Tag: inside out

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Psalm 51:6 (ESV)

The shadow’s the thing. 
If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,” 
as do the newly sighted,
then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light.
They give the light distance;
they put it in its place.
They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel,
here in the world’s flawed sculpture,
here in the flickering shade of the nothingness
between me and the light.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I am copying down in a book from my heart’s archive
the day that I ceased to fear God with a shadowy fear.
Would you name it the day that I measured my column of virtue
and sighted through windows of merit a crown that was near?
Ah, no, it was rather the day I began to see truly
that I came forth from nothing and ever toward nothingness tend,
the works of my hands are a foolishness wrought in the presence
of the worthiest king in a kingdom that never shall end.
I rose up from the acres of self that I tended with passion
and defended with flurries of pride:
I walked out of myself and went into the woods of God’s mercy,
and here I abide.
There is greenness and calmness and coolness, a soft leafy covering
from judgment of sun overhead, and the hush of His peace,
and the moss of His mercy to tread.
I have nought but my will seeking God;
even love burning in me is a fragment of infinite loving
and never my own.
And I fear God no more; I go forward to wander forever
in a wilderness of His infinite mercy alone.
~Jessica Powers “The Mercy of God”

God seeks the truth of our secret hearts from “the inside out” by illuminating its shadows. We cannot hide the truth from Him, nor should we even try.

His mercy is as soft as moss underfoot.
His light casts away our shadow side.

And so God draws us out of our hiddenness.
The light spirals forth from us as our voices raise in praise.

We can never be the same again, inside or outside.