If I have not sold all I have and given it to the poor, I will never know how to buy a field while in prison. My faith has to be exercised; it has to be tested. I can’t educate myself into loving God. I can’t hate sin appropriately. I can’t enter the kingdom of God by climbing a wall. I can’t assume I have an office, a crown, a gift or an inheritance. I can’t mislead people by spewing the ideological structures they demand. I can’t do whatever the hell I want; period! I am constrained and compelled by Another.

Am I an accuser / condemner? Am I venting frustration? Am I grief-stricken? Am I blind? Am I deaf? Am I dead wrong? I have to be willing to say, “I might be!” Yes, I must be willing and able to repent and adjust… the key! I have to be willing and able to say, “I’m sorry. That’s right!”

But, my detractors typically don’t stick around long enough. At high noon, they lob bombs at me and run for the hills; disappearing into the twilight. That’s fine, but I won’t let their little devices explode under cover of darkness. There are others nearby. I won’t play target practice with human lives. My struggle is not against flesh and blood. I am clothed in armour and fighting alongside One who knows how to bring it down on our enemies. Isaiah 30 ends,

Every blow God lands on them with his club is in time to the music of drums and pipes, God in all-out, two-fisted battle, fighting against them… God’s breath, like a river of burning pitch, starts the fire.

I pray for peace. I dance upon injustice. I hear that voice behind me saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” At the same time, I will not put down my sword. I’ll put all these things where they belong when He arrives. Here’s the crux: the Holy Spirit is not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is embodied and hard at prayer and work. In the meantime…

The Holy Spirit does not mind that we are so militantly expectant of our King (faith believes him; hope expects him; love embraces him; joy is surprised by him). In fact, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ is the Very One who deposited this fierce fire into us; so it is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility that we become focused and vigilant children, farmers, athletes and soldiers… under One Father in Heaven… awaiting the arrival of our Lord and our God; Jesus Christ!

Yes, it’s personal. He’s embodied! Peter was right, angels long to look into these things!

For the past few days, my wife Darlene has been encouraging me through her daily readings of Jeremiah. This morning, at the office (between meetings: next meeting at noon with Bedford Biofuels), I’m here reading Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination, where we read the author’s diamond-tipped precision,

Kings know intuitively that the deception, the phony claims of prosperity, oppression, and state religion will collapse when the air of covenant hits them. The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings.

Jeremiah stands midway in the history of Israel’s grief… speaks the grief of God that Israel finally must share. Without it there is no newness. Jesus had understood Jeremiah.

It didn’t matter who broke Jeremiah’s yoke, or prophesied a different future other than the one Jeremiah or Jesus brought to light; God blessed who God chose to bless, and God righteously dealt justice to those who rightly deserved judgment. Is God any different today?

We can say it’s all about grace all we want. We can claim ignorance if we so choose to be willingly blind. We can call everyone else the devil. We can pretend to be innocent kings and queens entitled to thrones and couches. We can live in ambiguity. We can say one thing while doing another, for a season. We can attempt to paint over it; it’ll bleed through. We can not repent if we stubbornly persist. We cannot maintain rebellion for long. We cannot manipulate everyone forever….

Patience exposes liars!

As I attempt to teach in Clairvaux Manifesto, we have to remember rightly in a right way. We can remember rightly in a wrong way; typical of the human condition. But, we can never remember wrongly in a right way; typical of demonic intent. To make the wrong seem and appear to be right… The host of hell would not only erase all memory of the Good, they would superimpose their own twisted longings over everything Good, poisoning every deep well of truth. Sorry, not on my watch!!!

Jericho isn’t so far from Jerusalem; Golgotha from Zion. Which comes first, the going down or the coming up? Or is it coming down and then going up? Is it both and? Is it just symantics? Is it all in the timing? Is time more important than space? The interplay of history and geography, who wins? What’s the point of remembering it all anyway? I’m not sure I know any answers, but I perpetually end up in the flow of the river of such rememberings.

For example, while in London, a breakfast appointment didn’t show up at a place called St. John. I didn’t set up the meeting, but there I was waiting at St. John’s. As I waited, I thought of the Hospitaller Knights. When my breakfast appointment didn’t show up I walked and walked… and found myself in St. John Gate noticing all the historical benchmarks; no coincidence being there, amidst the twelve-pointed Maltese crosses everywhere.

The next day, after my rescheduled morning meeting at the same St. John, a friend and I walked the City of London in prayer. We met up with another friend over lunch, directly across the road from All Hallows by the Tower, though at that time I had no idea of the name of the church, or it’s significance.

Throughout our lunch appointment, I kept looking out the window at the cross on top of the church, and it reminded me of Malta. I had just been in Malta, and had seen limestone saints carrying crosses made of two logs tied together with wood… not beams, logs. This came to mind at lunch while staring at this church I knew nothing about.

After lunch, my friend and I stood outside the Tower of London speaking about the kingdom of God and Malta and London (our other friend had a business meeting). We began walking by the church. I noticed something in the distance saying, “That can’t be a huge limestone rock can it?” My friend replied surprised, “And is that a Maltese Cross!?”  And there we stood dumbfounded at the Siege of Malta memorial; Malta again!

The memorial was outside the church, and my friend said, “Maybe it’s here associated with the church somehow.” I grinned, “Well, let’s go in and check it out.” We entered All Hallows having no idea it was the oldest church in London; having no idea what was next.

Upon entering the church, a Benedictine monk asked us to help him rope together the large cross he was creating out of two large logs; down the rabbit hole we go!!! A huge cross of logs roped together. A Benedictine monk. So now we’re into something profound. The Benedictine tells us the history of the church. He gave us a guided tour. He unlocked doors with keys he had in his possession and showed us profound things up close and personal… among other things, the church of the reconnaissance corp (which I mention in Clairvaux Manifesto, their insignia in the stained glass).

Then our Benedictine friend took us down into the crypt, onto Roman road excavated from the 3rd Century… and quietly up to a limestone altar at the far end of the underground chapel; a limestone altar I notice has a Maltese cross carved into the front of it. Our guide tells us it dates back to the time of the crusades, it’s nearly 900 years old. Legend says Richard the Lionheart brought it back from Palestine with the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers, eventually the Knights of Malta.

The next morning, a business leader I’d never met before set up a meeting with me in a coffee shop of his choosing, near his own offices … directly across the road from the Maltese Embassy (of all places), a location I mention near the end of Clairvaux Manifesto.

Now, back home in Canada, I’ve been reading more of the history of All Hallows Church and Barking Abbey and William the Conqueror and the Knights of Malta, and my researching my way through the kingdom of God has more geographical and historical coordinates.

Don’t think for a minute that history doesn’t matter… that it’s all about the future while we forget everything else. No, history is about all people and their longing for redemption as well. Jesus knew why Abraham rejoiced at the thought and reality of seeing Jesus’ day. Jesus knew why David saw the cross and resurrection in Psalm 22. Jesus knew Moses and Elijah… The prophets searched and still search with care, due diligence, working hard to get it right, to remember rightly in a right way, to see it coming and explain it on the way, and to speak it out, clearly, directly and simply… precisely because of their years and years of due diligent study, research, and prayerful obedience.

I don’t want a teacher who has never truly studied. I don’t want a shepherd who doesn’t love sheep. I don’t want an evangelist who doesn’t proclaim what is good. I don’t want a prophet who doesn’t say it as HE is. I don’t want an apostle who hasn’t walked along beside the wounded feet of Jesus, at HIS pace.

I don’t want anyone showing me something, telling me anything, leading me anywhere, if it’s not into the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. There is too much at stake! There are voices echoing in eternity! There are know-nothings who babble endlessly. Yet, there is only One who is Faithful and True. He has been Faithful and True, I believe it! And He’s the only One who can declare a Just and Fair WAR.

A King of Kings can do that you know!!! He gets to say when it all comes down, and when it all goes up. He alone comes and goes freely. He hushes the gathering crowds as he approaches. He sets the protocols. He sings wide the gates. He alone lifts the needy up from the ashes!!!

He was never a phoenix, a cursed thing going down and up. He only went down once, briefly, yet HE never became ashes… his human body never went to dust. He’s embodied now. He’s the firstborn. He’s alive and well in a whole new way for all of humanity.

Give Him what is rightfully HIS… your very life, your every breath… This is where everything in you becomes poetry, a song. As I penned worship into Clairvaux Manifesto, “Our breath from your lungs is poured. Our hearts beat with blood from yours. Drenched in mercy, we stand in YOUR river. Compassion gives us faces, as we worship YOU.”

From T.S. Elliot’s Ash Wednesday:

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates

And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Now, (after writing and publishing Clairvaux Manifesto in 2009) I’m back at it, planning for the future success of an oil company, fighting along side my friends. For example, earlier today we put in two bids equaling nearly 10 million dollars of potential work.

In time, as we secure more key investors, board and team members, we’ll be making deals like these regularly; growing exponentially along the way. In the meantime, we need the first few pennies to drop to get us started. Until we break through, everything is on the line…

I’ll put it this way: you can only manage risk so far, but it’s still called risk, or it’s not risk, it’s something else… and if it is something else, then it feels like something else, you know it’s something else other than risk. If it’s risk, it feels like the wind, it draws your mental faculties and senses into focus; the dialectic of rational empiricism which leverages this thing we call faith.

If it’s not risk, but mimics and parody’s risk, then it spews ambiguous language, stages cardboard props, and over-delivers empty promises… excuses really, poetic license with no applause, guns with no ammo, roses with no petals. If it’s not risk, but pretends to be, it’s awfully cheap and deserves to be judged rightly and held to account for what it is, moral laziness.

I am here in this office risking it all for love. For those who don’t know me, I have a message for you: I’m not standing around waiting for your applause or approval. I don’t need a pulpit to hold on to or a microphone to be heard. I’m helping widows and orphans in their distress. I’m building a solid foundation discovering, developing and deploying an armada of global change agents. I’m doing this for my family and friends. And one last thing, I’m doing this while proclaiming all the words and deeds of Jesus Christ; my Lord and my God.

The greatest risk human beings can ever take is to transfer their full allegiance over to Jesus Christ.

I covered a lot of miles in the City of London… so many stories. But, just glad to be getting home to Dar, Luke, Bree and Nate; I miss them terribly… especially sitting here staring at a thousand strangers and seeing so many kids I wish were mine.

So, with 4 minutes and 44 seconds left on my internet time, I’ll at least write this: It was not a coincidence that yesterday I spent an hour with the head of strategy of a large international company, who has only been at his new post for one month (as I have been CEO at my post for only a month). Not to mention he’s head of strategy for the same company as a guy who is former head of strategy of the same company, who was acting CEO of my company one year ago. Not to mention, that when we had coffee together, it was across the road from the Maltese Embassy on Piccadilly (a story I tell at the end of Clairvaux Manifesto). This stranger set up the coffee time and location… Well, until yesterday he was a stranger… until I told him about that very coffee shop and June 2007, and the former head of strategy of his own company who was once acting CEO of mine….

Then after our hour together, we prayed thoughtfully, strangers becoming friends over nations, international business strategy, prayer and work…. Yes, HIS kingdom coming more and more, one hour one meeting one flight one day one friend one family at a time!!!

Yesterday at this time, I was on a private tour of the Presidential Palace in Malta. Today, I find myself walking among Maltese Crosses in London’s St. John’s Square.

I didn’t plan it this way.  This morning’s meeting was set up to meet at a coffee shop called St. John; I didn’t set up the location. The meeting ended up postponed till tomorrow, no worries… So I started walking and praying, and voilà… I’m surrounded by the iconic images of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

Now this could be coincidental, just like a few nights ago in Malta, the coincidence of having a long conversation with an authentic Knight of St. John regarding all his global endeavors; that was interesting enough. Or yesterday, walking the Presidential Gardens with a soldier, discussing among other things – the Knights he meets regularly in the palace.

So, I continue to walk the streets of London in prayer.

Well, I have a radio interview in 20 minutes at http://www.faithfm.org/listen.shtml and Darlene is 7 time zones away with http://www.raisetheroofforhaiti.webs.com

Tonight’s gonna be a good night; and we’re just getting started!

Well, today I fly to Malta. I start the day in business meetings with Terry Woodthorpe, looking to raise funds with a group of investors. Then I fly into the London, Gatwick to meet up with Joe and Nancy who will  treat me to lunch and drive me to Luton. From there I fly to Malta, to be met at the airport by Miriam, Enya, and Leon – as Felix is in some meetings until the evening.

While in Malta, I will spend quality time with my friends and make some new friends like David, who is in Malta for meetings as well.

After a few days enjoying citrus season, I fly into London for serendipitous  moments among potential kingdom business partners, and those who may invest in our oil and gas endeavors.

The second half of Clairvaux Manifesto is full of all such adventures… (if you want to catch up with a bit of the unfolding story).

Compassion and World Vision take note; this song deserves a Dove Award!

The lyrics as I hear them:

The road’s been long, more than anyone should bear; you’ve soldiered on, to fight injustice and despair; and though the pain was overwhelming, you found a way to stand again

This war’s been hard, no one knows just what it takes; to live with scars, that somehow never seem to fade; and yet you’re moving through this life, with grace and beauty in your face

For all who are weary; and all who are hopeless; for all who are quiet; Lift your voice, for the widows and orphans and prisoners; Lift your voice, for the blind who are needing to see; Lift your voice, for the ones who are suffering in silence; Lift your voice, for all to be free…

You’ve seen the world, through eyes of agony and grief; you refuse to fall, you could not waver your belief; that you could somehow find compassion, that love would bring relief

You’ve seen the sun, rise upon another day; you never knew would come, you dried your tears and walked away; and still your courage cuts through fear, and chases helplessness away

For all who are weary; and all who are hopeless; and all who are broken; Lift your voice, for the widows and orphans and prisoners; Lift your voice, for the blind who are needing to see; Lift your voice, for the ones who are suffering in silence; Lift your voice, for all to be free…

As I’m writing this post, a friend drops by our place with a copy of today’s Rocky Mountain Outlook… Dar, Luke, Bree and Nate are all pictured in a page 10 article entitled “Earthquake relief efforts under way”

Well done Crystal; Well done Dar; Singing and dancing your manifestos!

This picture is all about documentation; someone in our company is snapping a picture of me while I’m snapping a picture inside a generator building; contingency and redundancy.

That particular day, I took hundreds of pictures (from a helicopter and on the ground, with my buddy Paulo’s camera) of every well site location, road, tree line, well head, pressure gauge, pipeline,  serial number, engine, compressor, vessel, chart, areas needing clean up, potential problems needing solving, and areas of obvious value for potential investors.

We documented and discussed everything at length before we made a decision to purchase the entire project, scattered over a few miles of Northern Canadian wilderness! We finally purchased the project and began to optimize the opportunity.

A year later (during the economic crisis), I took the time to write Clairvaux Manifesto. Book I is now complete, and readers can catch up on my personal odyssey of spirituality at work. Book II will be entitled Woodthorpe, and it won’t be about our company, as much as it will be Terry Woodthorpe sharing his past, present, and future – in real time, locally and globally.

We will buy existing oil and gas projects and production; what is worth thirty cents today will be worth a dollar, or more, in a year. We will do friendly takeovers of overextended private and public oil and gas companies, full of good people. We will build strong interdependent teams of high level leaders in various fields and disciplines. We will craft and patent breakthrough technologies in oil and gas, communications, banking, law, education, movies, television and music. Such technologies will be tested and developed within our own network before being released more publicly. We will establish a secure, healthy, and open governance.

Your money is your money. Your patents are your patents. Your ideas have value. Your friends have ideas as well. Your friends have potential patents as well. Your friends have money as well… How do we work together? How do we create collaborative, interdependent, and mutually reciprocal legal and financial structures ? How do we all benefit? How does what I have take what you have further? Hos does what you have help me take what I have further? Where are we going to take it all? Where are we all going together? What is worth all the work? What are our short term and long term visions, values, protocols and key result areas? What are the problems needing solving to accomplish the goals we are setting?

Haiti is presently the prime example of unprecedented global collaboration, where human lives depend on an unified front and expedited process… Keep in mind, current war zones and refugee camps are no different. Imagine, human lives depend on every decision we make individually and corporately. It’s not that difficult really, it’s simply time for us to take responsibility for the safety and well being of others. It’s not a Messiah complex; it’s the values we carry around in our hearts which effect and affect everything we say and do in our sacrificial lives of prayer and work. We have an excellent teacher!

This is a global vision where everyone wins! And contrary to popular experience, it is possible for good people to thrive together, and defend the widow and the orphan with their bounty. There are those who will disqualify themselves before they ever get to our table. My character and integrity is what is most important for me to maintain. Even so, this must be built in such a way; that it doesn’t matter who succeeds or fails; that it doesn’t matter who is in charge; someone else will rise up and keep things on course… humility is key.

What would happen if The Sermon on the Mount met The Starfish and the Spider met The Hacking Business Model?

We will work to release good people who won’t stay in the cages others have built. These creatives border on genius, they’re finding their way through the gauntlet. Get enough highly skilled artists together and it won’t be long before their abbeys of prayer and work are raised to the witness of the skies. The leaders of nations are already taking notice.

The saints are coming!