I just love morning–the first part of morning when the sun is barely breaking. Derek loves sunset–he becomes immovably quiet during this time. I like the beginnings, he likes the end–but they are both about rarefied spaces, the entrance and the exit, not the blare and overvoiced declarations of the middle of the day. It’s too loud and busy, everyone clamoring for attention, everything, every color, every body fighting for equal space. But in sunrise and sunset, the subtle voices come forth. In Spain I somehow managed myself out of bed at 4:30 a.m. when I could feel the sun whistling from underneath. We were on the trail in time to see the most amazing and simple things–fields and fields for miles of cut hay with oddly arranged stacks of hay at various distances along the fields. There was a dance in that early light, the blue and pale pink yawning shadows, the odd sculptures with long shadows.
In Spain this is a welcome moment, as most of the day everything is so white, so yellow, so undynamic in its color. No wonder Spanish architecture and design often includes blue ceramic in its interiors–your eyes need a break and a relief from all the sun. At this moment I realized that all the beautiful monotony of Spain and its fleeting moments of diversity actually had a purpose. It has a gorgeous wholeness to it–her destiny has to do with some kind of unified theory. I saw it as a castle rising from sand–an entire castle that covered the whole country. Not like America which has a million bells and whistles and every flavor of revival movement, but one momunental queenly flourish–it is gold and red and like a dance as a man takes a womans hand and she smoothes out her wide royal red skirt.
We weren’t in Spain to learn about Spain or meet leaders there… which is often the case when we travel some place new. This trip was about friends and journeying and the trail. But it was a taste of something I look forward to seeing again. As most of you know Derek and I are interested in learning about the nations as they relate to parts of God. We’ve written lots of broken fragments but I think this year we’ll be telling more stores, writing more legibly–or at least more at length about why God loves nations, what they are in spirit, what they are in destiny. And not just writing–we write poems to them in secret, but we believe he is teaching his body about identity in general–personal, collective and national. What identity means in heaven… Like, regardless of how you feel on earth right now, what is your ‘spirit man’ doing in heaven? What is Spain doing in heaven?
We’ve both been moved by a number of teachers from our elder generation who have been given a “theology of nations”… if you are interested in praying for nations or feel that your destiny has something to do with understanding how to intercede for your own nation, I recommend highly reading some of Pieter Bos and his wife’s writings… they are well-researched but full of real solid and I believe much-needed revelation. They have a site at Serving the Nations… lots of it in Dutch but major articles, especially about “Corporate Identity of Nations” in English.
