i will worship only the god of wine.

from Miracles of Fertility.

The earliest of these was the conversion of water into wine and the wedding feast in Cana. This miracle proclaims that the God of wine is present. The vine is one of the blessings sent by Yahweh: He is the reality behind the false god Bacchus. Every year, as part of the Natural order, God makes wine. He does so by creating a vegetable organism that can turn water, soil, and sunlight into a juice which will, under proper conditions, become wine. Thus, in a certain sense, He constantly turns water into wine, for wine, like all drinks, is but water modified. Once, and in one year only, God, now incarnate, short-circuits the process: makes wine in a moment: uses earthenware jars instead of vegetable fibers to hold the water. But uses them to do what He is always doing. The Miracle consists in the shortcut; but the event to which it leads is the usual one. If the thing happened, then we know that what has come into Nature is no anti-Natural spirit, no God who loves tragedy, and tears, and fasting for their own sake (however He may permit or demand them for special purposes) but the God of Israel who has through all these centuries given us wine to gladen the heart of man.

C.S. Lewis

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i believe that god delights in wine, and our partaking of it. and in tuesday night supper clubs where we are able to take pleasure in simplicities like good food, friends, and...wine. and lots of it. because god knows life is hard enough as it is. amen.

the prophet, kahlil gibran.

somehow i have lived the last twenty-five years of my life without knowing of this book. but i have to say it might just be the most beautiful, amazing, and wisdom-filled book i have come across. i am pretty sure it might belong in the scriptures somewhere. just saying.

anyhow, here are some of the things i found underlined after finishing the book (which you can do in an evening, easily)...

**And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn.

**And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

**And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

**And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

**The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

**When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

**For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

**Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

**Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter poison by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

**But if in your thoughts you must measure time into season, let each season encircle all the other seasons.
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

**For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

**You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

**When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

**on beauty: It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

**And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

**That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty;
And it drinks me while I drink it.

this last one particularly interests me in thinking of faith as being fulfilled in relational activity, as opposed to my constant calling on god only to find it all lacking...