Category: certainty

The Celestial Face

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But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre purpled o’er the lawn.
~Homer from the Odyssey

Aurora is the effort
Of the Celestial Face
Unconsciousness of Perfectness
To simulate, to Us.
~Emily Dickinson

…for the sun stopped shining.
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Luke 23:45

It felt appropriate to whoop and holler when the lights began to shimmer and shift above us.

Yet as the colors deepened and danced, what struck me most was the sense of how the heavens and earth had found a “thin place” where the space between God and us had narrowed and we were being summoned to communion with Him.

Just as the curtain barring us from the holy of holies in the temple was torn in two at Christ’s moment of death, the curtain between heaven and earth was pulled apart last night.

We are no longer separated from God.
He bids us to join Him and see His face.

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Only the Light Moves

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Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, 
and by degrees 
the forms and colours of things are restored to them, 
and we watch the dawn 
remaking the world in its antique pattern.
~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
~William Wordsworth from “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. 
Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
~Leonora Carrington

Looking for God is the first thing and the last,
but in between so much trouble, so much pain.
~Jane Kenyon from “With the Dog at Sunrise”

In the moments before dawn
when glow gently tints
the inside of horizon’s eyelids,
the black of midnight
wanes to mere shadow,
the fear of night forgotten.

Gloaming dusk transposed to gleaming dawn,
its backlit silhouettes stark
as a dark hurting earth
slowly opens her eyes
to greet a new and glorious morn.

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An Enormous Love

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Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God—
Love you.
~Edwina Gately “Let Your God Love You”

Now I am still
And plain:
No more words….

And deep in the darkness is God.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from The Inner Sky: Poems, Notes, Dreams

I know this happiness
is provisional:

the looming presences –
great suffering, great fear –

withdraw only
into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:

this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,
this need to kneel:

this mystery:
~Denise Levertov “Of Being” from The Stream and the Sapphire

On a Sabbath day, I try to be still and silent
but fail miserably in my attempts to rest.
So much to do, so much to fix, so much to say.

I have forgotten the original reason for the seventh day.

God simply wanted to look down at what He made,
declare it good
and love it.

The least I can do is stop what I’m doing, look up, hold still and listen…

1 O love of God, how strong and true,
eternal and yet ever new,
uncomprehended and unbought,
beyond all knowledge and all thought!
O love of God, how deep and great,
far deeper than man’s deepest hate;
self-fed, self-kindled like the light,
changeless, eternal, infinite.

2 O heav’nly love, how precious still,
in days of weariness and ill,
in nights of pain and helplessness,
to heal, to comfort, and to bless!
O wide-embracing, wondrous love!
We read you in the sky above,
we read you in the earth below,
in seas that swell and streams that flow.

3 We read you best in him who came
bearing for us the cross of shame;
sent by the Father from on high,
our life to live, our death to die.
We read your pow’r to bless and save,
e’en in the darkness of the grave;
still more in resurrection light
we read the fullness of your might.

4 O love of God, our shield and stay
through all the perils of our way!
Eternal love, in you we rest,
forever safe, forever blest.
We will exalt you, God and King,
and we will ever praise your name;
we will extol you ev’ry day,
and evermore your praise proclaim.
~Horatius Bonar

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A Finisterre Prayer

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What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?

What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?

The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.

What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree.
~Christian Wiman, “Hard Night”

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
~Carol Ann Duffy “Prayer”

photo by Bob Tjoelker

As a child falling asleep, I prayed to God with moans and groans echoing in my ears.

Growing up on a small farm located about two miles from a bay in Puget Sound, I found myself praying for safety on foggy nights as fog horns moaned in the distance. Scattered throughout the inlet, the horns called out mournful groans of warning to passing freighter ships. The resonant lowing of the horns carried miles over the surrounding landscape due to countless water particles in the fog transmitting sound waves so effectively. The louder the foghorn moan heard on our farm, the thicker and more hazardous the mist in the air. Those horns would make me unspeakably sad for reasons I could only articulate to God. Thus I prayed for the ships, and I prayed for my own shaky navigation through life.

Navigating blind in a fog necessitates taking unpredictable risks. The future can seem a murky mess. I cannot see what lies ahead: I navigate by my wits, by my best guess, but particularly by listening for the low-throated warnings coming from the rocky shores and shallows of those who have gone ahead of me.

I am easily lost in the fog of my fears – disconnected, afloat and circling aimlessly, searching for a touch point of purpose and direction. The isolation I sometimes feel may simply be my own self-absorbed state of mind, sucking me in deep until I’m soaked, dripping and shivering from the smothering gray. If only I trust the fog horn warnings and reassurances from the Word of God, I could charge into the future undaunted.

He is in the pea soup alongside me, awaiting the Sun’s dissipation of the fog. Now I know, nearly seventy years into this voyage, the fog eventually clears. The journey continues on beyond these shores.

Even so, I will keep praying with the resonant voices of wisdom and caution from shore, like the nightly tradition of the BBC radio shipping forecasts that calm so many to sleep to this day. Even a Finisterre (the end of the land) prayer holds us in safety as we find our way home.

Instead of echoing the anxious moans and groans of my childhood prayers, may my voice be heard singing an anthem of hope and promise.

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The Birth of Time

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An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.
~Anna Swir “Priceless Gifts” from Talking To My Body

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work and that
when we no longer know which way to go
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
The world, the truth, is more abounding,
more delightful, more demanding than we thought.
What appeared for a time perhaps to be mere dutifulness …
suddenly breaks open in sweetness —
and we are not where we thought we were,
nowhere that we could have expected to be.
~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms,” in Standing By Words

Who among us knows with certainty each morning
what we are meant to do this day
or where we might be asked to go?

Or do we make our best guess by
putting one foot ahead of the other
until the day is done and it is time to rest?

For me, over five decades of work,
I woke humbled by commitment and duty
and kept going, even when baffled and impeded.

While doctoring, I tried so hard
to keep my eyes open for beauty
within the painful times.

These days now overflow with uncertainty
of what comes next: each heartbeat a new birth.
My real work remains a search for life’s priceless beauty.

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As If Living in a Prayer

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Here in the time between snow
and the bud of the rhododendron,
we watch the robins, look into

the gray, and narrow our view
to the patches of wild grasses
coming green. The pile of ashes

in the fireplace, haphazard sticks
on the paths and gardens, leaves
tangled in the ivy and periwinkle

lie in wait against our will. This
drawing near of renewal, of stems
and blossoms, the hesitant return

of the anarchy of mud and seed
says not yet to the blood’s crawl.
When the deer along the stream

look back at us, we know again
we have left them. We pull
a blanket over us when we sleep.

As if living in a prayer, we say
amen to the late arrival of red,
the stun of green, the muted yellow

at the end of every twig. We will
lift up our eyes unto the trees hoping
to discover a gnarled nest within

the branches’ negative space. And
we will watch for a fox sparrow
rustling in the dead leaves underneath.
~Jack Ridl “Here in the Time Between” from Practicing to Walk Like a Heron

We live in an in-between time:
we see the coming glory of spring and rebirth
yet winter’s mud and ice still grasps at us.

We want to crawl back under the blankets,
hoping to wake again on a brighter day.

Praying to emerge from the mud of in-between and not-yet,
we are ready to bud and blossom and wholly bloom.

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An Everlasting Quietness

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The simple words no longer work.
Neither do the grand ones.
Something about
The hanging bits of dark
Mixed with your hair.
The everlasting quietness
Attached to the deserted barn
Made me think I’d discovered you
But you already knew all about yourself
As we stood on the edge of a forest
With your dress as languid as the air,
The day made of spring wind and daffodils.
Then the sky appeared in blue patches
Among slow clouds,
Oak leaves came out on the trees,
Grass suddenly became green,
Filled with small animals that sing.
All the parts of spring were gathering,
The earth was being created all over again
One piece at a time
Just for you.
~Tom Hennen “Found on the Earth” From Darkness Sticks To Everything

I’m waking from wintry doldrums,
to earlier mornings, longer evenings,
healing from weeks of cold and weariness.

It is as if all has been rebirthed,
vivid with light and songs and color and smells –
I cannot imagine not sharing it all.

This renewal feels so personal,
as if just for me –
yet I know others are waking too.

I face the morning sun in silence,
my eyelids closed and glowing,
warming in the light.

So I offer up this blessed cup of quiet,
steeped and ready to pour out,
just for you.

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Ignore It or See It

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Divinity is not playful.
The universe was not made in jest
but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.
By a power that is unfathomably secret,
and holy, and fleet.
There is nothing to be done about it,
but ignore it,
or see. 
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

For since the creation of the world
God’s invisible qualities—
his eternal power and divine nature—
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20

We weren’t conceived by random happenstance –
not even the unwelcomed millions wished or washed away
before ever taking a breath.

We are here because we were earnestly needed and wanted,
by a power and divinity with a capacity for love and compassion
beyond anything we are capable of.

We aren’t a cosmic joke,
or random couplings of DNA.
We aren’t pawns in the universe’s chess game.

We have the capacity to see
the image of God in one another,
and in the mirror,
yet we ignore it.

God won’t be ignored nor does He accept feeble excuses.

We are invited by Christ Himself to
“come and see.” (John 1:39)

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Brokenness Under Blessing

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The great mystery of God’s love is that
we are not asked to live as if we are not hurting,
as if we are not broken.

In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness
as a brokenness in which we can come in touch
with the unique way that God loves us.

The great invitation is to live your brokenness under the blessing.

I cannot take people’s brokenness away 
and people cannot take my brokenness away.
 
But how do you live in your brokenness?

Do you live your brokenness under the blessing or under the curse? The great call of Jesus is to put your brokenness under the blessing.
~Henri Nouwen from a lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center

…be a glorified human being, with wounds.  God the Kintsugi master who beholds such brokenness in tender care, invites us, and asks of us, to be present in suffering and incalculable losses.  
… worship a Wounded Glorified Human Being, and be that ourselves. 
~Makoto Fujimura from Kinsugi Grace

It is a ceramic pot meant specially for our kitchen table — handmade by a potter friend using the abstract artistry of mane hairs from our farm’s Haflinger horses burnt onto the sides. But it hit the floor and broke into many pieces, looking completely beyond repair.

It is back on our table, repaired with love and care by another friend, using nothing more than copious amounts of Elmer’s Glue. This is the glue of every child’s school desk, the glue of every mother’s junk drawer, the glue of every heart that needs mending.

Elmer’s is not the gold of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken vessels are repaired with precious metals, creating an object even more valuable and beautiful than before, with streaks and tracks of gold highlighting their shattered history.

Yet it is now even more precious to me. Someone we love cared deeply enough to make it in the first place, and another we love cared deeply to repair it, making it even more beautiful and blessed in its brokenness, highlighting ragged pieces made whole again.

Someone made us.
Someone repairs us when we fall apart.
Someone blesses our brokenness with a glued-together beauty that makes us whole.

Every day, as the sun goes down,
I pause, broken, remembering how often
I messed up that day, in big and small ways.
Cracked open, my mistakes are illuminated,
weighing down my heart, impossible to forget.
Yet, as I pray for mercy, there follows a peacefulness,
as my errors are blotted out. My slate, one more time, is wiped clean.

Therefore do not lose heart.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

16 Therefore we do not lose heart.
2 Corinthinians: 6-12, 16

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It is Here God Lives…

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Here God lives, burrowing among
the petals, cross-
pollinating. Here is Christ’s mind
juiced, joined, fleshed, celled.

Here is the clash,
the roil, an invasion, not gentle
as dew; the rose is unfurled
violently until the scent explodes
and detonates in the air

And oh, it trembles—
thousands of seeds ripen in it as
it reels in the wind.
~Luci Shaw from “Flower Head”

I often awake with my mind as askew as my hair,
brushing away the cobwebs of dreams,
smoothing down ever present worries,
curling the whiff of long forgotten memories.

And I realize these same molecules transmitting thoughts
also carried Christ’s while He walked this earth,
the earthbound inner thoughts of God Himself,
borne by His creative integration of chemistry and ions,
through millions of electrical explosions per second.

My mind is ready to burst with the thought of it:

Here God lives, here He thinks, here He loves,
here He is – always.

Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Matthew 28, v.20
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
John 14, vv. 18–21, 27

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