This snail shell was discovered among the thick greens around Clairvaux Abbey – the stone beneath, from the orchard lands of Le Thoronet Abbey. I view these beautiful creations everyday and they lead me to prayer.

Now, of course, these might only be juxtaposed things sitting pretty for a picture, like my prayers could end up sounding, juxtaposed and pretty… but there may be metaphors resting between these creations, ancient organic compounds, coral and shells all compressed and shaped over time by the pervasive, perpetual and penetrating flow of water. The development of prayer in the human being isn’t much different. I can pray a fragile fibonacci prayer, but I can also be pressed into something profoundly weighty.

If I hold the remains of a snail’s habitation in one hand and a heavy limestone in the other hand, am I aware of the correlation between the two? If there is in fact correlation then there is explaining to do… like ingredients, tectonics, temperatures, pressures, and eons of time… sounds more like a recipe for a cake, or the crafting of a religion.

Getting the picture yet? The deepest teachings are rooted in metaphor, and metaphors always mix ingredients which beg contexts which take a lot of time to become such (condescending Hieroglyphs, Hebrew and the Hellenistic will never be enough).

It’s like (and I realize the word “like” is no longer metaphor) when I broke my leg playing football in high school and the place of the break is now healed, but every time the weather is about to change my leg reminds me that it knows something the rest of me doesn’t know. My leg has memory, but also a bit of a sixth sense… and that’s just my tibia. My hands, eyes and ears can decipher things. The hair on the back of my neck is quite sensitive… Just how willing am I to allow the fullness of my created self to come into the knowledge of God, myself, my environment, and all the others in it, through metaphors and contexts?

I cannot pretend to decipher in ten minutes what took ten thousand years to end up in the palm of my hand? Nor can I take both ends of the Bible and bleach out their metaphors and contexts… it’s all far too beautiful and mysterious for that kind of pontification.

In 2001, when I wrote these words into my journal during a retreat at a Benedictine Abbey, I didn’t know then that I’d entitle Part 1 of Clairvaux Manifesto Wild Good – nor did I know, at that time, the billion dollar saga that the vampire quagmire Twilight would become:

Wild Good, there is a whole generation in my nation suffocating without you. They are anemic vampires, drained hemophiliacs, and exhausted rebels digging their own dusty graves. Wild Good, speak softly and tenderly into this still, dark night. Thank you for the safe places where we may catch some breath and respond to you. Places to rest and wait—rest and wait. In and out—rest and wait.

Basically, the metaphor of blood is the most profound context for love. And it’s getting profoundly more important with each passing day that we who understand the person and power of the cross must proclaim it and HIM, clearly, directly and simply.

Now, in what context do we proclaim the power of His blood? If you answer pulpit you’ve blunted the metaphor. Pulpits are nothing! The context my friend, is eternity. That is the context for the proclamation of the metaphor of the blood of Christ. Granted, eternity is another metaphor, so mix your paints well. We preach from the other side of that veil… and yes, the veil is another metaphor, and if you don’t get it yet, I can’t explain it to you. It’s not about the prose of word studies, but the right lyrics in a song mixed with the metaphor of the stings and beat – all making the hair stand up on the back of my neck for a reason. There is something in eternity, a song, a sound, a terribly beautifully holy Other who I must turn my eyes from, not just out of humility, but for the preservation of my very being. There are thresholds.

Being in that presence, there’s nothing else worth seeing… It’s all under His gaze. Eyes straight and true with singular focus will “see” a lot, but not be swayed by anything, except Him. The eyes of Christ, what do they see?

One other context I’ll mention here… and it’s of critical importance to God. This context is everything, and without it, there is no redemption, and no it’s not the throne (no matter how important that throne is – it’s funny how terribly important the throne of God is to some). The critical context is “the people” — God did not make himself nothing and shed His blood to keep his throne. He left his throne to redeem the people.

No question, He’s enthroned… but I wonder if He’s ever on it. I can at least say this much, there is no one else on it, or stewarding it on His behalf, except for this one little broken lamb… pick your metaphor, context, and time… but bloody well tell it as it is!

Or you could leave it to all the vampires and shape-shifters to teach them what love is…

Like the blind we grope along the wall,
feeling our way like men without eyes.
At midday we stumble as if it were twilight;
among the strong, we are like the dead.
Isaiah 59:10