparently surrendered His voice to ours.
I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the Scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked. I check my emotional life with music, my intellectual life with writing, but religion is where I soul-search.
The preacher said, "What good does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" Hearing this, every one of the pilgrims gathered in the room asked, "Is it me, Lord?" In America, in Europe, people are asking, "Is it us?"
Well, yes. It is us.
Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.
Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty- four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us.
A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.
But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.
Your soul.
So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money.
Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment.
It’s not charity, it’s justice.
•
Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt.
Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.
Not all soul music comes from the church.

The garden

I love olive trees. They are so old and gnarly. They are a picture of something that grows well-in an orchard. An orchard is a managed space, not a wild one, or a free market to use an economic term. In fact olive trees will grow for 1000's of years. Not many things seem to grow well on their own. Most things, like you and I, need pruning (amongst other things). Pruning makes us like plants, send roots down deeper, spurs growth in healthy directions, creates opportunity for more fruit, and produces more consistent fruit production.

What happens when we are not pruned? Well, we grow in unhealthy directions, fruitless directions, we tend to be full of leaves and only have a little fruit. Ever felt like you had a lot of stuff going on and not much to show for it? Not pruning also produces one other ill effect that few consider. A garden that is left to itself, that is unmanaged usually grows to the detriment of something else. Some other plant will get squeezed out. An unchecked garden is a place only the strong survive. Ultimately we need to be pruned for the sake of others. Our ministries, our pride, our productivity left unchecked will squeeze the life out of other plants, other good things. Things that are still small, tender and undeveloped may not develop because they are not in an environment where they can thrive.

Think about our economy, our lifestyles, do we think we can grow, consume and have and not hurt, not crowd others around us? Our pruning is ultimately for the good of others, so that others can grow.

For me this revelation is hitting home as I consider my role as a pastor, and leader. In helping people live with one another. In creating a place for people to grow, pruning is one of the most important things I can encourage, because if I don't the plants in the garden will compete, fruit will decrease, and only the strong will survive.

cheers

Prince of Peace

Yesterday I spoke about Isaiah 9.6

It says, that the Messiah would be known as a Prince of Peace. I asked the question, "if that is true, shouldn't we be able to see it?'

This video captures photos from some amazing photographers who have taken photographs in the world's darkest times, and darkest places.

CAN YOU SEE PEACE IN THEM?

meditations

"I am too proud to ask,

too broke to eat

too weak to bow

too strong to bleed."

you hooked yet? me too.

"can you sing over me words of comfort?

can you undo me enough to heal me?"

k. so buy this album. better than that DO THIS! Sit down, put what it really means to love Jesus to words and music. Don't hold back. The worship circle cd's are raw, authentic... I haven't listened to worship cd's since changed by your glory and kevin p.'s save us oh god, because of these i might start listening again..

"you take the weight from my shoulders

my hands were clenched, now they are open,

i'll take your goodness poured from the sky

food from the ravens...water from the dry well."

like any great worship, my soul is bigger deeper, wider because of these songs. more than that the worship circle folks are generous with their copyrights, music, and everything.