Hammerfall 2.0: Direct Communication

As long time readers of this blog may now, I am rather horribly a person of symbols and portents.  I somehow manage to spend a great deal of my time "looking for a sign" of what to do. Part of this is just my life-long inability to make a decision; part of this is due to the fact that some of the key decisions I have made in the past have been...less than perfect. 

And so, I look for signs or guidance - sometimes to the point that it is fortunate I am was not born into Roman Republican times, as I would be checking every cloud and flock of birds for an augury or sign of a decision to be made.  As we have a bird feeder in our backyard now, I can only imagine my angst:  "Wait!  I should...no, they just turned the corner!  I should do....no, wait, a new group landed..."

Occasionally though, God speaks with something that cannot be ignored.

For the Easter service on Sunday, our pastor finished out a sermon series he had been doing with a somewhat loose tie in to Easter (to be clear: even as a non-denominational church, we celebrate Easter [of the non-Orthodox variety:  a very Happy Good Friday and Easter to my Orthodox friends] as much as anyone else). That is okay, of course:  over the course of a lifetime I have heard a great many permutations on Resurrection Sunday that all come down to essentially the same thing:  Jesus is Risen, Death has lost its sting, and Life Eternal is now available to all who believe.  

This Sunday, the sermon was on The Prodigal Son, a parable so well known that it has even entered into the secular lexicon. 

At one point in the sermon, our pastor referenced a quote from the book The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen.  Nouwen's name was slightly known to me:  A Dutch priest, he gave up a career in teaching at some pretty prestigious universities to work with those with developmental disabilities.  In terms of writing, I only know him through the introduction written by him of my copy of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection's work The Practice of The Presence of God.  It was a good quote, a thought provoking quote, that I filed away in the "That was sort of interesting" file.

The next day, I had a large number of books to take to my local used book store to sell - not that I get a lot of money for them of course; mainly it is to move them on to get them out (and secondarily of course, to make more space).  During the time they were assessing the books, I wandered about the store (a clever marketing tactic on their part, no?). I have various sections I check for books - in the Religious section, I mostly look for specific works like Luther's writings or works on the Orthodox Church.  This day, as I was going through the alphabetized sections, I came across this:

 It is seldom in my life that I get a direct communication from God and, presumably, some sort of answer to a prayer I have knowingly or unknowingly prayed (or someone else prayed on my behalf).

There was another book of his next to it on Christian Leadership; of course I grabbed that one as well.

I know nothing about the book (and by all means, assume there is a book review coming) - but it is readily apparent to me that there is something in this book that I need to read and ponder.

Be careful, as they say, of asking God for guidance.  Sometimes, He answers.

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Administrative Note:  As you are reading this, I am likely on my way to meet up with The Outdoorsman for the first of our training hikes for the year (yes, it is already that time). Responses will be delayed as I am more than reasonably sure my phone will not work out in The Wilds - or if does, it will mysteriously malfunction.