Slumber

Slumber

That time between the worlds, secession

Where sleep is dream and wake is a question

Where our souls get closer to where our spirits dwell

And oceans wander and the deep does swell

Where light and life and echoes cease

To be just yearnings and are released

There the call of wonder comes

It beckons for the light of sun

Yet is saddened by its appearance for

The soul does long and cries for more

Of the time between the worlds in slumber

Worlds where what is not is number

Worlds where what can be are living

Worlds where what we need are giving

Everything our heart desires

In living waters and spirit fires

We step into a flowing river

That brings us warmth and makes flesh shiver

Until it seems it is no more

Where last week’s sky is this week’s floor

And all of this wrapped up in time

To walk along in slumber’s rhyme

Is to be so close to heaven we can taste it

K, Duane Carter 12-22-10  

I was going through some of my older journals, just looking at where I was at last year and thinking over the past year, and I found this.  It sparked something on the inside, so I thought I would share it.  I pray it sparks a flame in you also :).  Happy New Year.

Discovery

Discovery

I sit here quietly, pondering

Waiting for words to drop like the rain from the sky

A constant, a constant wondering why

Looking for reasons that don’t exist

In the place where I understand

Things formed by a greater hand

Infinitely great, infinitely small

Infinitely vast, infinitely all

Which is why I am quiet in my pondering

Somewhat afraid to journey into that

For when could I ever return?

For when could I ever learn,

When there is no end to the learning?

Yet I cannot deny the burning, yearning

Heaven strikes its most beautiful note

And my heart just sings and rings

Sounds I don’t understand

Lyrics I don’t comprehend

Yet they are placed right here before me

In the faces of my wonder-filled children

In the smile of my beautiful wife

In the breath that flows through my being

In the Presence that gives me my life

I take the step,

Discovering I actually have wings

See what happens when heaven sings?

My heart still rings…

K, Duane Carter 3-5-11

Western Civilization's Biggest Blunder

We modern people think we know so much of the natural world, yet we hardly know anything at all. Think about the depth of knowledge and wisdom from the subatomic world and then expand that into the vastness of the universe. Think of the wonder of the cellular world and then expand that wonder into the majesty of the humpback whale. Think of the diversity of ecosystems around the world and all that it takes in winds and weather patterns to keep this all in balance. Yet God knows and understands all of this. All of this falls within His field of expertise which is, well, everything. And then go on to consider that even in the midst of all the wonder of the natural world, there is a spiritual one that is even greater and more magnificent than the natural one. Here is our greatest deficit, and the west’s greatest blunder. To our utter detriment, we have almost completely ignored the spiritual world. Sadly we have ignored it to the point of even denying it exists. Why? The answer is because we cannot use rationalism to discover it; the scientific method is powerless here. So instead of searching out how to discover it, we have ignored it, or worse denied its existence, and this has caused us tremendous loss. We have ignored the world where our true purpose lies, where our true meaning is, and where we truly live. We have completely lost touch with this spiritual world because we have been taught that if the scientific method cannot discover a thing or demonstrate a concept, then it therefore doesn’t exist.
So we have died as human beings, and we have become mere animal. In a way, Nietzche was right: we have “killed” God. What is more right is we have killed our capacity to know Him.
But God is not dead. No, He is alive and well. Not only is He alive and well, but also He is in quite a good mood. He is in such a good mood that He is ready to unleash His goodness into the earth. Those who are ready spiritually will see Him, those who are not will try to explain it all away. To be ready for Him we must be ready for a spiritual world. We must realize that God is far and above the scientific method. That is one thing that has completely baffled me about the embracers of naturalism. Why would anyone want or need a God that could be boiled down by the scientific method? He would be no better than us. And why base the entire meaning and purpose of life in the scientific method? Why? The scientific method cannot discover ANYTHING beyond itself. It is limited in its scope. It is a powerful method, yes, but it is limited nonetheless because it is bound by the observation of limited man. And even if the knowledge of man obtained by science reaches incredible peaks and we can explain emotions and behavior and thought and soul, it will still not be able to touch the spiritual world at all. And because the scientific method cannot touch the spiritual world at all, then it cannot be used to prove that the spiritual world does not exist. Even simple logic shows a universal negative cannot be proven, so we cannot cry “the spiritual world doesn’t exist” because science cannot touch that world and it therefore cannot comment on its existence.
We have suffered tremendously as a people for ignoring the spiritual world. In our quest for knowledge (which isn’t necessarily evil in and of itself) we have ignored the very world where the deepest mysteries and greatest wisdom reside. We have ignored the world where God Himself dwells, and we can readily see the results of ignoring this world by looking at our cities and their spiritual and moral dilapidation even in the midst of growing material splendor. As the glory of steel and money and luxury increase, so do the terrors of murder, theft, divorce, drug abuse, and child abuse.
So when are we going to wake up? When are we going to see that in order to meet the world’s needs we are going to have to enter into the place where science and humanism cannot possibly lead us? When are we going to begin to ponder the existence of better and more incredible worlds and beings? And in that quest when are we going to begin to see that we have missed the mark on an incredible scale? When are we going to see? When are we going to see?