Keith did not have to go into work today until later on in the morning, so I got up with him and made him a breakfast of a fried egg sandwich before sending him off to yet more classes. Yesterday he had an entire day of them.
I have been reading more of Amy Carmichael; she is astonishing. She puts Scripture together in unexpected and beautiful ways.
In one of the chapters, she quoted this passage:
"May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it."
-I Thessalonians: 5:23-24
I've read this passage before, of course, but you know what I was really hearing, as I read it?
This:
"Maybe the God of peace Himself may sanctify you completely (if you add your strength to His) and maybe your whole spirit, soul, and body may be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful (if you are faithful), who also will do it (if you obey completely.)
So, I was sitting there, reading Carmichael's devotional, reading that whole passage wrong and not even realizing it, and she goes on to write this:
"He will do all that I long to do, and cannot. Faithful is He: He will do it!"
And for the first time, the full meaning of that passage sank into me. It was blinding; it was like having a dirty, flimsy curtain be pulled aside. It filled me with joy unspeakable.
This is why we can be close to Him without shame; this is why we can shout for joy in the secret places of His tabernacle and lie down to sleep in His arms. The God of peace Himself sanctifies us through and through.
It's not a maybe; He will do it.
We can lean ourselves, with joy, into this promise- as though we are leaning into His arms, against His loving heart. Wherever we go then, we never leave His arms.
At the very end of the book, Carmichael writes this:
"He who begins, finishes. He who leads us on, follows behind to deal in love with our poor attempts... He gathers up the things that we have dropped- our fallen resolutions, our mistakes... He makes His blessed pardon to flow over our sins till they are utterly washed away. And He turns to fight the Enemy, who would pursue after us, to destroy us from behind.
"He is first, and He is last!
"And we are gathered up between, as in great arms of eternal lovingkindness.
"As we travel on to another day, another month, or another year, we need never fear!"
-Amy Carmichael, I Come Quietly to Meet You, ch. 40
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
February 28th
I heard back from my friend about Torii, which is always so exciting. She used adjectives like "enchanting, foreboding, heart moving, engrossing and hopeful."
Also, she indicated that the mixture of dark and light, humor and tragedy work, with the over all feeling being one of light.
That is relieving to know.
As usual, my descriptions are word dense and there are a lot of loose ends I need to tie up, but at a certain point, she got too engrossed in the story to continue writing down her comments, so that's good feedback in and of itself!
Also, she requested the second half as soon as possible. I've been working on that last night and this morning and sent off what is there so far.
Now I'm going to go back into the rewriting/writing process and see if I can't capture a few of the scenes that have been eluding me. Maybe I can finally write the end.
Also, I found this verse this morning, which I have to share, because it is so beautiful:
"Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of Your presence, Lord. They rejoice all day long in Your wonderful reputation."
-Psalm 89:15-16
Also, she indicated that the mixture of dark and light, humor and tragedy work, with the over all feeling being one of light.
That is relieving to know.
As usual, my descriptions are word dense and there are a lot of loose ends I need to tie up, but at a certain point, she got too engrossed in the story to continue writing down her comments, so that's good feedback in and of itself!
Also, she requested the second half as soon as possible. I've been working on that last night and this morning and sent off what is there so far.
Now I'm going to go back into the rewriting/writing process and see if I can't capture a few of the scenes that have been eluding me. Maybe I can finally write the end.
Also, I found this verse this morning, which I have to share, because it is so beautiful:
"Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of Your presence, Lord. They rejoice all day long in Your wonderful reputation."
-Psalm 89:15-16
Monday, February 27, 2012
February 27th
Last night I was reading Thornyhold, by Mary Stewart, and I read this line at the end of one of the chapters:
"God bless your sleep. Perhaps if I forget the other long-past nightmares, and realized the good things of my childhood and what I had been taught, He would."
I paused there and considered. Keith was fast asleep beside me, Lynn was curled up beside the bed and Abby was at my feet. The whole house was quiet.
In the quietness, I thought about how God has woven rhythm and growth into every part of His work- the seasons, night and day, life and death, and growth itself.
It struck me how important that must be to Him, if He is displaying it everywhere we turn, in everything great and small. What is it that He wants us to learn from that, I wondered. What was that meant to cause, to illustrate?
I thought, it must be necessary for the growth of our spirit- all that natural change that comes on us either suddenly and throws us all out of joint, or sneaks up on us all unaware and one day we wake up and realize we aren't the same person we used to be.
Then I wondered, could it possibly reflect His own nature? But then I chided myself.
"But You never change," I reminded Him. "You are the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow."
And He reminded me of this:
"For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."
-Hebrews 2:10 KJV
Even Jesus was perfected by suffering! That extraordinary fact hit me all over again, that incredible event around which all of human history turns.
In fact, Jesus experienced birth, and growth and loss and death. He passed through all the stages of human life that are so beautifully illustrated by the world all around us. It's His story as well.
The thought of His suffering sunk deeply into me, as I lay so quiet on the bed, the book forgotten, but still held upright in my hands.
It's over now, Jesus said to me tenderly, releasing me from the stillness of sorrow.
"Finished!" I cried with relieved joy. "And never again!"
Then another thought struck me. I had to work through the thought very slowly and cautiously. "But it could never have been just the physical suffering that You dreaded so much, as excruciating as that was," I said to Him, slowly. "That could not have been the worst thing."
As this thought grew in my mind, I felt the atmosphere around me change; it was as though the air around me took on weight; it was as though the air turned heavy and golden and hushed. I had the distinct impression that Jesus was bending closely over me and listening intently- even though, of course, He knew my thought before I spoke it.
Even know He knows our thoughts before we speak them, He still likes to hear us speak. Isn't that interesting about God? He likes it when we talk to Him. He loves any gift of ourselves that we freely offer up to Him, because He loves us.
"The worst thing must have been the separation from the Father," I said at last, almost reluctant to speak it at all.
Without words, Jesus poured into me an acknowledgement of that being true but also, a second agony- the agony of being opened up to and taking on Himself all of our brokenness and suffering and sins and misery.
This understanding swept through me, leaving me speachless. After a little while, the atmosphere changed- it grew lighter and I realized I was still holding the book upright on my chest.
I couldn't read any more. I turned out the lamp and settled in.
In the morning, I read this:
"I am overcome with joy because of Your unfailing love, for You have seen my troubles, and You care about the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set me in a safe place."
-Psalm 31:7-8 NLT
"God bless your sleep. Perhaps if I forget the other long-past nightmares, and realized the good things of my childhood and what I had been taught, He would."
I paused there and considered. Keith was fast asleep beside me, Lynn was curled up beside the bed and Abby was at my feet. The whole house was quiet.
In the quietness, I thought about how God has woven rhythm and growth into every part of His work- the seasons, night and day, life and death, and growth itself.
It struck me how important that must be to Him, if He is displaying it everywhere we turn, in everything great and small. What is it that He wants us to learn from that, I wondered. What was that meant to cause, to illustrate?
I thought, it must be necessary for the growth of our spirit- all that natural change that comes on us either suddenly and throws us all out of joint, or sneaks up on us all unaware and one day we wake up and realize we aren't the same person we used to be.
Then I wondered, could it possibly reflect His own nature? But then I chided myself.
"But You never change," I reminded Him. "You are the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow."
And He reminded me of this:
"For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."
-Hebrews 2:10 KJV
Even Jesus was perfected by suffering! That extraordinary fact hit me all over again, that incredible event around which all of human history turns.
In fact, Jesus experienced birth, and growth and loss and death. He passed through all the stages of human life that are so beautifully illustrated by the world all around us. It's His story as well.
The thought of His suffering sunk deeply into me, as I lay so quiet on the bed, the book forgotten, but still held upright in my hands.
It's over now, Jesus said to me tenderly, releasing me from the stillness of sorrow.
"Finished!" I cried with relieved joy. "And never again!"
Then another thought struck me. I had to work through the thought very slowly and cautiously. "But it could never have been just the physical suffering that You dreaded so much, as excruciating as that was," I said to Him, slowly. "That could not have been the worst thing."
As this thought grew in my mind, I felt the atmosphere around me change; it was as though the air around me took on weight; it was as though the air turned heavy and golden and hushed. I had the distinct impression that Jesus was bending closely over me and listening intently- even though, of course, He knew my thought before I spoke it.
Even know He knows our thoughts before we speak them, He still likes to hear us speak. Isn't that interesting about God? He likes it when we talk to Him. He loves any gift of ourselves that we freely offer up to Him, because He loves us.
"The worst thing must have been the separation from the Father," I said at last, almost reluctant to speak it at all.
Without words, Jesus poured into me an acknowledgement of that being true but also, a second agony- the agony of being opened up to and taking on Himself all of our brokenness and suffering and sins and misery.
This understanding swept through me, leaving me speachless. After a little while, the atmosphere changed- it grew lighter and I realized I was still holding the book upright on my chest.
I couldn't read any more. I turned out the lamp and settled in.
In the morning, I read this:
"I am overcome with joy because of Your unfailing love, for You have seen my troubles, and You care about the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set me in a safe place."
-Psalm 31:7-8 NLT
Sunday, February 26, 2012
February 26th
The following is why I purchased the book by Carmichael. It is very good:
"Doesn't this tell us something about the love of God- and isn't it just like Him to let us know that He wants us to lean on, not only His lovingkindness, but on His very self? Consider these words, which will further open your understanding:
Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples whom Jesus loved. (John 13:23, KJV)
Whoso leaneth on the Lord, happy is he. (Proverbs 16:20, KJV)
He is indeed happy with us!
Now see what happens when we lean on Him:
Cause me to hear... for on Thee do I lean. (Psalm 143:8, KJV)
It was when John was leaning that he heard the Lord's answer to the question that troubled the others.
And this wonderful promise, so often repeated:
What time I am afraid, I will lean on Thee. (Psalm 56:3, KJV)
I will lean, and not be afraid. (Isaiah 12:2)
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace... because he leans on Thee... Lean on the Lord forever: for the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. (Isaiah 26:3,4 KJV)
It is marvelous to me that God's Spirit led the writers of these words to the same special verb, to lean. By one simple word, He means to show us so clearly that it is never anything in us that accounts for the Lord's goodness to us. Everything we are given is all from Him.
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart leans on Him and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise Him! (Psalm 28:7)
May the Lord of love make this word of His to be "like a firm grasp of the hand" to you today."
-Amy Carmichael, I Come Quietly to Meet You
"Doesn't this tell us something about the love of God- and isn't it just like Him to let us know that He wants us to lean on, not only His lovingkindness, but on His very self? Consider these words, which will further open your understanding:
Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples whom Jesus loved. (John 13:23, KJV)
Whoso leaneth on the Lord, happy is he. (Proverbs 16:20, KJV)
He is indeed happy with us!
Now see what happens when we lean on Him:
Cause me to hear... for on Thee do I lean. (Psalm 143:8, KJV)
It was when John was leaning that he heard the Lord's answer to the question that troubled the others.
And this wonderful promise, so often repeated:
What time I am afraid, I will lean on Thee. (Psalm 56:3, KJV)
I will lean, and not be afraid. (Isaiah 12:2)
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace... because he leans on Thee... Lean on the Lord forever: for the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. (Isaiah 26:3,4 KJV)
It is marvelous to me that God's Spirit led the writers of these words to the same special verb, to lean. By one simple word, He means to show us so clearly that it is never anything in us that accounts for the Lord's goodness to us. Everything we are given is all from Him.
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart leans on Him and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise Him! (Psalm 28:7)
May the Lord of love make this word of His to be "like a firm grasp of the hand" to you today."
-Amy Carmichael, I Come Quietly to Meet You
Saturday, February 25, 2012
February 25th
Keith has headed off to visit the Bass Pro Shop with a friend and fellow soldier. I told him we needed no more decorative ceramic, camo-cap wearing, black Lab beer bottle holders, which is what he came home with the last time he went to that particular establishment without me.
He was in processing most of this week and as the week went by, his excitement mounted. So far, he loves his new job. Everything is brand new and well thought out and well put together.
However, he can't even meet his soldiers until he's completed his classes, because he can't know anything about their medical case histories. Instead of a tanker patch on his shoulder, he wears a medic patch.
The army is sending him to Texas sometime next month for two weeks of class- they'll pay for his airplane tickets, food and hotel room.
We've decided to send in our application to the adoption home study program when he completes his training. Our plans on adoption changed yet again recently, when we learned that the wait time to be matched with two Colombian siblings aged 0 to 5 years, even after one's dossier is received in Columbia, is three years.
And that's not even counting the six month or longer period of trying to get the paperwork together for the dossier. So we had to give that plan up as well, like many, many other adoption plans over the last two years or so.
That brought up a great deal of pain and frustration for me- the pain and frustration of the entire process. This is clearly why Jesus cautioned me to take the whole process one step at a time- it's a crooked path and who knows where the next direction goes.
So now we are back on domestic infant adoption, which means that after the home study is completed, we'll put together a "get to know all about us" photo-book for interested birth mothers.
I dread this entire process; I try not to think about it. That's best anyway, because that's several steps ahead. The thing which I cannot imagine doing now, is what the future me will be better equipped for.
A book I ordered arrived yesterday, called: I Come Quietly to Meet You: an Intimate Journey in God's Presence, by Amy Carmichael.
Some of it is very good, but then I read the section where she talks about being God's Nazirite- someone who gives up the pleasures of the world in order to have more of God, to be belong more intimately to God.
Hearing this set off all kinds of warning bells in my head. I grew up hearing this sort of message, over and over again.
On one hand, I empathized with her, simply because I don't enjoy most of the bright and flashing pleasures of life that are so captivating to the general public, but I have no illusions about that making me a "special" or more Godly person- all that it means is that I am by nature an introvert.
It's no merit to me to live out my own nature. That requires no self discipline, and it would be silly to think that introverts somehow have a "leg up" on extroverts when it comes to meeting with God. He created them both- they obviously must both reflect Him.
Personality aside, abstinence from pleasure also does not, in itself, assist one to meet with God either, in my experience. In fact, in the past, the more I attempted to give up this or that- that music, that object, that desire- in order to gain more of God, not only did I fail miserably, but I felt distant from Him, dry and desperate.
You know what I've noticed, as I've read about other people's experience of God?
They are all different.
Why don't we talk about this more, I wonder? Why didn't I grow up learning that the way C.S. Lewis understood God and the way Henry Nouwen understood God and the way Amy Carmichael understood God are all different?
Clearly, they all knew God and have been used and loved by God. That's undeniable. Equally undeniable is that they all, to some degree or another, understood God differently and followed different paths in expressing their life in God.
It might have saved me a great deal of frustration, as I first read this person and then read that person, and then attempted to mold myself to that person's example, with obviously poor results.
It is clear that God uses imperfect people who understand Him imperfectly. If perfect doctrine were a requirement to know and be used by God, we would all fail the test.
I think now that we are asked to be in relationship, not to have the right answers. Or, to put it another way, the relationship is the answer.
That is what worried me, when I read about giving up this or that pleasure, in order to have more of God. It's not that I'm clinging to any particular pleasure, glaring at Jesus and daring Him to come and take it away from me, if He dares.
It's just that I've tried that before, and it didn't work for me. It took me backwards.
But I'll bet it's right for someone else, at some other point in their walk with Him. And we can get caught up in the cares and worries and pleasures of this life, and be distracted and hedged in by them.
But maybe the answer is not so much trying to weed whack as it is to simply look up.
Lately, I have experienced intimacy with God unlike anything I ever had before, or even guessed was possible. This did not happen because I gave up anything before hand- I know, because I hadn't given up anything.
I had not "prepared" myself in any way to meet with Him. I had the desire and I followed my desire and He met me as I was.
Eventually, my appetite for certain things died away, but that wasn't in order to have more of Jesus- it was because I already had Him. Or He had me.
He was in processing most of this week and as the week went by, his excitement mounted. So far, he loves his new job. Everything is brand new and well thought out and well put together.
However, he can't even meet his soldiers until he's completed his classes, because he can't know anything about their medical case histories. Instead of a tanker patch on his shoulder, he wears a medic patch.
The army is sending him to Texas sometime next month for two weeks of class- they'll pay for his airplane tickets, food and hotel room.
We've decided to send in our application to the adoption home study program when he completes his training. Our plans on adoption changed yet again recently, when we learned that the wait time to be matched with two Colombian siblings aged 0 to 5 years, even after one's dossier is received in Columbia, is three years.
And that's not even counting the six month or longer period of trying to get the paperwork together for the dossier. So we had to give that plan up as well, like many, many other adoption plans over the last two years or so.
That brought up a great deal of pain and frustration for me- the pain and frustration of the entire process. This is clearly why Jesus cautioned me to take the whole process one step at a time- it's a crooked path and who knows where the next direction goes.
So now we are back on domestic infant adoption, which means that after the home study is completed, we'll put together a "get to know all about us" photo-book for interested birth mothers.
I dread this entire process; I try not to think about it. That's best anyway, because that's several steps ahead. The thing which I cannot imagine doing now, is what the future me will be better equipped for.
A book I ordered arrived yesterday, called: I Come Quietly to Meet You: an Intimate Journey in God's Presence, by Amy Carmichael.
Some of it is very good, but then I read the section where she talks about being God's Nazirite- someone who gives up the pleasures of the world in order to have more of God, to be belong more intimately to God.
Hearing this set off all kinds of warning bells in my head. I grew up hearing this sort of message, over and over again.
On one hand, I empathized with her, simply because I don't enjoy most of the bright and flashing pleasures of life that are so captivating to the general public, but I have no illusions about that making me a "special" or more Godly person- all that it means is that I am by nature an introvert.
It's no merit to me to live out my own nature. That requires no self discipline, and it would be silly to think that introverts somehow have a "leg up" on extroverts when it comes to meeting with God. He created them both- they obviously must both reflect Him.
Personality aside, abstinence from pleasure also does not, in itself, assist one to meet with God either, in my experience. In fact, in the past, the more I attempted to give up this or that- that music, that object, that desire- in order to gain more of God, not only did I fail miserably, but I felt distant from Him, dry and desperate.
You know what I've noticed, as I've read about other people's experience of God?
They are all different.
Why don't we talk about this more, I wonder? Why didn't I grow up learning that the way C.S. Lewis understood God and the way Henry Nouwen understood God and the way Amy Carmichael understood God are all different?
Clearly, they all knew God and have been used and loved by God. That's undeniable. Equally undeniable is that they all, to some degree or another, understood God differently and followed different paths in expressing their life in God.
It might have saved me a great deal of frustration, as I first read this person and then read that person, and then attempted to mold myself to that person's example, with obviously poor results.
It is clear that God uses imperfect people who understand Him imperfectly. If perfect doctrine were a requirement to know and be used by God, we would all fail the test.
I think now that we are asked to be in relationship, not to have the right answers. Or, to put it another way, the relationship is the answer.
That is what worried me, when I read about giving up this or that pleasure, in order to have more of God. It's not that I'm clinging to any particular pleasure, glaring at Jesus and daring Him to come and take it away from me, if He dares.
It's just that I've tried that before, and it didn't work for me. It took me backwards.
But I'll bet it's right for someone else, at some other point in their walk with Him. And we can get caught up in the cares and worries and pleasures of this life, and be distracted and hedged in by them.
But maybe the answer is not so much trying to weed whack as it is to simply look up.
Lately, I have experienced intimacy with God unlike anything I ever had before, or even guessed was possible. This did not happen because I gave up anything before hand- I know, because I hadn't given up anything.
I had not "prepared" myself in any way to meet with Him. I had the desire and I followed my desire and He met me as I was.
Eventually, my appetite for certain things died away, but that wasn't in order to have more of Jesus- it was because I already had Him. Or He had me.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
February 23rd
Keith and I have been leaving the heat off in the nights and so have piled a couple more blankets on the bed, which, at some point in the night, become all tangled.
In the mornings, I wake up in the middle of the bed, blankets slipping off the edges like heavy loops of warm frosting off the side of a cake.
It was mild and damp outside this morning, and cloudy again, soft scallops of pearl, blue and grey that washed across the sky.
Abby sat down at the side of the pool in quiet dignity and stared off into the middle distance while Lynn tiptoed along the fence, nose down, inspecting the front lines for signs of intruders.
I saw this, when I sat down at the computer:
"How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in Him should ponder them. Everything He does reveals His glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails." (Psalm 111:2-3)
Last night, I was thinking about the pleasure of having a story with God, a story that has no end.
We are His living stories; we ourselves are some of the most amazing of His deeds. In a way, we worship God just by existing- our new life in Him is a living testament to His glory and grace.
The story God has with you, He has with no one else. The way in which you are with Him- the voice with which you talk to Him- is unlike any one else's. If you were missing in the crowd, He would go to search you out. He would not be satisfied until He had found you.
The very heart of God stands wide open to us. It is an open door. We can have as much of God as we dare to believe possible.
It is like waking up from some cloudy, dreary dream- to look up and see that God is not distant, He is not frowning, He is not unobtainable.
I keep thinking of this quote by Rohr: "God comes to us disguised as our life."
He is in the very moment and place where we are living. That's where we find Him- tenderly bound up with our own life, from the inside out.
In the mornings, I wake up in the middle of the bed, blankets slipping off the edges like heavy loops of warm frosting off the side of a cake.
It was mild and damp outside this morning, and cloudy again, soft scallops of pearl, blue and grey that washed across the sky.
Abby sat down at the side of the pool in quiet dignity and stared off into the middle distance while Lynn tiptoed along the fence, nose down, inspecting the front lines for signs of intruders.
I saw this, when I sat down at the computer:
"How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in Him should ponder them. Everything He does reveals His glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails." (Psalm 111:2-3)
Last night, I was thinking about the pleasure of having a story with God, a story that has no end.
We are His living stories; we ourselves are some of the most amazing of His deeds. In a way, we worship God just by existing- our new life in Him is a living testament to His glory and grace.
The story God has with you, He has with no one else. The way in which you are with Him- the voice with which you talk to Him- is unlike any one else's. If you were missing in the crowd, He would go to search you out. He would not be satisfied until He had found you.
The very heart of God stands wide open to us. It is an open door. We can have as much of God as we dare to believe possible.
It is like waking up from some cloudy, dreary dream- to look up and see that God is not distant, He is not frowning, He is not unobtainable.
I keep thinking of this quote by Rohr: "God comes to us disguised as our life."
He is in the very moment and place where we are living. That's where we find Him- tenderly bound up with our own life, from the inside out.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
February 21st
It feels like a Monday after a very busy, messy seven day weekend.
Since the Army is processing Keith's job change like a move, he was given all this time to "clear post" which normally means running around turning things in and getting paperwork signed.
But since we aren't actually moving, there was really nothing to be done except drive gas powered trucks and have people over to visit. In fact, we had visits back to back, which was like walking the gauntlet for this introvert.
I made it through, by the skin of my teeth, and now it is Wednesday and grey and cloudy, but the bushes in front of the house have put out fresh green shoots and the weeds are flourishing along the fence line.
I learned something, in the past week or so. I can't share it all at once, so I will share it in pieces.
Lately I've been working on Torii, and doing so takes a lot of my concentration. At the end of one day, I got up from the computer with this hunger to spend some time with God.
That night I went to bed early, thinking maybe I would read for a while, but I couldn't manage to keep my concentration on the book. I simply turned out the lamp and gave in to this feeling, this desire to be with God.
I called out to Him by His names. There is something very powerful and also very pleasurable about calling on the name of God.
He has such beautiful names anyway: the Lion of Judah, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the root and branch of David, the Bright and Morning Star. It's like poetry just to say them.
He was there before I had even called out to Him. In fact, I suspect that I was longing for Him because He was first calling to me.
I was gathered up close to Him and worshiping Him was like breathing. Or, it was like my spirit was caught up by breakers, swept up into the bright spray and then pulled down in the clear and sounding depths and then swept up again.
But that is just a metaphor. Yesterday, I was thinking about the worship of God, and how intimate it is, and I remembered, with a kind of shock, the way I used to think about worship. That is, going to church and worshiping God for thirty minutes in a room, in a group setting and by direction.
I was struck by how strange that concept seems to me now.
It's like if a married couple decided to be intimate, instead of becoming intimate, they got in their car and drove to another building and met with a group, and stood and sang songs about how great being intimate is, and then all sat and heard a lecture on how to become better at being intimate and then got in their car and drove home feeling satisfied that they'd been intimate.
There were times, even recently, when I worshiped and met with God in a church service, but gosh! How much more there is to be found.
And it doesn't have to have anything to do with one's emotional state. I am an intensely emotional person, and God stirs my emotions very deeply, but that is not necessarily worship.
It's something about recognition, I think. I think it has to do with the recognition of God and of oneself in relation to God. And because we are all unique, and we all meet with God as individuals, our worship of Him is an intimate and unique thing.
It is as though we turn to Him. In order to do that, we must be able to lift our face to Him, which is difficult to do if we haven't learned who we truly are.
Richard Rohr, in Hidden Things wrote:
"It seems that this Yahweh who is uncovering and showing Himself in the Bible desires not just images and ideas, but even persons with whom God can be in very concrete and intimate relationship. God is creating, quite literally, some friends for Himself!
"...Yet God does not settle for mandated or fear-based relationships, but rather desires willing and free relationships with "friends" (John 15:15) It is called a "new covenant" (Jeremiah 31:31; Luke 22:20), but one that is still a quite new and unbelievable possibility for most people.
"C.S. Lewis's last work of fiction was a book called Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. In this reinterpretation of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, he illustrated how hard it is for God to give us a "face," to create a partner for conscious relationship. God has to play Cupid to our Psyche, it seems."
This isn't a relationship reserved for the "special" few- it's an identity that belongs to every one of us. We are all the beloved of God. He is calling to every one of us.
But if we believe that we don't deserve or aren't ready for intimacy with God, then it is very likely that we won't experience it, or will experience it only brokenly.
I'm beginning to understand that we must first believe we can look God in the face before we can see Him face to face.
Since the Army is processing Keith's job change like a move, he was given all this time to "clear post" which normally means running around turning things in and getting paperwork signed.
But since we aren't actually moving, there was really nothing to be done except drive gas powered trucks and have people over to visit. In fact, we had visits back to back, which was like walking the gauntlet for this introvert.
I made it through, by the skin of my teeth, and now it is Wednesday and grey and cloudy, but the bushes in front of the house have put out fresh green shoots and the weeds are flourishing along the fence line.
I learned something, in the past week or so. I can't share it all at once, so I will share it in pieces.
Lately I've been working on Torii, and doing so takes a lot of my concentration. At the end of one day, I got up from the computer with this hunger to spend some time with God.
That night I went to bed early, thinking maybe I would read for a while, but I couldn't manage to keep my concentration on the book. I simply turned out the lamp and gave in to this feeling, this desire to be with God.
I called out to Him by His names. There is something very powerful and also very pleasurable about calling on the name of God.
He has such beautiful names anyway: the Lion of Judah, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the root and branch of David, the Bright and Morning Star. It's like poetry just to say them.
He was there before I had even called out to Him. In fact, I suspect that I was longing for Him because He was first calling to me.
I was gathered up close to Him and worshiping Him was like breathing. Or, it was like my spirit was caught up by breakers, swept up into the bright spray and then pulled down in the clear and sounding depths and then swept up again.
But that is just a metaphor. Yesterday, I was thinking about the worship of God, and how intimate it is, and I remembered, with a kind of shock, the way I used to think about worship. That is, going to church and worshiping God for thirty minutes in a room, in a group setting and by direction.
I was struck by how strange that concept seems to me now.
It's like if a married couple decided to be intimate, instead of becoming intimate, they got in their car and drove to another building and met with a group, and stood and sang songs about how great being intimate is, and then all sat and heard a lecture on how to become better at being intimate and then got in their car and drove home feeling satisfied that they'd been intimate.
There were times, even recently, when I worshiped and met with God in a church service, but gosh! How much more there is to be found.
And it doesn't have to have anything to do with one's emotional state. I am an intensely emotional person, and God stirs my emotions very deeply, but that is not necessarily worship.
It's something about recognition, I think. I think it has to do with the recognition of God and of oneself in relation to God. And because we are all unique, and we all meet with God as individuals, our worship of Him is an intimate and unique thing.
It is as though we turn to Him. In order to do that, we must be able to lift our face to Him, which is difficult to do if we haven't learned who we truly are.
Richard Rohr, in Hidden Things wrote:
"It seems that this Yahweh who is uncovering and showing Himself in the Bible desires not just images and ideas, but even persons with whom God can be in very concrete and intimate relationship. God is creating, quite literally, some friends for Himself!
"...Yet God does not settle for mandated or fear-based relationships, but rather desires willing and free relationships with "friends" (John 15:15) It is called a "new covenant" (Jeremiah 31:31; Luke 22:20), but one that is still a quite new and unbelievable possibility for most people.
"C.S. Lewis's last work of fiction was a book called Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. In this reinterpretation of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, he illustrated how hard it is for God to give us a "face," to create a partner for conscious relationship. God has to play Cupid to our Psyche, it seems."
This isn't a relationship reserved for the "special" few- it's an identity that belongs to every one of us. We are all the beloved of God. He is calling to every one of us.
But if we believe that we don't deserve or aren't ready for intimacy with God, then it is very likely that we won't experience it, or will experience it only brokenly.
I'm beginning to understand that we must first believe we can look God in the face before we can see Him face to face.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
February 18th
Keith has been home since Tuesday, as he is in transition between his old job and his new, so I have not had much time or quiet to blog.
I keep trying, but I can't pull my thoughts together quite right when my boisterous, affectionate and big booted husband is home.
So, I thought I'd share a couple quotes I've been hoarding up, and enjoying.
Here's one I found on facebook, just today:
Lord,
you want me to learn from you
gentleness of heart.
No matter how I fail you,
your gentleness never fails me.
You are slow to anger;
your kindness is without limit.
You tell me not to be distressed,
to make your gentleness my own
so that my soul may find rest.
Give me the wisdom to make time in my day
for a gentle nursing of my soul.
Free me from arrogance,
from goals too sublime for me.
Still and quiet my soul
as a mother quiets the little ones on her lap.
Free me from the need for achievement.
Make my life less forceful, more gentle,
centered in you alone.
Let the splendor of your presence
light up my everydayness.
Make me a smooth channel for the outflow
of your Divine Will in this world.
-Father Adrian Von Kaam 1920-2007
And one from C.S. Lewis, which I have only recently come to understand:
To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God – drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”
-C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
I keep trying, but I can't pull my thoughts together quite right when my boisterous, affectionate and big booted husband is home.
So, I thought I'd share a couple quotes I've been hoarding up, and enjoying.
Here's one I found on facebook, just today:
Lord,
you want me to learn from you
gentleness of heart.
No matter how I fail you,
your gentleness never fails me.
You are slow to anger;
your kindness is without limit.
You tell me not to be distressed,
to make your gentleness my own
so that my soul may find rest.
Give me the wisdom to make time in my day
for a gentle nursing of my soul.
Free me from arrogance,
from goals too sublime for me.
Still and quiet my soul
as a mother quiets the little ones on her lap.
Free me from the need for achievement.
Make my life less forceful, more gentle,
centered in you alone.
Let the splendor of your presence
light up my everydayness.
Make me a smooth channel for the outflow
of your Divine Will in this world.
-Father Adrian Von Kaam 1920-2007
And one from C.S. Lewis, which I have only recently come to understand:
To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God – drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”
-C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
February 14th
"Will you be my Valentine?" Keith asked me last night. He was putting on his oh-so-innocent face, but his twinkling eyes gave him away.
"Always," I said. "I'll always be your Valentine."
"Even back then, all those years before we met, we were each other's Valentines," he said, just then thinking of it.
"Damn it, woman," he said, much later, after looking at his watch. "What's the point of going to bed early if all we do is stay up for hours? I have to get some sleep!"
This morning, I stood at the front window and looked out at the rain soaked front lawn. When I stepped closer to the window, I saw that the clouds had formed one of those lovely, jagged gaps through which the rising sun was pouring out white and gold glory, with a glimpse of blue sky behind.
It was as though my God were standing beside me, watching the sky with me. He spoke quietly to me.
See how the clouds only enhance the light? He asked.
"They do," I breathed in wonder.
I thought of how all the hard things, the pain and the suffering, only become a foil for greater glory; I thought of how they are all transformed.
I thought of that quote:
"In my deepest wound I saw Your glory, and it dazzled me." -St. Augustine
I've been thinking about this somewhat more than usual, because I have taken up writing Torii again. I have almost completely finished the first half, and sent it off to my editor friend to read, which is very exciting.
I was able to resolve several pressing plot questions and further streamline the story, so it stays true to its main point.
Now I am on to the second half of the story. Yesterday, I wrote two scenes that I hadn't been able to capture before and am well on my way toward the end, which I haven't written either.
I'm still not sure how it will end, but I have a feeling that I'll know when I get there.
"Always," I said. "I'll always be your Valentine."
"Even back then, all those years before we met, we were each other's Valentines," he said, just then thinking of it.
"Damn it, woman," he said, much later, after looking at his watch. "What's the point of going to bed early if all we do is stay up for hours? I have to get some sleep!"
This morning, I stood at the front window and looked out at the rain soaked front lawn. When I stepped closer to the window, I saw that the clouds had formed one of those lovely, jagged gaps through which the rising sun was pouring out white and gold glory, with a glimpse of blue sky behind.
It was as though my God were standing beside me, watching the sky with me. He spoke quietly to me.
See how the clouds only enhance the light? He asked.
"They do," I breathed in wonder.
I thought of how all the hard things, the pain and the suffering, only become a foil for greater glory; I thought of how they are all transformed.
I thought of that quote:
"In my deepest wound I saw Your glory, and it dazzled me." -St. Augustine
I've been thinking about this somewhat more than usual, because I have taken up writing Torii again. I have almost completely finished the first half, and sent it off to my editor friend to read, which is very exciting.
I was able to resolve several pressing plot questions and further streamline the story, so it stays true to its main point.
Now I am on to the second half of the story. Yesterday, I wrote two scenes that I hadn't been able to capture before and am well on my way toward the end, which I haven't written either.
I'm still not sure how it will end, but I have a feeling that I'll know when I get there.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
February 12th
When I read my own story, I so often wish I had better lines than my own.
Why couldn't I have said something more worshipful or adoring than "You are still here"?
Sigh.
I read these lines in the 139th Psalm:
"You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it."
-Psalm 139:5-6
I thought, "Ah ha! Even David had to give up wondering on the mystery of it. It was too much, even for him."
I came across the words of a hymn as I was reading Waters on a Starry Night:
"When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, may Jesus Christ be praised!"
As usual, it gave me a start to see His name somewhere I hadn't expected; I felt a rush of secret pleasure. I know Him, I think to myself, with glee.
To the character in that book, Jesus was not personal. He was like a symbol: a cross and an empty tomb at Easter, and a star and a manger at Christmas.
Often, the first line of the hymn "My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine," is in my head. It just kind of lingers there; it has for weeks and weeks.
Two nights ago, I was resting in Him and meditating with pleasure on that phrase, yet again, and He interrupted me.
You are Mine, He said firmly. It is you that are Mine. I am the One that has you.
Over and over, He impressed this on me. I had to kind of catch my balance a little bit, and then I completely acknowledged it.
"I am entirely Yours," I told Him. "I have no good thing but You- my goodness is nothing apart from You. Whom have I in Heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth but You."
(I like those lines from the psalms.)
The only reason why He is mine, is because I was created to be His. I can't help but notice that He has been teaching me this lately. It makes me wonder why.
But I think it partly explains why His desire is toward us- because we are first and foremost His possession, His portion, His thought, His expression, His own work.
"You are my God," I told Him one night, very earnestly and solemnly. "I have no other god but You."
And you are My girl, He replied immediately, with loving humor.
"I am my own person," I read in someone's blog and it was as though I had never heard the words before.
I can't say that anymore; I think it's only an illusion and a lonely one at that.
Or maybe it's just a stage of life that we walk through, to some degree or other- a line of thinking that we must learn in order to discard for something better and far more true.
Maybe, because we must first learn to possess ourselves before we can completely give ourselves away. This may especially be true for those of us who have been abused and had no healthy sense of self to begin with.
It makes me of something I read in Hidden Things:
"At any one moment in our lives we usually seek out a constituting other, a person, to serve as a kind of foil for our own identity. We find our identity through our relationship with another. They mirror this or that, and we either accept it or reject it...
"The genius of the first commandment was that by putting "one God before you," you were placed inside of one coherent world, with one center, one pattern, one realm of meaning. If you will allow me to use psychological language related to what we call salvation, let me put it this way: Having One who affirms us is a very good start for our ego structure and our growth as persons. God, for the believer, becomes the Ultimate Constituting Other...
"Without a significant other who is also The Significant Other, we are burdened with being our own center and circumference. That's pretty impossible, and futile if you try."
-Richard Rohr
Or, as C.S. Lewis puts it, and ever so much more beautifully:
"Each breath I drew let into me new terror, joy, overpowering sweetness. I was pierced through and through with the arrows of it. I was being unmade. I was no one. But that's little to say; rather, Psyche herself was, in a manner, no one. I loved her as I would once have thought it impossible to love, would have died any death for her. And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted, (and oh, gloriously she did) it was for another's sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and the only beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed with his approach. I cast down my eyes."
-Till We Have Faces
Why couldn't I have said something more worshipful or adoring than "You are still here"?
Sigh.
I read these lines in the 139th Psalm:
"You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it."
-Psalm 139:5-6
I thought, "Ah ha! Even David had to give up wondering on the mystery of it. It was too much, even for him."
I came across the words of a hymn as I was reading Waters on a Starry Night:
"When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, may Jesus Christ be praised!"
As usual, it gave me a start to see His name somewhere I hadn't expected; I felt a rush of secret pleasure. I know Him, I think to myself, with glee.
To the character in that book, Jesus was not personal. He was like a symbol: a cross and an empty tomb at Easter, and a star and a manger at Christmas.
Often, the first line of the hymn "My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine," is in my head. It just kind of lingers there; it has for weeks and weeks.
Two nights ago, I was resting in Him and meditating with pleasure on that phrase, yet again, and He interrupted me.
You are Mine, He said firmly. It is you that are Mine. I am the One that has you.
Over and over, He impressed this on me. I had to kind of catch my balance a little bit, and then I completely acknowledged it.
"I am entirely Yours," I told Him. "I have no good thing but You- my goodness is nothing apart from You. Whom have I in Heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth but You."
(I like those lines from the psalms.)
The only reason why He is mine, is because I was created to be His. I can't help but notice that He has been teaching me this lately. It makes me wonder why.
But I think it partly explains why His desire is toward us- because we are first and foremost His possession, His portion, His thought, His expression, His own work.
"You are my God," I told Him one night, very earnestly and solemnly. "I have no other god but You."
And you are My girl, He replied immediately, with loving humor.
"I am my own person," I read in someone's blog and it was as though I had never heard the words before.
I can't say that anymore; I think it's only an illusion and a lonely one at that.
Or maybe it's just a stage of life that we walk through, to some degree or other- a line of thinking that we must learn in order to discard for something better and far more true.
Maybe, because we must first learn to possess ourselves before we can completely give ourselves away. This may especially be true for those of us who have been abused and had no healthy sense of self to begin with.
It makes me of something I read in Hidden Things:
"At any one moment in our lives we usually seek out a constituting other, a person, to serve as a kind of foil for our own identity. We find our identity through our relationship with another. They mirror this or that, and we either accept it or reject it...
"The genius of the first commandment was that by putting "one God before you," you were placed inside of one coherent world, with one center, one pattern, one realm of meaning. If you will allow me to use psychological language related to what we call salvation, let me put it this way: Having One who affirms us is a very good start for our ego structure and our growth as persons. God, for the believer, becomes the Ultimate Constituting Other...
"Without a significant other who is also The Significant Other, we are burdened with being our own center and circumference. That's pretty impossible, and futile if you try."
-Richard Rohr
Or, as C.S. Lewis puts it, and ever so much more beautifully:
"Each breath I drew let into me new terror, joy, overpowering sweetness. I was pierced through and through with the arrows of it. I was being unmade. I was no one. But that's little to say; rather, Psyche herself was, in a manner, no one. I loved her as I would once have thought it impossible to love, would have died any death for her. And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted, (and oh, gloriously she did) it was for another's sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and the only beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed with his approach. I cast down my eyes."
-Till We Have Faces
Friday, February 10, 2012
February 10th, Later
(This is what I didn't have the courage to post, the first time around.)
Reading Till We Have Faces also stirred up all my wonder at the presence of Jesus in my life.
I spent many hours yesterday thinking back through everything that has happened and everything that He has said to me. When I wrote even a tenth of it down, it made an extraordinary story of love and faithfulness.
Richard Rohr, in Hidden Things, writes:
"In a sense, the Christ is always too much for us. He's always "going ahead of us into Galilee" (Matthew 28:7). The Risen Christ is leading us into a future for which we're never, ever, ready. Only little by little do we become capable of mutuality, of communion, of pure presence."
Jesus has been teaching me this- He's been completing a lesson He began long ago.
When I, as a young teen, was up in the tower, begging for the appropriate love of Jesus, which I knew I lacked, Jesus reversed the whole game, and poured His love out on me. My resentment, terror and guilt was transformed by sheer gift.
It sent me out into the dark, sacred night to leap with joy over the grass. No matter what happened in my life afterward, I could not unlearn that lesson.
Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I felt Jesus come up and put His arms around me and rest His head against mine. I felt, as I so often do, His loving possession of me. It is as though I am enfolded into His love.
I had to stand still, for a moment.
My wonder was almost beyond expression. Is it even humanly possible to take such things for granted, or to get used to experiencing them? The Prince of life, as Peter called Him- the very Son of God, demonstrates His love for me in such a way that I cannot avoid or deny or escape the knowledge of it.
"You are still here," I said, in a small voice.
Aren't I always here? He replied.
He always is, but there are times when I feel His love so strongly that I almost forget to breathe, and I must take a long, deep breath, and doing this settles me even more deeply into Him.
It got me thinking about mysteries, which made my head hurt.
I hold all mysteries, Jesus said firmly, His voice coming so swiftly and quietly.
Because the deep things belong to God.
All those years that I was being broken and healed, almost by the same strokes, I made myself little idols to sit in His place. I made them all in His image, because I longed for Him -I could not unlearn the lesson of His love- but I could not look Him in the face.
So I created relationships that were real and stories that I made up, characters that I imagined and men that I knew. But all they really were, were small guttering candles in a large, echoing space within me.
I didn't realize this until He Himself came, and then I realized the smallness of those symbols, how deaf and mute they were, sitting all topsy turvy in His seat. The living light of Him extinguished all those poor candles in a moment.
All it took was one true glimpse of Him, and I wrote this:
"I wanted to be in the crowd, so I could go running to Him and throw myself into His arms and I say, I see You! I see You! I belong to You! I'm Yours!"
And not only did Jesus hear this, but He actually caught me up in His arms and all the former things were no more.
But when I remembered them, I was so ashamed. It was as though I went off into a corner and threw sackcloth over my head. Jesus had to patiently coax me out, time and time again.
He had to teach me how to receive His love, because I had been programmed only to earn it.
He had to make everything new, and yet, each time I recognized the truth, it was as though, in some part of me, I had always known it.
The God of my salvation taught me very well and very patiently how to receive His love, so now I give myself over to Him. Now, when He comes, I yeild- I surrender to the knowledge that I am breathing His own breath, that my life is hidden in Him, and that He loves me beyond anything I can imagine or earn.
It's kind of like this:
"O Lord, You will give us peace, for You have done all our works for us.
O Lord our God, other lords than You have ruled us, but Your name alone is the One we honor.
They are dead, and will not live.
Their spirits will not return.
So You have punished and destroyed them.
You have caused them all to be forgotten."
-Isaiah 26:12-14
Reading Till We Have Faces also stirred up all my wonder at the presence of Jesus in my life.
I spent many hours yesterday thinking back through everything that has happened and everything that He has said to me. When I wrote even a tenth of it down, it made an extraordinary story of love and faithfulness.
Richard Rohr, in Hidden Things, writes:
"In a sense, the Christ is always too much for us. He's always "going ahead of us into Galilee" (Matthew 28:7). The Risen Christ is leading us into a future for which we're never, ever, ready. Only little by little do we become capable of mutuality, of communion, of pure presence."
Jesus has been teaching me this- He's been completing a lesson He began long ago.
When I, as a young teen, was up in the tower, begging for the appropriate love of Jesus, which I knew I lacked, Jesus reversed the whole game, and poured His love out on me. My resentment, terror and guilt was transformed by sheer gift.
It sent me out into the dark, sacred night to leap with joy over the grass. No matter what happened in my life afterward, I could not unlearn that lesson.
Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I felt Jesus come up and put His arms around me and rest His head against mine. I felt, as I so often do, His loving possession of me. It is as though I am enfolded into His love.
I had to stand still, for a moment.
My wonder was almost beyond expression. Is it even humanly possible to take such things for granted, or to get used to experiencing them? The Prince of life, as Peter called Him- the very Son of God, demonstrates His love for me in such a way that I cannot avoid or deny or escape the knowledge of it.
"You are still here," I said, in a small voice.
Aren't I always here? He replied.
He always is, but there are times when I feel His love so strongly that I almost forget to breathe, and I must take a long, deep breath, and doing this settles me even more deeply into Him.
It got me thinking about mysteries, which made my head hurt.
I hold all mysteries, Jesus said firmly, His voice coming so swiftly and quietly.
Because the deep things belong to God.
All those years that I was being broken and healed, almost by the same strokes, I made myself little idols to sit in His place. I made them all in His image, because I longed for Him -I could not unlearn the lesson of His love- but I could not look Him in the face.
So I created relationships that were real and stories that I made up, characters that I imagined and men that I knew. But all they really were, were small guttering candles in a large, echoing space within me.
I didn't realize this until He Himself came, and then I realized the smallness of those symbols, how deaf and mute they were, sitting all topsy turvy in His seat. The living light of Him extinguished all those poor candles in a moment.
All it took was one true glimpse of Him, and I wrote this:
"I wanted to be in the crowd, so I could go running to Him and throw myself into His arms and I say, I see You! I see You! I belong to You! I'm Yours!"
And not only did Jesus hear this, but He actually caught me up in His arms and all the former things were no more.
But when I remembered them, I was so ashamed. It was as though I went off into a corner and threw sackcloth over my head. Jesus had to patiently coax me out, time and time again.
He had to teach me how to receive His love, because I had been programmed only to earn it.
He had to make everything new, and yet, each time I recognized the truth, it was as though, in some part of me, I had always known it.
The God of my salvation taught me very well and very patiently how to receive His love, so now I give myself over to Him. Now, when He comes, I yeild- I surrender to the knowledge that I am breathing His own breath, that my life is hidden in Him, and that He loves me beyond anything I can imagine or earn.
It's kind of like this:
"O Lord, You will give us peace, for You have done all our works for us.
O Lord our God, other lords than You have ruled us, but Your name alone is the One we honor.
They are dead, and will not live.
Their spirits will not return.
So You have punished and destroyed them.
You have caused them all to be forgotten."
-Isaiah 26:12-14
February 10th
Well, reading C.S. Lewis caused my longing to flare up again, but I have managed to let the feeling flow out into the moment, like emptying buckets of water.
It led to some exquisitely painful moments of awareness and- if my metaphor were not a metaphor, some very soggy ground- but then the moment passed.
I receive these little "Daily Meditations" from Richard Rohr's website and yesterday, he was talking about the need to live without an answer, and without resolution. He suggested that the ability to live in the question -or the mystery- is important to spiritual growth.
That sure resonated with me. We know there is an answer, but rushing to find it ourselves may cheat us of learning something else, something possibly even more important than the question we first asked.
I was finishing up "Till We Have Faces," and came across this:
"No one will believe this who has not lived long and looked hard, so that he knows how suddenly a passion which has for years been wrapped round the whole heart will dry up and whither. Perhaps in the soul, as in the soil, those growths that show the brightest colours and put forth the most overpowering smell have not always the deepest root."
And horror filled my soul!
I thought fearfully, "My passion for Jesus is shallow! It must be, because it has a bright show! Therefore, it has no roots! It will pass away, it must. C.S. Lewis has all but said so. Oh my goodness, how will I keep Him, how can I keep Him?"
I'm making slight fun of myself here, but in the moment, it was a real fear.
You don't keep Me- I keep you, Jesus said firmly, into my whirling thoughts, and they all became still and calm.
"Right," I said, relieved and much more quietly. "That's right. I forgot that. You've kept me all this time. And my growth in You has been over almost the entire length of my life; it can't be that my roots are shallow after all that."
After that, I was able to finish the book without any further mishap. It's a great book.
Now I'm on to Waters on a Starry Night, by Elisabeth Ogilvie, which is also a great book, but in a much more undemanding way.
It led to some exquisitely painful moments of awareness and- if my metaphor were not a metaphor, some very soggy ground- but then the moment passed.
I receive these little "Daily Meditations" from Richard Rohr's website and yesterday, he was talking about the need to live without an answer, and without resolution. He suggested that the ability to live in the question -or the mystery- is important to spiritual growth.
That sure resonated with me. We know there is an answer, but rushing to find it ourselves may cheat us of learning something else, something possibly even more important than the question we first asked.
I was finishing up "Till We Have Faces," and came across this:
"No one will believe this who has not lived long and looked hard, so that he knows how suddenly a passion which has for years been wrapped round the whole heart will dry up and whither. Perhaps in the soul, as in the soil, those growths that show the brightest colours and put forth the most overpowering smell have not always the deepest root."
And horror filled my soul!
I thought fearfully, "My passion for Jesus is shallow! It must be, because it has a bright show! Therefore, it has no roots! It will pass away, it must. C.S. Lewis has all but said so. Oh my goodness, how will I keep Him, how can I keep Him?"
I'm making slight fun of myself here, but in the moment, it was a real fear.
You don't keep Me- I keep you, Jesus said firmly, into my whirling thoughts, and they all became still and calm.
"Right," I said, relieved and much more quietly. "That's right. I forgot that. You've kept me all this time. And my growth in You has been over almost the entire length of my life; it can't be that my roots are shallow after all that."
After that, I was able to finish the book without any further mishap. It's a great book.
Now I'm on to Waters on a Starry Night, by Elisabeth Ogilvie, which is also a great book, but in a much more undemanding way.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
February 8th
I found the following from Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis:
"No, no, no," she said. "You don't understand. Not that kind of longing. It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine... where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell and looking across at the Grey Mountains in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home."
"No, no, no," she said. "You don't understand. Not that kind of longing. It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine... where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell and looking across at the Grey Mountains in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home."
February 8th
I keep writing blogs and not posting them.
Here's one I wrote a few days ago:
So, last night, I was deeply involved in thinking through some line of thought, like I normally do. I forget even what it was that I was thinking through.
I could tell, even as I was working through it, that my logic was fuzzy and I wasn't making the right connections.
With a kind of self depreciating humor, I tossed the whole line of thought aside.
"That was going nowhere," I told Jesus.
I liked it, He said.
"Why?" I asked, immediately. "My line of thinking was full of mistakes, so how could You like it? And why would You tell me that?"
It's difficult to adjust myself to the encouragement of Jesus. I never believed that He might be encouraging.
I always thought that Jesus used only two methods- reward and punishment. If I did something good, I got blessed. If I did something bad, I got punished.
Kind of like a dog trainer.
To answer my question, Jesus drew to my attention first my heart and then Him.
I liked where it was coming from and where it was going, Jesus replied.
"All right," I said. "But I still don't understand why You would encourage me."
In response, Jesus showed me an image of a little girl, about four years old, standing next to me, and chattering on about something very important to her.
Jesus said, If your child shared with you something from the heart, would you condemn her for still being a child, or would you encourage her to continue growing?
I have to admit, when I understood what He was saying, it kind of shook me. Because, of course I wouldn't condemn a four year old for not thinking like an adult.
And yet, that was exactly what I had been expecting Him to do.
Instead, I would be delighted that she was thinking deeply at her own little level; I would not hit her over the head for not being at mine.
As she grew, I'd continue listening and guiding, as life went on. In fact, my ability to teach or guide her effectively would depend a great deal upon her trust in me, and my ability to meet her where she is.
There are certain things that Jesus has said to me over and over again, that He keeps on bringing to the forefront of my mind.
One is that we are His children, and He cannot love us less than a human father could love his children.
Jesus and the Father cannot love less authentically, less passionately, less warmly, less protectively, less tenderly, less faithfully or with less forgiveness than a human father could.
The human reflection cannot contain more meaning or value or depth than the divine reality from which it was cast, and to which it points.
Here's one I wrote a few days ago:
So, last night, I was deeply involved in thinking through some line of thought, like I normally do. I forget even what it was that I was thinking through.
I could tell, even as I was working through it, that my logic was fuzzy and I wasn't making the right connections.
With a kind of self depreciating humor, I tossed the whole line of thought aside.
"That was going nowhere," I told Jesus.
I liked it, He said.
"Why?" I asked, immediately. "My line of thinking was full of mistakes, so how could You like it? And why would You tell me that?"
It's difficult to adjust myself to the encouragement of Jesus. I never believed that He might be encouraging.
I always thought that Jesus used only two methods- reward and punishment. If I did something good, I got blessed. If I did something bad, I got punished.
Kind of like a dog trainer.
To answer my question, Jesus drew to my attention first my heart and then Him.
I liked where it was coming from and where it was going, Jesus replied.
"All right," I said. "But I still don't understand why You would encourage me."
In response, Jesus showed me an image of a little girl, about four years old, standing next to me, and chattering on about something very important to her.
Jesus said, If your child shared with you something from the heart, would you condemn her for still being a child, or would you encourage her to continue growing?
I have to admit, when I understood what He was saying, it kind of shook me. Because, of course I wouldn't condemn a four year old for not thinking like an adult.
And yet, that was exactly what I had been expecting Him to do.
Instead, I would be delighted that she was thinking deeply at her own little level; I would not hit her over the head for not being at mine.
As she grew, I'd continue listening and guiding, as life went on. In fact, my ability to teach or guide her effectively would depend a great deal upon her trust in me, and my ability to meet her where she is.
There are certain things that Jesus has said to me over and over again, that He keeps on bringing to the forefront of my mind.
One is that we are His children, and He cannot love us less than a human father could love his children.
Jesus and the Father cannot love less authentically, less passionately, less warmly, less protectively, less tenderly, less faithfully or with less forgiveness than a human father could.
The human reflection cannot contain more meaning or value or depth than the divine reality from which it was cast, and to which it points.
Monday, February 6, 2012
February 6th
A couple nights ago, I was reading in Luke, and I got to a parable and as usual, I didn't get the gist of it.
Sometimes reading those things is just like staring at a blank wall. It's like I'm too close up to see the pattern, or something.
I think: "I should know this. How can I not know what He's talking about in this?"
Then I noticed the first line again. It said, "And He spoke a parable to them."
A parable. A single parable. Suddenly, I realized the possibility that all those disjointed sayings might be pulled together to illustrate one cohesive concept.
So, I tried reading it like that, from Luke 6:39 to the end of the chapter.
And I saw it differently. Here's what I saw:
"And He also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit?"
So, I wondered anxiously, who is blind? How do we know who is blind?
How do I know I'm not blind? That would be a good thing to know, right?
Then I read further.
"A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher."
Okay, so maybe a pupil who thinks he is above his teacher is blind. Who is Jesus talking to right here? He's talking to His disciples.
What do you want to bet that some of His disciples were trying to lead some of their fellow disciples?
Maybe even a few of them were all like: "Well, all this mercy and forgiveness is good so far as it goes, but eventually, people have to be made to be good. What Joe Disciple is doing is just not right, and if Jesus won't nip that in the bud, well, I will. And don't even get me started on all these sinners all around us all the time..."
Sounds familiar, right? I used to buy into that way of thinking, myself.
So, I kept reading.
"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye."
My understanding opened right up. I'll bet some of Jesus' disciples were judging and condemning each other, because that is exactly what Jesus talked about just before He spoke this parable.
Also, having a beam in one's eye might very well lead to blindness, or at least some significant trouble seeing.
So, Jesus said, in essence, "Be like Me, your teacher."
And what was Jesus like? He was full of mercy and forgiveness- except for when He got around hypocritical religious authority.
So, I read on.
"For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush."
I got frustrated. I thought, what fruit? I never get these darn fruit parables.
Then I remembered again: this is all still one parable- insofar as Jesus did not speak these parables to them, but a parable to them.
If that is true, than this is still illustrating the same concept.
So, a good tree produces mercy and forgiveness- grapes and figs, a bad tree produces judgment and condemnation- thorns and briars.
I read on.
"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart."
So it might be that a person humbly comes to Jesus to take care of the beam in his eye, in order to deal with the blindness that such a condition might produce in him, and finds in Jesus mercy and forgiveness.
Then, that person has mercy and forgiveness flowing out of his good and humble heart, like good fruits from a good tree, as he conforms himself to Jesus' example.
In fact, maybe once that person is in that position, he actually is in a good position to help his brothers along, because he is able to come alongside them and lovingly help them in their troubles.
But it seems that the other man, blind from his beam but not acknowledging it, and therefore a hypocrite, brings forth judgment and condemnation and attempts to blindly lead his brothers by arrogantly telling them exactly how to shape up and fly right.
So I read on.
“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?"
Another words, maybe Jesus is saying- don't just parrot what I say to others in order to control them, but actually take My words to heart, in order to transform your own life.
This made sense to me when I thought about Jesus' examples of leadership- which are always of service and humility.
So I read on.
"Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”
I then saw this conclusion differently than before.
The humble disciple, who has not judged or condemned his brothers, but forgiven them and been merciful- as Jesus has been merciful and forgiving toward him- is not himself condemned or judged.
His house stands, because he has dug deep- he has laid open the deep places of his heart to Jesus and he leans on Jesus alone.
The arrogant blind man who has heard the words but never let them anywhere near his heart, only using them for power and position, is going to fall into his own ditch, and all his house with him.
Both of those conclusions have been true for me.
I have been arrogant. My life was a holy looking house built on the sands of religious performance, and I judged and condemned others who did not appear to be living up to my own holy standards.
Then that empty, lonely house fell, and the torrent washed it away.
But many waters cannot quench love.
"Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!
Come, let us sweep the old streets–like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.
We’ll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame–and in its place we’ll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing."
-Prothalamium, by Aaron Kramer
Sometimes reading those things is just like staring at a blank wall. It's like I'm too close up to see the pattern, or something.
I think: "I should know this. How can I not know what He's talking about in this?"
Then I noticed the first line again. It said, "And He spoke a parable to them."
A parable. A single parable. Suddenly, I realized the possibility that all those disjointed sayings might be pulled together to illustrate one cohesive concept.
So, I tried reading it like that, from Luke 6:39 to the end of the chapter.
And I saw it differently. Here's what I saw:
"And He also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit?"
So, I wondered anxiously, who is blind? How do we know who is blind?
How do I know I'm not blind? That would be a good thing to know, right?
Then I read further.
"A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher."
Okay, so maybe a pupil who thinks he is above his teacher is blind. Who is Jesus talking to right here? He's talking to His disciples.
What do you want to bet that some of His disciples were trying to lead some of their fellow disciples?
Maybe even a few of them were all like: "Well, all this mercy and forgiveness is good so far as it goes, but eventually, people have to be made to be good. What Joe Disciple is doing is just not right, and if Jesus won't nip that in the bud, well, I will. And don't even get me started on all these sinners all around us all the time..."
Sounds familiar, right? I used to buy into that way of thinking, myself.
So, I kept reading.
"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye."
My understanding opened right up. I'll bet some of Jesus' disciples were judging and condemning each other, because that is exactly what Jesus talked about just before He spoke this parable.
Also, having a beam in one's eye might very well lead to blindness, or at least some significant trouble seeing.
So, Jesus said, in essence, "Be like Me, your teacher."
And what was Jesus like? He was full of mercy and forgiveness- except for when He got around hypocritical religious authority.
So, I read on.
"For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush."
I got frustrated. I thought, what fruit? I never get these darn fruit parables.
Then I remembered again: this is all still one parable- insofar as Jesus did not speak these parables to them, but a parable to them.
If that is true, than this is still illustrating the same concept.
So, a good tree produces mercy and forgiveness- grapes and figs, a bad tree produces judgment and condemnation- thorns and briars.
I read on.
"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart."
So it might be that a person humbly comes to Jesus to take care of the beam in his eye, in order to deal with the blindness that such a condition might produce in him, and finds in Jesus mercy and forgiveness.
Then, that person has mercy and forgiveness flowing out of his good and humble heart, like good fruits from a good tree, as he conforms himself to Jesus' example.
In fact, maybe once that person is in that position, he actually is in a good position to help his brothers along, because he is able to come alongside them and lovingly help them in their troubles.
But it seems that the other man, blind from his beam but not acknowledging it, and therefore a hypocrite, brings forth judgment and condemnation and attempts to blindly lead his brothers by arrogantly telling them exactly how to shape up and fly right.
So I read on.
“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?"
Another words, maybe Jesus is saying- don't just parrot what I say to others in order to control them, but actually take My words to heart, in order to transform your own life.
This made sense to me when I thought about Jesus' examples of leadership- which are always of service and humility.
So I read on.
"Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”
I then saw this conclusion differently than before.
The humble disciple, who has not judged or condemned his brothers, but forgiven them and been merciful- as Jesus has been merciful and forgiving toward him- is not himself condemned or judged.
His house stands, because he has dug deep- he has laid open the deep places of his heart to Jesus and he leans on Jesus alone.
The arrogant blind man who has heard the words but never let them anywhere near his heart, only using them for power and position, is going to fall into his own ditch, and all his house with him.
Both of those conclusions have been true for me.
I have been arrogant. My life was a holy looking house built on the sands of religious performance, and I judged and condemned others who did not appear to be living up to my own holy standards.
Then that empty, lonely house fell, and the torrent washed it away.
But many waters cannot quench love.
"Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!
Come, let us sweep the old streets–like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.
We’ll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame–and in its place we’ll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing."
-Prothalamium, by Aaron Kramer
Friday, February 3, 2012
February 3rd
I'm able to see something a little more clearly now.
Looking back, I see how Jesus entered my life and my absorption with Him eclipsed my life.
That line from the hymn, "Turn your eyes toward Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace," perfectly describes it.
But life doesn't go away and life isn't a side issue; it is the issue. So eventually, I experienced a kind of intense internal conflict.
When the time was right, Jesus perfectly resolved this conflict by teaching me to find Him in my own life.
So, it was as though Jesus took my life as I knew it away from me by absorbing it into Himself, and all I could see was Him.
And then He gave it back to me, but full of His own life.
Longing for Jesus drives me deeper into the exact time and place and people and tasks of this moment of my life, which means that I live in it fully and fully in Him at the same time. They are mutually fulfilling.
Looking back, I can see that He's been teaching me this all along, all my life.
First, I was taught about Jesus, but I had no idea how to live.
Then I fell from knowledge and learned how to live.
Then, I longed for Jesus Himself.
I found Him, but I forgot how to live.
Now my life is in Him.
I'll probably have to learn this again, and maybe even again. That's okay though, because each time, my understanding deepens.
"Isn't it a consolation to know that life is not a straight line? Many of us wish and have been told that is should be, but I haven't met a life yet that's a straight line toward God. And I have even met Mother Teresa! It's always getting the point and missing the point. It's God entering our lives and then fighting it, avoiding it, running from it. There is the moment of divine communion or intimacy, and then the pullback that says, "That's too good to be true. I must be making that up." Fortunately, God works with all of it, and that's called mercy or steadfast love."
-Richard Rohr, Hidden Things
Looking back, I see how Jesus entered my life and my absorption with Him eclipsed my life.
That line from the hymn, "Turn your eyes toward Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace," perfectly describes it.
But life doesn't go away and life isn't a side issue; it is the issue. So eventually, I experienced a kind of intense internal conflict.
When the time was right, Jesus perfectly resolved this conflict by teaching me to find Him in my own life.
So, it was as though Jesus took my life as I knew it away from me by absorbing it into Himself, and all I could see was Him.
And then He gave it back to me, but full of His own life.
Longing for Jesus drives me deeper into the exact time and place and people and tasks of this moment of my life, which means that I live in it fully and fully in Him at the same time. They are mutually fulfilling.
Looking back, I can see that He's been teaching me this all along, all my life.
First, I was taught about Jesus, but I had no idea how to live.
Then I fell from knowledge and learned how to live.
Then, I longed for Jesus Himself.
I found Him, but I forgot how to live.
Now my life is in Him.
I'll probably have to learn this again, and maybe even again. That's okay though, because each time, my understanding deepens.
"Isn't it a consolation to know that life is not a straight line? Many of us wish and have been told that is should be, but I haven't met a life yet that's a straight line toward God. And I have even met Mother Teresa! It's always getting the point and missing the point. It's God entering our lives and then fighting it, avoiding it, running from it. There is the moment of divine communion or intimacy, and then the pullback that says, "That's too good to be true. I must be making that up." Fortunately, God works with all of it, and that's called mercy or steadfast love."
-Richard Rohr, Hidden Things
Thursday, February 2, 2012
February 2nd
"To allow yourself to be God's beloved is to be God's beloved. To allow yourself to be chosen is to be chosen. To allow yourself to be blessed is to be blessed. It is so hard to accept being accepted, especially from God. It takes a certain kind of humility to surrender to it, and even more to persist in believing it. Any used persons know this to be true: God chooses and then uses whom God chooses, and their usability comes from their willingness to allow themselves to be chosen in the first place. What a paradox!
"God's love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does; and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less. We are stuck with it! The only difference is between those who allow that and those who don't, but they both are equally and objectively the beloved. One just enjoys it and draws ever-new life from that realization.
"Even though it's been the story of my whole life, I don't fully believe it yet myself, because it still seems too much, too good, beyond my wildest hopes, maybe whistling in the dark, maybe wishful thinking, maybe "cheap grace," maybe my faulty theology. But then I read the accounts of the scriptural saints, and I meet saints in jails and hospitals, and their very lives tell me this is true. They are always sinners in recovery, and they know that God does not love them because they are good, but God loves them because God is good."
-Richard Rohr, Hidden Things
"God's love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does; and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less. We are stuck with it! The only difference is between those who allow that and those who don't, but they both are equally and objectively the beloved. One just enjoys it and draws ever-new life from that realization.
"Even though it's been the story of my whole life, I don't fully believe it yet myself, because it still seems too much, too good, beyond my wildest hopes, maybe whistling in the dark, maybe wishful thinking, maybe "cheap grace," maybe my faulty theology. But then I read the accounts of the scriptural saints, and I meet saints in jails and hospitals, and their very lives tell me this is true. They are always sinners in recovery, and they know that God does not love them because they are good, but God loves them because God is good."
-Richard Rohr, Hidden Things
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
February 1st
I ordered three books a week ago, and the first one arrived: Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, by Richard Rohr.
Right off the bat, I found this:
What is this awesome mystery
that is taking place within me?
I can find no words to express it;
my poor hand is unable to capture it
in describing the praise and glory that belongs
to the One who is above all praise,
and who transcends every word...
My intellect sees what has happened,
but it cannot explain it.
It can see, and wishes to explain,
but can find no word that will suffice;
for what it sees is invisible and entirely formless,
simple, completely uncompounded,
unbounded in its awesome greatness.
What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one,
received not in essence but by participation.
Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive.
-St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)
I'm not entire sure what he means by "the totality recapitulated as one," but the rest of it is great.
I am really looking forward to reading this book.
Right off the bat, I found this:
What is this awesome mystery
that is taking place within me?
I can find no words to express it;
my poor hand is unable to capture it
in describing the praise and glory that belongs
to the One who is above all praise,
and who transcends every word...
My intellect sees what has happened,
but it cannot explain it.
It can see, and wishes to explain,
but can find no word that will suffice;
for what it sees is invisible and entirely formless,
simple, completely uncompounded,
unbounded in its awesome greatness.
What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one,
received not in essence but by participation.
Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive.
-St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)
I'm not entire sure what he means by "the totality recapitulated as one," but the rest of it is great.
I am really looking forward to reading this book.
February 1st
Rabbit.
I figured something out yesterday.
It's like, God happens, and my heart understands it.
But, my mind has no idea what's going on and immediately starts scrambling around trying to make sense of it, and sometimes this takes me backward.
For example, recently I was trying to make this distinction between the stuff of life and God.
This meant that I was constantly categorizing my day.
Some things went into the desired "God" bin and others went into the necessary "stuff of life" bin.
I wanted to be near the "God" bin all the time, but that darn "stuff of life" bin kept getting in my way, which yesterday had me frustrated to the point of tears.
Finally, I called my dad and ranted and raved to him, and then I went for a walk.
"I don't want to find You in the things of life," I confessed to Jesus. "I just want You."
But I am in the things of this life, Jesus reminded me, with loving humor.
And I saw, all over again, the glistening stream as it poured, foaming and rushing, over the slabs of rock, and the oak trees, covered with green ivy, and the squirrels that ran, rustling over the dry leaves.
I remembered all over again that He created it, is in it all, and holding it all together and that it all speaks of Him.
I had to laugh.
And I am in you, Jesus added, lovingly, and tears welled up into my eyes at the simple joy of it.
I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between the life we are living and worshiping, knowing and loving God.
I think I knew this, but I guess I had to learn it all over again.
The second thing I learned was about the power of gratitude.
I'm not quite sure how this dawned on me yesterday, but for some reason, I started thinking in a new direction. I think I read something somewhere, another blog or something.
See, there's always been this part of me that doesn't believe a person is supposed to experience God in the way I do.
Therefore, my mind reasons, it cannot last. Sooner or later, I must go back to normal, which is feeling distant from Jesus and never hearing His voice or feeling His love and affection.
Increasing, I wonder if that was never meant to be "normal," but that's a blog for another time.
So anyway, because of this fear, my relationship with Jesus was plagued by a kind of persistent insecurity.
Yesterday, it occurred to me to thank Him for what is true, instead of anxiously reaching out for evidence that it was.
And, wow!
It was revolutionary.
Gratitude opens the heart right up to the presence of God.
It turns out that faith is all bound up in things like love, gratitude and joy. Faith is not apart from these things.
Last night, I was thinking back to the beginning of this whole journey, and how, on the second day, I went to Wal-Mart and was so deeply troubled by the upwelling of religious arrogance that I felt in me, in the presence of Jesus.
I remembered how I had struggled with the fact that Jesus was not suddenly and completely taking that out of me- He wasn't going to suddenly transform me as though snapping His fingers.
I had to learn to trust Jesus and His timing and His grace and His leading.
In fact, it was that night that Jesus gave me this passage, to explain:
"Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of His face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him."
-II Corinthians 3:16-18
As I lay there thinking this over, Jesus spoke to me.
Look how far you've come with Me, He said quietly.
It was as though He were kneeling by the side of the bed, His head close to mine.
Joy immediately filled my soul. "Jesus!" I cried. "So far! So incredibly far! Because You are faithful, always faithful! And You are the most faithful when I am the most confused."
I will continue to faithfully guide you along, even into eternity, Jesus assured me.
"Always," I acknowledged. My heart was too full to speak anything more.
This morning, my little calendar says this:
"Sing a new song to the Lord,
for He has done wonderful deeds.
He has won a mighty victory by His power and holiness."
-Psalm 98:1
I figured something out yesterday.
It's like, God happens, and my heart understands it.
But, my mind has no idea what's going on and immediately starts scrambling around trying to make sense of it, and sometimes this takes me backward.
For example, recently I was trying to make this distinction between the stuff of life and God.
This meant that I was constantly categorizing my day.
Some things went into the desired "God" bin and others went into the necessary "stuff of life" bin.
I wanted to be near the "God" bin all the time, but that darn "stuff of life" bin kept getting in my way, which yesterday had me frustrated to the point of tears.
Finally, I called my dad and ranted and raved to him, and then I went for a walk.
"I don't want to find You in the things of life," I confessed to Jesus. "I just want You."
But I am in the things of this life, Jesus reminded me, with loving humor.
And I saw, all over again, the glistening stream as it poured, foaming and rushing, over the slabs of rock, and the oak trees, covered with green ivy, and the squirrels that ran, rustling over the dry leaves.
I remembered all over again that He created it, is in it all, and holding it all together and that it all speaks of Him.
I had to laugh.
And I am in you, Jesus added, lovingly, and tears welled up into my eyes at the simple joy of it.
I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between the life we are living and worshiping, knowing and loving God.
I think I knew this, but I guess I had to learn it all over again.
The second thing I learned was about the power of gratitude.
I'm not quite sure how this dawned on me yesterday, but for some reason, I started thinking in a new direction. I think I read something somewhere, another blog or something.
See, there's always been this part of me that doesn't believe a person is supposed to experience God in the way I do.
Therefore, my mind reasons, it cannot last. Sooner or later, I must go back to normal, which is feeling distant from Jesus and never hearing His voice or feeling His love and affection.
Increasing, I wonder if that was never meant to be "normal," but that's a blog for another time.
So anyway, because of this fear, my relationship with Jesus was plagued by a kind of persistent insecurity.
Yesterday, it occurred to me to thank Him for what is true, instead of anxiously reaching out for evidence that it was.
And, wow!
It was revolutionary.
Gratitude opens the heart right up to the presence of God.
It turns out that faith is all bound up in things like love, gratitude and joy. Faith is not apart from these things.
Last night, I was thinking back to the beginning of this whole journey, and how, on the second day, I went to Wal-Mart and was so deeply troubled by the upwelling of religious arrogance that I felt in me, in the presence of Jesus.
I remembered how I had struggled with the fact that Jesus was not suddenly and completely taking that out of me- He wasn't going to suddenly transform me as though snapping His fingers.
I had to learn to trust Jesus and His timing and His grace and His leading.
In fact, it was that night that Jesus gave me this passage, to explain:
"Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of His face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him."
-II Corinthians 3:16-18
As I lay there thinking this over, Jesus spoke to me.
Look how far you've come with Me, He said quietly.
It was as though He were kneeling by the side of the bed, His head close to mine.
Joy immediately filled my soul. "Jesus!" I cried. "So far! So incredibly far! Because You are faithful, always faithful! And You are the most faithful when I am the most confused."
I will continue to faithfully guide you along, even into eternity, Jesus assured me.
"Always," I acknowledged. My heart was too full to speak anything more.
This morning, my little calendar says this:
"Sing a new song to the Lord,
for He has done wonderful deeds.
He has won a mighty victory by His power and holiness."
-Psalm 98:1
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