249--Dwellers

photo by Darlene Taylor

So, those are my nails when Beatrice got done with them last night. A few people looked at me funny. Tammy was the first to ask.

"Are your nails painted?"

"Yes, they are. Do you prefer the pink or the purple?"

....silence....

"I take it you prefer neither."

Today Cory taught me about NFP(Non-Farm Payroll) and the Pips, and the Japanese Candlesticks. All this day-trader lingo--I know just only a bit more about it than I did before, but that little is welcome. He also made reference to Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. I wonder how close or far I am from 10,000 hours as a music professional? At what other pursuits have I logged a substantial number of hours? Have I logged more hours at music or at business?

I'm still enchanted by the word 'dwell.' God's been speaking that word to me a lot. Lately many of our conversations are a single word or a phrase. There are some matters where I'm supposed to simply refer to the latest instruction, even if that was years ago. But all the way here and upon arrival, I hear this word: DWELL

Interesting that He first spoke this to a nomadic people. He tells them He wants to dwell with them, which means what? For them dwelling was not a way of life. They might stay in a place for a few weeks or maybe months, but whether by season or need of resource, they were a people on the move. Into a culture of place-shifters, as to me, He speaks dwelling.

The tent-sanctuary eventually becomes a temple as they gain permanence, and then comes another interesting development. Having destroyed the temple and rebuilt it, now He wants to dwell in us. And again the temple becomes mobile.

Once when we were movers, the temple went along with the community, then we built cities and the community came to the temple. But now the temple in us is sometimes gathered and sometimes dispersed, insinuated among the community. We are the infiltrators of holiness, if you will.

What would it look like for each of us to BE a temple, mentally, physically, spiritually? Can Shekinah dwell in a person? What was in Moses that made his face shine? What was in Solomon's temple that expelled the clergy, the professional glory-dwellers?

I think about these things as I meet the dwellers of my new home, like the young man I spent 2 hours with this evening, Mr. Waylan Barber. He's been playing the fiddle for 15 years now. I won't attempt his description--he can do that just fine by himself. Here are his own words:

"I see myself as a bard or a minstrel...I'm a modern gypsy"

photo by Darlene Taylor

Playing at Sunset Christian Fellowship in the morning, so I better get some rest.

Goodnight, Beautiful...

Goodnight, Strender