This morning- the family scrambling to grab breakfast and make it out of the house by 8 am. Suitcases strewn everywhere, as we arrived home from St. Louis last night. Squabbling children, worried parents, stress you could cut with a knife. It seems to be the story of my life these days. To top it all off, I entered the kitchen this morning to discover (unfortunately not before I'd stepped in it) that someone had thrown up all over the floor (which Lex JUST scrubbed) during the night. Ah, how I love Lysol... :-D All of the children swear they have no idea who got sick or how this unfortunate occurrence occurred. The dogs and cats are not releasing any statements at this time, but we have a detective on the case... ;-)
Yeah. Life is messy. And boy, is it EVER messy!
Andy Kauffmann, a missionary, and aquaintance of mine once said though: 'When you live in the mess, you learn to cry out to the King!"
I haven't been learning this 'crying out to the King' business very quickly. Crying- yes. Crying out- no! Self-pity is so insiduous, and creates the ultimate 'Slough of Despond. Lately I've been uptight, emotionally volatile and brittle, frustrated with everything. And it's not because circumstances are truly intolerable, it's because I, in my determined self-will, have been intolerant of circumstances.
The Christian walk is such a beautiful thing on paper. 'We rejoice in our light and momentary troubles', 'What is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal', 'Just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also, through Christ, our comfort overflows.' 'Take up your cross and follow me.'
Such a high calling is ours! To walk and love and suffer with an all-sufficient Savior! But the minute this doctrine leaves the realm of theory, I am tempted to enter the realm of 'rage and pout and sulk'. Oh, I know better, but I do it anyway! It seems that everything in human nature wells up in resentment when desires are balked, troubles are piled on, and things cease to go 'according to plan'. MY plan, of course! :-P
Such a high calling we are given. Such a low response seems to be within our grasp. God says 'Surrender these things to Me', and all too often we whine 'But I CAN'T!' (Which is usually code for 'But I don't WANT to!' ).
Fortunately, He can, and will, where we are incapable.
God, give me the humility not to whine, or snap irritably my protestations of 'I can't do this!', but instead, to come humbly, say brokenly 'I can't do this.'- longing and hungering to see YOU do it IN me. Believing that it WILL be done, regardless of the tumult clamouring all around.
A couple of paragraphs in 'Still Higher for His Highest', by Oswald Chambers, convicted me deeply this week:
The Snare of the Sentimentalist, Worldly Sorrow, and The Deepest Longing:
"Lord I will follow Thee, but..." The wish ought to be followed by immediate obedience. I must take the wish and translate it into resolution, and then into action. If I do not, the wish will translate itelf into a corrupting instead of a redeeming power in my life. This principle holds good in the matter of emotions. A sentimentalist is one who delights to have high and devout emotions while reading in an arm-chair or when in a prayer meeting, but he never translates his emotions into action. Consequently a sentimentalist is usually callous, self-centered and selfish, because the emotions he likes to have stirred do not cost him anything; and when he comes across the same things in the domain where things are real and not sentimental, the revenge comes along the line of selfishness and meanness, which is aways the aftermath of an unfulfilled emotion."
"It is a terrible thing to say, and yet true, that there is a sorrow so selfish, so sentimental and sarcastic that it adds to 'the sin of the city'. All sorrow that arises from being baffled in some selfish aim of our own is of the world and works death. Those who sorrow over their own weaknesses and sins, and stop short at that, have a sorrow that only makes them worse, it is not a godly sorrow that works repentance. Oh that all men knew that every sentiment has its appropriate reaction, and if the nature does not embrace that reaction it degenerates into a sullen sentimentalism that kills all good action."
"You are getting tired of life as it is, tired of yourself as you are, getting sour with regard to the setting of your life; lift your eyes for one moment to Jesus Christ. Do you want, more than you want your food, more than you want your sleep, more than you want anything under heaven, or in heaven, that Jesus Christ might so identify you with Himself that you are His, first, last, and forever? God grant that the greatest longing desire of your heart may begin to awaken as it has never done, not only the desire for the forgiveness of sin, but for identification with Jesus Himself until you say, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
Oswald Chambers pulls no punches, but he's truthful. And I recognized far too much of myself in the 'Sentimentalist' he describes. Do I also identify in that all- consuming, overwhelming, overcoming hunger for Christ? Not always.
So, Lord, where I fail to desire You, 'desire in me'.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Something Like a Summary:
How do you put a year into words? How do you take the pieces of it and stitch them, as you would scraps of fabric for a quilt, into a unified whole? How can I tell you about the year that was the best, and worst in my life, when there's so much to say- when all the darkest and brightest things are too precious, or too tawdry for me to give to you? I don't know. I've been trying for a while now to think of something like a summary. Something that would tell you enough to be worth saying, without saying too much. And it comes down to this: I can summarize my year quite well. This is all that's worth keeping from the twelve months that have elapsed since I graduated from high-school last May:
God is sufficient.
God is merciful.
God is powerful.
God is glorious!
Now, I realize that's a pretty generic summary, and although it's all you really need to know about my life up until this point, there are all sorts of things you DON'T need to know that I rather feel compelled to share with you.
I had my last final today, began packing to move out of the dorms, and spent some time with friends I won't be seeing much of this summer. Have you ever had days that, from just looking at the bare details of events, you know should have been good, and yet they were... not? This was one of them. The only truly lovely thing I can remember is walking through the chill of grey morning and listening to a robin calling in a cataclysm of sweetness. How can such a small song slice the air so?
The rest was deeply tinged with bittersweetness. I suppose, if I had to give today a name, I would call it 'wistful'. I dread the endings of things, and to have such a great season of life ended is disconcerting. Foolish as it sounds, there's a deep ache in it. I seem to be putting the semester's labor, and ideals, and dreams away into boxes in more senses than one.
So what is it, like, this packing? Well, first, the walls are stripped- photographs of family and friends, missionary prayer cards, poems and Bible verses on sticky notes- all are pressed between the back pages of my scrapbook, now, along with the memories that overwhelm me when I look at them.
The 'covenant stones' come down too- the once rain-drenched leaf that I placed on the Altar one black night, and its song:
'O Lord, I wish Thy way.
And when in me myself shall rise
And wish for something otherwise
Bring sword, and slay!' -Carmichael
The other, small leaf, white as bone that I found nestled in the lush new grass, reminding me of Aline Kilmer's poem. It has a story too:
'The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever!'
The locket, which opens upon the stern question: 'At what point is Jesus Christ not worth it?'
The slender red twig, plucked from a hedge on a rainy day when I stumbled through the field in a haze of confusion:"As for God, His way is perfect... And if His way be perfect, we need no explanation."-Carmichael
The great, cruel thorn, broken from a locust branch: "All Christ's life was a cross and a martyrdom; and thou seekest for thyself rest and joy?"- The Imitation
All of these nestle now in the bottom compartment of my jewelry box, along with other mysterious treasures. As I pull off the last of my pictures and trinkets, I feel the friendly walls receding into blank, inscrutable whiteness. The ceiling rises silently away from me as the room grows in emptiness. In my heart lurks a feeling that is almost grief.
Next, heroically, I attack the bookshelf. Now, you must understand- I am an unashamed bibliophile! I came to college with a loooot of books! Due to a random combination of gifts, text-book hoarding, and used book sales, I now have even more books- many of them large and heavy. So this book packing is still a bit tricky. Especially since I keep stopping to read them, trying to decide what to leave at home, and what to bring back with me next fall...
That is where things stand at the moment. I will have to finish the job tomorrow.
But I have to finish this summary tonight. After tomorrow, I will never again walk down the hall to Leaverton 2018 C. I will not sleep- or lie awake puzzling over life- on that hard, slippery blue mattress with its striped sheets. I will not sit typing at this desk. I will not sing in that shower. I will be gone so completely that I might as well have never come. And when I think of this- that tomorrow I will walk out of this room for the last time, a flood of detail sweeps over me, and the tears are springing to my eyes again. Not so much for the room, but for the life I lived in it. For the friends who've come and gone here- the things I've learned here- the lessons burned on my heart here. When I leave tomorrow, my last physical connection to all of these things will be gone forever. Something- I hardly know how to say what- will have ended, and vanished into memory, or, perhaps, forgetfulness.
On Monday, during the storm, I was sitting cross-legged on the bed with my notebook, trying to explain my feelings about the semester's close. This is what I wrote:
"I see the wind-tossed maple tree just outside my window- its leaves bunched like wet, green ruffles, fluttering with a wild and frantic charm. And all that great expanse of sodden grass, stretching away into a dark wall of trees. Rain falling from the grey sky to lash against the grey road. A pooling of glimmering, cloud-reflecting droplets on the pane. These are the things that bound my world today. I dare not think beyond them- the helter-skelter of the bookshelf, Shakespeare leaning in drunken cameraderie on George Bernard Shaw- 'Jane Eayre' jockeying primly against Maugham's 'Complete Short Stories' for space. The crazy, childish colors in the quilt Aunt Caroline sewed. Papers strewn everywhere. Lightning flashing from time to time on the prisoning walls. Thunder rumbling, like a crescendo of percussion, in time with Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Folk Song Suite for Millitary Band'. Here is the last safe, famliar place in the world, and I am leaving it forever in two days. For what? For a farther venturing into yet another unkown? On Wednesday begins the mad transition from one reality into another. If only life had some halting places! Spots like stepping stones, on which one could pause and consider the next jump. But it doesn't work that way, and still the stately, mysterious procession of Circumstance continues its intricate dance.
So what can be said about this year? There were days of miraculous strengthening- days when I felt too ill and tired to walk across the room, and yet was able to walk all over campus- days when my heart was trampled to pieces- when I was torn in half by my own uncertainties- when I was drained dry and wrung empty by the world's hunger, and yet, somehow, when God opened the opportunities for sharing, He gave me what I needed to give as well. I learned things- both in and out of the classroom. I caught glimpses of a Love so burningly exalted above mine that I could only fall to my knees before it.
There were those special, piercingly sweet moments- the week I was sunk into discouragement and self-reproach because people kept on talking about what a 'good person' I was, and how 'moral' I was, with never a word of Christ, the consuming passion. I was convinced I must have failed utterly as a missionary, that whatever I was doing had only drawn attention to my own efforts rather than God's power, and was depressed and broken to tears over it for days, pleading for transformation; then a girl, not a believer, but a seeker, came to me needing encouragement and a hug, and after we'd prayed together, and cried a bit together, she put her hand on my arm and looked me in the eye and said: "You are the only genuine Christian I have ever met in my life. I don't know if what you believe is true or not, but you live it- and you don't just do good things, either, I SEE your God in you. I SEE Him in your face. I see you doing things that you could not possibly do on your own. You have wisdom that none of the psychologists and specialists they took me to knew about. You have been loving in a way no person could be, and I know that your God is powerful in your life, and truly your Lord."
I was dazed. I knew, all too well, that what she said was not true. There was so much sin in me of which she was unaware- so much pride creeping into my efforts. There had even been frustration and lovelessness toward HER that God had been rooting out of my heart. But I WANTED to be the person she described- and moreover, my agonizing doubts about my ability to be light in darkness, and plead the cause of Christ rather than my own merit suddenly fell away. It didn't matter how weak and clumsy I was- she had seen Christ in me! Surely He could show Himself through me to anyone else as well! That was one of the glory days.
Another came when, as, under a great deal of stress and discouragement, I was feeling that I didn't 'fit in anywhere', that there was no ministry or work that I was really 'suited' for, and I wished desperately that God would show me what I was able to do, not even daring to ask Him for the explanation of it all- and then, my TESL professor took me aside and said, "You were created to teach children. It's in your blood to teach children. God gave you an instinctive gift for teaching that I have encountered very rarely. Don't give up!" It answered so few of my questions, and yet, it was just the thing I needed to hear in order to get through the disappointments of that week.
I could talk for hours about God's faithfulness this year, about the things He is teaching me. There were days when it seemed His training was too harsh- even days when I resented it. But, seeing the year in review, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the humbling, for the heartbreaking, for the cutting away of the human supports I leaned on, and of my own self-sufficiency. At the beginning of my first semester, a friend sent me an article about Samueul Rutherford. Here is what Rutherford wrote while imprisoned for his beliefs:
"If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then tell me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wish to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and them throw open the shutters and let in the light of heaven."
After reading that, I went out into the field and prayed, "Lord, blow out all my lamps!"
I didn't know what I was asking. I don't know if I could have had the courage to ask such a thing if I had. I don't know, even now, if I have the courage to continue on with it- this grinding process of lamp-extinguishing, and I have only tasted the edges of an answer; God is very merciful in His dealings with my weakness. But I will close my freshman year with the prayer that began it: "Lord, blow out all my lamps! I would see Thee in all Thy radiance!"
This drab dorm room- my haven against storms and attacks for the past eight or nine months is the lamp which will go dark on Wednesday. A new set of roots are being torn up.
Yet I finally realize, marvelling, that it is a place more soaked in prayer than tears. That my memories of this once faceless room- returning on Wednesday to facelessness- are more of unimagined glory than of unimagined pain. And I know too, in this brief flash of perception, that there could not have BEEN the glory without the pain, the prayer without the tears, the victory without the breaking. It is finished, and He was sufficient! And I? What can I be but thankful for His chastening love? So let the years come!"
The Undiscovered Country:
'Lord, for the erring thought
Not unto evil wrought:
Lord for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still:
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.
For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer:
For pain, death, sorrow sent
Unto our chastisement:
For all loss of seeming good,
Quicken our gratitude.' -William Dean Howells
God is sufficient.
God is merciful.
God is powerful.
God is glorious!
Now, I realize that's a pretty generic summary, and although it's all you really need to know about my life up until this point, there are all sorts of things you DON'T need to know that I rather feel compelled to share with you.
I had my last final today, began packing to move out of the dorms, and spent some time with friends I won't be seeing much of this summer. Have you ever had days that, from just looking at the bare details of events, you know should have been good, and yet they were... not? This was one of them. The only truly lovely thing I can remember is walking through the chill of grey morning and listening to a robin calling in a cataclysm of sweetness. How can such a small song slice the air so?
The rest was deeply tinged with bittersweetness. I suppose, if I had to give today a name, I would call it 'wistful'. I dread the endings of things, and to have such a great season of life ended is disconcerting. Foolish as it sounds, there's a deep ache in it. I seem to be putting the semester's labor, and ideals, and dreams away into boxes in more senses than one.
So what is it, like, this packing? Well, first, the walls are stripped- photographs of family and friends, missionary prayer cards, poems and Bible verses on sticky notes- all are pressed between the back pages of my scrapbook, now, along with the memories that overwhelm me when I look at them.
The 'covenant stones' come down too- the once rain-drenched leaf that I placed on the Altar one black night, and its song:
'O Lord, I wish Thy way.
And when in me myself shall rise
And wish for something otherwise
Bring sword, and slay!' -Carmichael
The other, small leaf, white as bone that I found nestled in the lush new grass, reminding me of Aline Kilmer's poem. It has a story too:
'The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever!'
The locket, which opens upon the stern question: 'At what point is Jesus Christ not worth it?'
The slender red twig, plucked from a hedge on a rainy day when I stumbled through the field in a haze of confusion:"As for God, His way is perfect... And if His way be perfect, we need no explanation."-Carmichael
The great, cruel thorn, broken from a locust branch: "All Christ's life was a cross and a martyrdom; and thou seekest for thyself rest and joy?"- The Imitation
All of these nestle now in the bottom compartment of my jewelry box, along with other mysterious treasures. As I pull off the last of my pictures and trinkets, I feel the friendly walls receding into blank, inscrutable whiteness. The ceiling rises silently away from me as the room grows in emptiness. In my heart lurks a feeling that is almost grief.
Next, heroically, I attack the bookshelf. Now, you must understand- I am an unashamed bibliophile! I came to college with a loooot of books! Due to a random combination of gifts, text-book hoarding, and used book sales, I now have even more books- many of them large and heavy. So this book packing is still a bit tricky. Especially since I keep stopping to read them, trying to decide what to leave at home, and what to bring back with me next fall...
That is where things stand at the moment. I will have to finish the job tomorrow.
But I have to finish this summary tonight. After tomorrow, I will never again walk down the hall to Leaverton 2018 C. I will not sleep- or lie awake puzzling over life- on that hard, slippery blue mattress with its striped sheets. I will not sit typing at this desk. I will not sing in that shower. I will be gone so completely that I might as well have never come. And when I think of this- that tomorrow I will walk out of this room for the last time, a flood of detail sweeps over me, and the tears are springing to my eyes again. Not so much for the room, but for the life I lived in it. For the friends who've come and gone here- the things I've learned here- the lessons burned on my heart here. When I leave tomorrow, my last physical connection to all of these things will be gone forever. Something- I hardly know how to say what- will have ended, and vanished into memory, or, perhaps, forgetfulness.
On Monday, during the storm, I was sitting cross-legged on the bed with my notebook, trying to explain my feelings about the semester's close. This is what I wrote:
"I see the wind-tossed maple tree just outside my window- its leaves bunched like wet, green ruffles, fluttering with a wild and frantic charm. And all that great expanse of sodden grass, stretching away into a dark wall of trees. Rain falling from the grey sky to lash against the grey road. A pooling of glimmering, cloud-reflecting droplets on the pane. These are the things that bound my world today. I dare not think beyond them- the helter-skelter of the bookshelf, Shakespeare leaning in drunken cameraderie on George Bernard Shaw- 'Jane Eayre' jockeying primly against Maugham's 'Complete Short Stories' for space. The crazy, childish colors in the quilt Aunt Caroline sewed. Papers strewn everywhere. Lightning flashing from time to time on the prisoning walls. Thunder rumbling, like a crescendo of percussion, in time with Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Folk Song Suite for Millitary Band'. Here is the last safe, famliar place in the world, and I am leaving it forever in two days. For what? For a farther venturing into yet another unkown? On Wednesday begins the mad transition from one reality into another. If only life had some halting places! Spots like stepping stones, on which one could pause and consider the next jump. But it doesn't work that way, and still the stately, mysterious procession of Circumstance continues its intricate dance.
So what can be said about this year? There were days of miraculous strengthening- days when I felt too ill and tired to walk across the room, and yet was able to walk all over campus- days when my heart was trampled to pieces- when I was torn in half by my own uncertainties- when I was drained dry and wrung empty by the world's hunger, and yet, somehow, when God opened the opportunities for sharing, He gave me what I needed to give as well. I learned things- both in and out of the classroom. I caught glimpses of a Love so burningly exalted above mine that I could only fall to my knees before it.
There were those special, piercingly sweet moments- the week I was sunk into discouragement and self-reproach because people kept on talking about what a 'good person' I was, and how 'moral' I was, with never a word of Christ, the consuming passion. I was convinced I must have failed utterly as a missionary, that whatever I was doing had only drawn attention to my own efforts rather than God's power, and was depressed and broken to tears over it for days, pleading for transformation; then a girl, not a believer, but a seeker, came to me needing encouragement and a hug, and after we'd prayed together, and cried a bit together, she put her hand on my arm and looked me in the eye and said: "You are the only genuine Christian I have ever met in my life. I don't know if what you believe is true or not, but you live it- and you don't just do good things, either, I SEE your God in you. I SEE Him in your face. I see you doing things that you could not possibly do on your own. You have wisdom that none of the psychologists and specialists they took me to knew about. You have been loving in a way no person could be, and I know that your God is powerful in your life, and truly your Lord."
I was dazed. I knew, all too well, that what she said was not true. There was so much sin in me of which she was unaware- so much pride creeping into my efforts. There had even been frustration and lovelessness toward HER that God had been rooting out of my heart. But I WANTED to be the person she described- and moreover, my agonizing doubts about my ability to be light in darkness, and plead the cause of Christ rather than my own merit suddenly fell away. It didn't matter how weak and clumsy I was- she had seen Christ in me! Surely He could show Himself through me to anyone else as well! That was one of the glory days.
Another came when, as, under a great deal of stress and discouragement, I was feeling that I didn't 'fit in anywhere', that there was no ministry or work that I was really 'suited' for, and I wished desperately that God would show me what I was able to do, not even daring to ask Him for the explanation of it all- and then, my TESL professor took me aside and said, "You were created to teach children. It's in your blood to teach children. God gave you an instinctive gift for teaching that I have encountered very rarely. Don't give up!" It answered so few of my questions, and yet, it was just the thing I needed to hear in order to get through the disappointments of that week.
I could talk for hours about God's faithfulness this year, about the things He is teaching me. There were days when it seemed His training was too harsh- even days when I resented it. But, seeing the year in review, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the humbling, for the heartbreaking, for the cutting away of the human supports I leaned on, and of my own self-sufficiency. At the beginning of my first semester, a friend sent me an article about Samueul Rutherford. Here is what Rutherford wrote while imprisoned for his beliefs:
"If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then tell me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wish to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and them throw open the shutters and let in the light of heaven."
After reading that, I went out into the field and prayed, "Lord, blow out all my lamps!"
I didn't know what I was asking. I don't know if I could have had the courage to ask such a thing if I had. I don't know, even now, if I have the courage to continue on with it- this grinding process of lamp-extinguishing, and I have only tasted the edges of an answer; God is very merciful in His dealings with my weakness. But I will close my freshman year with the prayer that began it: "Lord, blow out all my lamps! I would see Thee in all Thy radiance!"
This drab dorm room- my haven against storms and attacks for the past eight or nine months is the lamp which will go dark on Wednesday. A new set of roots are being torn up.
Yet I finally realize, marvelling, that it is a place more soaked in prayer than tears. That my memories of this once faceless room- returning on Wednesday to facelessness- are more of unimagined glory than of unimagined pain. And I know too, in this brief flash of perception, that there could not have BEEN the glory without the pain, the prayer without the tears, the victory without the breaking. It is finished, and He was sufficient! And I? What can I be but thankful for His chastening love? So let the years come!"
The Undiscovered Country:
'Lord, for the erring thought
Not unto evil wrought:
Lord for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still:
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.
For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer:
For pain, death, sorrow sent
Unto our chastisement:
For all loss of seeming good,
Quicken our gratitude.' -William Dean Howells
Jottings and Meanderings:
For anyone who leads an incredibly boring life, and would therefore like to read the rest of the poetry that was scribbled into odd corners of my notebook during this year- this post is for you. I thought of giving this some really impressive title, such as 'The Complete Unpublished Works of Sharon L. Moore', but I fear, gentle readers, that you will see all too clearly why the various artistic efforts of 'Sharon L. Moore' remain unheralded and unpublished! So, here they are, a scrambled collection of jottings and meanderings, to be enjoyed or ignored as you please:
Lamentations 3:22
And yet- (O praise Him for that yet!)
I call this promise to my mind
Though every hope I may forget,
Still happiness in this I find:
By His great love we still prevail
For His compassions never fail!
3 A.M. View From My Window in January: ( That sounds impressive! :-P )
A dreaming haze of pale azure
And golden lights rests on the snow;
Dark tree-shapes cast a blue allure
Where shadows stretch along the glow
Of sleeping ice and frozen street.
They strain, elongated and slim
From deeps where tree and shadow meet;
Arch past the realm of shade and dim
To burst in brittle lines of bloom-
Strange fragile bones of gilded blue-
A skeleton of flame and dew-
Shivered to powder at a touch;
No living hand can finger such.
The Question:
And what is Love? I found it at His hand
When every other love of mine had failed
And left me crushed- do not misunderstand;
I did not come to Him a supplicant
For grace or tenderness, but rather, railed
Jeered, spit into His face- wholly rebelled,
The more He wholly loved- I never meant
To rest upon His strength, and yet He quelled
Hatred in me, and spite, and He has nailed
The gate between us to the side until,
My Love, He could cross over unto me
And bring His captive over into Him!
My Life, My God, Belovéd! dwell and fill-
Work, praise, abide in me- hads't Thou not moved
The walls that parted us, I had not loved!
~~~~~
But here I stumble at the rim
Of dizzy heights; my prayer will be
Since I lack strength to cry to Him
'Lord, cry in me!'
Lord cry in me, I cannot call
My eyes burn, ache, but do not see
My God, I cannot come to You at all
So come to me.
Lord humble me, chasten and rend
My knees are stiff, and will not bow.
I have not any love to give,
Love in me now.
Lord pray in me; my heart is cold.
Replace the stone with flesh and fire
I cannot yearn for You- then Lord,
In me desire.
An Informal Sonnet:
The saying goes, 'Love does not dominate;
It cultivates.' My face is hot with shame
To think of all I've gilded with Love's name
That did not bear Love's Spirit, or its trait
Of self-forgetting- how can I but blame
My soul-corroding pride, or too much hate
This seething love of Self that did create
Such lovelessness, which childishly I called
My 'love'? Was that indeed such 'love' as I
Thought worth receiving? Thinking now to buy,
And now to grasp- which sought to elevate
Itself, and not its object- love that mauled
The very name of Love- O, God create
THY Love in me, that I might imitate!
~~~~~~~~~
A rushing murmur is the creek;
The quail burst from the grass a whir
Of stuttering wings- the things I seek
Are but a ripple and a blur.
I may cup water in my palm-
I cannot cup the greenish pool
Nor every golden light and stone
And mossy branch that makes the whole.
I may pluck feathers from the grass
Or let the wind rush past my arm
I cannot pluck the speeding birds
From out the wind; their wild alarm
Their frantic wings, and wilder flight-
Are beyond reach of touch or sight
Neat-patterned plumage, coat of gloss
But flashing memories of loss.
A rushing murmur is the creek;
The quail burst from the grass a whir
Of stuttering wings- the things I seek
Are but a ripple and a blur.
~~~~~~~~~~
"And so they melted all their gold
And cast it in a bovine mold
Where now their offerings they bring
To bow themselves before the 'Thing'.
And when by prophets they are governed
Yaweh as their lawful Sovereign
All that the silly creatures crave
Is, "Kings, like OTHER nations have." "
History has not treated kindly
Israel, she who followed blindly
Hand-fashioned gods, and sinful men
For this was wrong- but then again,
We of today are not much better-
Israel balked when Yahweh led her-
Still the ancient impulse lingers-
We want a god in reach of fingers.
Man, who cannot see much beyond
Himself, forever must be fond
Of asking ('if it's not too much!')
For gods that he can see and touch.
Man, who must play the ages' fool
Chafes at his wise Creator's rule
Favors abuse and subjugation
Under a human domination.
Well may we laugh at Israel's blunders
Yet, there come moments when one wonders
Why we should deem ourselves exempt
From this we treat with such contempt.
Moderns, eschewing wood and stone
Hunger no less for gods their own
Humbly exalt, with reckless vanity,
Struggling and sorrowful humanity.
Often we fill our 'obligation'
Toss God some phrase of approbation-
Rarely will foolish man commence
With worship and obedience.
Humans instinctively disdain
Life underneath their Maker's reign-
We're glad, of course, that Christ would die
But will not call Him Adonai.
From the beginning we've colluded
Plotted and schemed (myself included)
For the illusion of control
Over the sorry human soul.
Lord if I come now, brokenhearted
Back at the point from which I started
Sickened to death of self and sin
Will you receive me yet again?
Lord, I'm afraid I still am fighting-
Even this moment, as I'm writing
Longings to throw off bit and bridle-
Take to myself another idol.
Knowing from trial that the conclusion
Surely will shatter my illusion
Still I go hungering to find
Solace from one of 'my own kind'.
Help me to keep to this decision:
Though far beyond my hands and vision
Vast though You be, though broader, higher-
You will I make my sole desire.
Every heavy hanging minute
All of my life, and all that's in it
Loneness, bewilderment, and pain-
All that I am is Yours again.
View From My Window On a Blustery May Afternoon: ( :-P )
A flash of butterfly-winged
Leaves- in a lime-bright whirl
Like a storm of stars
Flutter between the mystic gaze
Of an April sky and me-
Sunlight bursting
In fiercely yellow blooms
Sprinkled in glints across
Leaping ripples of grass-
I lean
Into the boisterous air,
Past the thrust of the wall, and
The decorous bounds of the window
To catch
The glad heels of the romping wind
Painting the gold-green world
Cerulean blue.
The horizon
Rushes before me- a barricade of towering trees
Stamping and tossing their heads
In their earth-bound fury
Of root-anchored, green-swelling
Impatience- the world swings upward, then down,
Patterned with billowing shadows.
~~~~~~~~~
The night was a slavering Thing of shadows
and fever- the pillow hot with it. Night
was a claustrophobic weight- a smothering of darkness
a suffocation of darkness like blankets
Heaped upon blankets- Life, Sound, Wind, Liberty, Light and Coolness
Were words from another realm whose meaning jarred
Upon low-ceilinged, black realities. Parched lips muttered
And cracked with soreness. Fought to draw air
in- gasping with flattened lungs- then silence.
The nightmare prospect of years stretched in a grim line
Where leaden feet must stumble.
It was some writhing hours later I stood
A cold, broad plain stretched out before me, rose
A slope. Where sparks teemed in the stillness- flung
Wonder into a gaping sky- then music soared
Passion and tenderness, eagerness, loveliness
For You came gladly singing, Morning Star.
Beginning and end for me- You, never begun nor ended.
Your promise brightens on the clouded rim
Of earth- dawn sweeps horizons, and I gaze
At that white creeping radiance- a glow
Lights up my farthest sight- the whole world lifts.
It turns its head to catch the throb of drums
And pulsates as the sunrise, thundering
Rolls crashing past the black-edged wall of hills
And over greyish fields- the promise holds-
Eternal, Morning comes.
Lamentations 3:22
And yet- (O praise Him for that yet!)
I call this promise to my mind
Though every hope I may forget,
Still happiness in this I find:
By His great love we still prevail
For His compassions never fail!
3 A.M. View From My Window in January: ( That sounds impressive! :-P )
A dreaming haze of pale azure
And golden lights rests on the snow;
Dark tree-shapes cast a blue allure
Where shadows stretch along the glow
Of sleeping ice and frozen street.
They strain, elongated and slim
From deeps where tree and shadow meet;
Arch past the realm of shade and dim
To burst in brittle lines of bloom-
Strange fragile bones of gilded blue-
A skeleton of flame and dew-
Shivered to powder at a touch;
No living hand can finger such.
The Question:
And what is Love? I found it at His hand
When every other love of mine had failed
And left me crushed- do not misunderstand;
I did not come to Him a supplicant
For grace or tenderness, but rather, railed
Jeered, spit into His face- wholly rebelled,
The more He wholly loved- I never meant
To rest upon His strength, and yet He quelled
Hatred in me, and spite, and He has nailed
The gate between us to the side until,
My Love, He could cross over unto me
And bring His captive over into Him!
My Life, My God, Belovéd! dwell and fill-
Work, praise, abide in me- hads't Thou not moved
The walls that parted us, I had not loved!
~~~~~
But here I stumble at the rim
Of dizzy heights; my prayer will be
Since I lack strength to cry to Him
'Lord, cry in me!'
Lord cry in me, I cannot call
My eyes burn, ache, but do not see
My God, I cannot come to You at all
So come to me.
Lord humble me, chasten and rend
My knees are stiff, and will not bow.
I have not any love to give,
Love in me now.
Lord pray in me; my heart is cold.
Replace the stone with flesh and fire
I cannot yearn for You- then Lord,
In me desire.
An Informal Sonnet:
The saying goes, 'Love does not dominate;
It cultivates.' My face is hot with shame
To think of all I've gilded with Love's name
That did not bear Love's Spirit, or its trait
Of self-forgetting- how can I but blame
My soul-corroding pride, or too much hate
This seething love of Self that did create
Such lovelessness, which childishly I called
My 'love'? Was that indeed such 'love' as I
Thought worth receiving? Thinking now to buy,
And now to grasp- which sought to elevate
Itself, and not its object- love that mauled
The very name of Love- O, God create
THY Love in me, that I might imitate!
~~~~~~~~~
A rushing murmur is the creek;
The quail burst from the grass a whir
Of stuttering wings- the things I seek
Are but a ripple and a blur.
I may cup water in my palm-
I cannot cup the greenish pool
Nor every golden light and stone
And mossy branch that makes the whole.
I may pluck feathers from the grass
Or let the wind rush past my arm
I cannot pluck the speeding birds
From out the wind; their wild alarm
Their frantic wings, and wilder flight-
Are beyond reach of touch or sight
Neat-patterned plumage, coat of gloss
But flashing memories of loss.
A rushing murmur is the creek;
The quail burst from the grass a whir
Of stuttering wings- the things I seek
Are but a ripple and a blur.
~~~~~~~~~~
"And so they melted all their gold
And cast it in a bovine mold
Where now their offerings they bring
To bow themselves before the 'Thing'.
And when by prophets they are governed
Yaweh as their lawful Sovereign
All that the silly creatures crave
Is, "Kings, like OTHER nations have." "
History has not treated kindly
Israel, she who followed blindly
Hand-fashioned gods, and sinful men
For this was wrong- but then again,
We of today are not much better-
Israel balked when Yahweh led her-
Still the ancient impulse lingers-
We want a god in reach of fingers.
Man, who cannot see much beyond
Himself, forever must be fond
Of asking ('if it's not too much!')
For gods that he can see and touch.
Man, who must play the ages' fool
Chafes at his wise Creator's rule
Favors abuse and subjugation
Under a human domination.
Well may we laugh at Israel's blunders
Yet, there come moments when one wonders
Why we should deem ourselves exempt
From this we treat with such contempt.
Moderns, eschewing wood and stone
Hunger no less for gods their own
Humbly exalt, with reckless vanity,
Struggling and sorrowful humanity.
Often we fill our 'obligation'
Toss God some phrase of approbation-
Rarely will foolish man commence
With worship and obedience.
Humans instinctively disdain
Life underneath their Maker's reign-
We're glad, of course, that Christ would die
But will not call Him Adonai.
From the beginning we've colluded
Plotted and schemed (myself included)
For the illusion of control
Over the sorry human soul.
Lord if I come now, brokenhearted
Back at the point from which I started
Sickened to death of self and sin
Will you receive me yet again?
Lord, I'm afraid I still am fighting-
Even this moment, as I'm writing
Longings to throw off bit and bridle-
Take to myself another idol.
Knowing from trial that the conclusion
Surely will shatter my illusion
Still I go hungering to find
Solace from one of 'my own kind'.
Help me to keep to this decision:
Though far beyond my hands and vision
Vast though You be, though broader, higher-
You will I make my sole desire.
Every heavy hanging minute
All of my life, and all that's in it
Loneness, bewilderment, and pain-
All that I am is Yours again.
View From My Window On a Blustery May Afternoon: ( :-P )
A flash of butterfly-winged
Leaves- in a lime-bright whirl
Like a storm of stars
Flutter between the mystic gaze
Of an April sky and me-
Sunlight bursting
In fiercely yellow blooms
Sprinkled in glints across
Leaping ripples of grass-
I lean
Into the boisterous air,
Past the thrust of the wall, and
The decorous bounds of the window
To catch
The glad heels of the romping wind
Painting the gold-green world
Cerulean blue.
The horizon
Rushes before me- a barricade of towering trees
Stamping and tossing their heads
In their earth-bound fury
Of root-anchored, green-swelling
Impatience- the world swings upward, then down,
Patterned with billowing shadows.
~~~~~~~~~
The night was a slavering Thing of shadows
and fever- the pillow hot with it. Night
was a claustrophobic weight- a smothering of darkness
a suffocation of darkness like blankets
Heaped upon blankets- Life, Sound, Wind, Liberty, Light and Coolness
Were words from another realm whose meaning jarred
Upon low-ceilinged, black realities. Parched lips muttered
And cracked with soreness. Fought to draw air
in- gasping with flattened lungs- then silence.
The nightmare prospect of years stretched in a grim line
Where leaden feet must stumble.
It was some writhing hours later I stood
A cold, broad plain stretched out before me, rose
A slope. Where sparks teemed in the stillness- flung
Wonder into a gaping sky- then music soared
Passion and tenderness, eagerness, loveliness
For You came gladly singing, Morning Star.
Beginning and end for me- You, never begun nor ended.
Your promise brightens on the clouded rim
Of earth- dawn sweeps horizons, and I gaze
At that white creeping radiance- a glow
Lights up my farthest sight- the whole world lifts.
It turns its head to catch the throb of drums
And pulsates as the sunrise, thundering
Rolls crashing past the black-edged wall of hills
And over greyish fields- the promise holds-
Eternal, Morning comes.
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