Freedom?

Lord Jesus--The thought of freedom has been running around in my heart and mind.  Freedom is one of thoughts that comes to mind when I am in the High Peaks.  I wonder how much this view has changed in the last 200 years.  But then there is the highway that was cut right into the rock of the moutain that got me to this view.

Right about at this point I should know enough by now to quit while I am still ahead, but that is just not the arc of my life.

Lord Jesus--If I take the thought of freedom viewed from Mount Whiteface a couple of steps further, I realize that I have been making a ritual of coming up this rock for the last 25 years. If I were a time traveler I would have to be careful not to bump into myself on the road up this mountain.The view is spectacular and is filled with memories of all the trips up this road I have taken. Lake Placid has never looked so good to me.  Some with pictures just like this one. So then the circles come to mind.  What other unintended circles am I making?  They are not bad circles they just repeat themselves.  Like the cylce of the seasons, like the leaves falling only to be renewed in a new spring, my trip up this mountain is hinged to the season.  Did I mention that fall is my favorite time of year?

All of this would not have come to mind if it hadn't been for what looked to me like a cross that I saw through the camara.  Lately, I have been seeing crosses everywhere.  On the door framing the windows...in the side of a house...is that a cross that I see on the truck in front of me?

So why all of the crosses, Lord?  Is there a message here? Circles, crosses, freedom...and then as I am clicking this picture you reminded me of a verse that I have memorized half a life time ago in Bible quizzing.

John 8:36
³⁶ So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Lord Jesus--Sometimes, I will be just minding my own business and all of the sudden a verse just bubbles up to the surface.  That is what happened with this little verse.  It is a verse that is a jewel set in a context of one of Your infrequent journeys to Jerusalem.  You had been confronted with the women taken in adultry and the hornet's nest of anger and judgement that surround her acquittal from that capital case against her. In the teaching that followed was the crystallization of opposition that was to lead to Your death.  The religious elite of Jerusalem deny their need for emancipation and in so doing deny the single biggest event in their national memory. They denied the very need for the exodus.

So what is the message...you know I am a bit thick sometimes? The message is so simple and yet so elegantly profound in its setting on the moutaintop late on a Sunday afternoon.  Freedom, a cross through a camera lens, truth, mountains, sky and the water below...all knit together by your grace. The message of the cross is not circles, the message of the cross is to follow. Follow into the valley, follow when it is not wind, sun, water and sky on a Sunday afternoon. Follow when the days are sun filled, but follow just as closely when the way is rocky and darkness dogs my steps.  Follow even when I fall and have to get back up, yet again.  Follow because in the footfalls are the sound of freedom...toward the call, toward the Master...on the way home.

Lord Jesus--In the day that is going to come quicker than I would like to think lead me further along that way of the cross.  Forgive my circles lead me in the way everlasting.