Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Life and Death - in Malacandra


November 2 is the Day of the Dead - and perhaps a good time to reflect on life everlasting 
- - - in Malacrandra things were different - - - maybe the intended way for all of us to move on - - - into eternity

Click to Play and Read


"There are two scenes that I wish you could have worked into the book; no matter - they are worked into me. One or other of them is always before me when I close my eyes.

In one of them I see the Malacandrian sky at morning; pale blue, so pale that now, when I have grown once more accustomed to terrestrial skies, I think of it as almost white. Against it the nearer tops of the giant weeds - the 'trees' as you call them - show black, but far away, across miles of that blinding blue water, the remoter woods are water-colour purple. The shadows all around me on the pale forest floor are like shadows in snow. There are figures walking before me; slender yet gigantic form, black and sleek as animated tall hats; their huge round heads, poised on their sinuous stalk-like bodies, give them the appearance of black tulips.  They go down, singing, to the edge of the lake. The music fills the wood with its vibration, though it is so soft that I can hardly hear it: it is like dim organ music. Some of them embark, but most remain. It is done slowly; this is no ordinary embarkation, but some ceremony. It is, in fact, a hross funeral. Those three with the grey muzzles whom they have helped into the boat are going to Meldilorn to die. For in that world, except for some few whom the hnakra gets, no one dies before his time. All live out the full span allotted to their kind, and a death with them is as predictable as a birth with us. The whole village has known that those three will die this year, this month; it was an easy guess that they would die even this week. And now they are off, to receive the last counsel of Oyarsa, to die, and to be by him 'unbodied.' The corpses, as corpses, will exist only for a few minutes: there are no coffins in Malacandra, no sextons, churchyards, or undertakers. The valley is solemn at their departure, but I see no signs of passionate grief. They do not doubt their immortality, and friends of the same generation are not torn apart. You leave the world, as you entered it with the 'men of your own year.' Death is not preceded by dread nor followed by corruption."  CS Lewis

 "Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."
Genesis 5:24


Monday, October 22, 2012

Here Comes the Sun - Eindhoven - October 23, 2012








I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C. S. Lewis 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Herrnhut - Small Town - Global Impact

Church in Herrnhut

Administration Buildings


Inside the Church
Historic Line


Museum


All Missionaries Needed to Learn a Trade






Cultural Museum
Tibet


Missionary Fields


Missionary to the Caribbean

Alasca

First Indigenous Missionary










God's Acre
The words and names engraved in stone fade over time
But the assurance of the Word in His Name
Becomes stronger everyday




Zinzendorf






After joining the Moravian Church in Germany, artist John Valentine Haidt (1700-1780) moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1754, where he painted under the auspices of the Moravian church. In First Fruits,, Haidt depicted twenty-five people of different faiths and ethnicities who had gone to Heaven after their conversion to Christianity by Moravian missionaries.

Lezing over het schilderij De Eerstelingen Credit: moravian archives Zeist
Op het boeiende schilderij uit 1747 vereeuwigde predikant en schilder Johann Valentin Haidt de overleden eerste bekeerlingen die voortkwamen uit het zendingswerk van de Broedergemeente. Het schilderij - dat hangt in de Kleine Zaal van de Broedergemeente - verhaalt onder meer van de zendingsreizen van de Herrnhutters, want de afgebeelden stammen van verschillende plaatsen in de wereld, zoals Groenland. Markus Gill is voorganger bij de Broedergemeente.

Flowers of Narnia - July 17 / 2022

 “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully ...