What's with the Title?

So why Deep in the Earth Above the Clouds as a title for a blog?  While the blog was initiated to give friends and family a visual glimpse into my life in Haiti, I did not want it to necessarily be limited to that.  (Okay, okay…so part of it was also my repugnance to the idea of a trendy travel blog with some silly name, like “Krischelle’s Haiti Adventures” or “Frost in the Tropics”.) 

When I arrived in Haiti October 2010 for a year of teaching English, a very clear purpose God developed in my mind was that of learning to abide, as Jesus expresses it in John 15.  As that has developed over time, trees with deep roots have become a meaningful symbol to me. 

Birds also are significant.  Even as a child, I used to sit and look at the pictures in my grandparents book of birds as I listened to the call of each bird on the accompanying tape.  They hold a rather tender place in my heart, connected to family.  But more than that, over the past year or two a bird began to represent for me flourishing and freedom.  There is something about a bird flying through the air and bursting into song…like it has a joy in its heart that springs from doing what it was made to do (flourishing).  David said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest…”  There are times I wish I could just sprout wings and fly away to some beautiful place...wherever I wanted.  Perhaps, that is escapist.  Nevertheless, birds have also come to be a symbol of freedom in my mind.  (Although, I have to smirk at the irony.  I mean, birds seem free because they can fly, apparently….but in that case, I suppose that a bird would find a fish to be a symbol of freedom….maybe I’m just over-thinking it.)

Over the summer, the two symbols came together in my mind as a sort of mantra: Rooted like a tree, free as a bird.  The idea being this:  The more we abide in Christ (drawing life from him, totally trusting him), the more truly free we become.  We may not be able to explain why or how, but it is then that we will truly flourish, growing into all that God intended us to be.

So while my purpose here is to open a visual door into my life on a small plateau in Haiti, there are deeper and higher things intertwining and encompassing it that inspired the title.