Category: certainty

Comprehending the Difference

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…the essence of sin
is man substituting himself for God,
while the essence of salvation
is God substituting himself for man.
~John Stott from The Cross of Christ

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Try as we might
to make things in our own image,
no matter what discontent we feel,
we fail to comprehend
we are not God
and never can be.

Try as we might
to pick ourselves up when we fall,
no matter the anguish we feel,
we struggle to understand
He fell to earth specifically to catch us:
He bled our blood, shed our tears, brought us home.

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Lyrics from Psalm 84:

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise!

Swift Elation with a Sense of Sadness

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Then summer fades and passes and October comes.
We’ll smell smoke then,
and feel an unexpected sharpness,
a thrill of nervousness,
swift elation,
a sense of sadness and departure.
~ Thomas Wolfe

Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods.
~Charles Nodier

I was drinking in the surroundings:
air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers
and greens in every lush shade imaginable
offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.
~Wendy Delsol

October feels bittersweet, heralding the inevitable slow down to winter stillness.

The garden is put to bed, lawnmowers stored away, horses fluffy with winter fur coats, pruning shears not yet sharpened for the winter work of refinement and shaping.

Yet the air sparkles, sharp-edged in the lungs.

I am never ready for this crush of dark hours descending so quickly. Yet it comes with the promise of light and growth to come.

And so we feast on October while pondering what comes next.

A Radical Amazement

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I shall open my eyes and ears.
Once every day I shall simply stare
at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person.
I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are.
I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what C.S. Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.
~Clyde Kilby in “Amazed in the Ordinary”

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

~Abraham Joshua Heschel

An open heart is alive to wonder, to the sheer marvel of “isness.”
It is remarkable that the world is,
that we are here,
that we can experience it.
This world is not ordinary.
Indeed, what is remarkable is that
it could ever look ordinary to us.

An open heart knows “radical amazement.”
An open heart and gratitude go together.
We can feel this in our bodies.
In the moments in my life
when I have been most grateful,
I have felt a swelling,
almost a bursting in my chest.
~Marcus Borg from The Heart of Christianity

photo by Nicole Moore
photo by Nicole Moore
photo by Nicole Moore
photo by Nicole Moore

Much of the time I sleep-walk through each day, oblivious, as if in dense fog with unseeing wide-open eyes.

Especially if I’m rushing from here to there, I sense time slowing: I stumble through the days, the path appears indiscernible, my future uncertain, my purpose elusive.

How to stay awake and aware of the radical amazement of each moment given to me?

When I’m simply glad, everything becomes more vivid — the sounds of geese flying overhead, the smell of the farm, the layers of a foggy landscape, the taste of an autumn apple right from the tree, the string of fog-drop pearls on a spider web, the necessity and intensity of every breath, my purpose to be witness.

So wake me to be amazed anew -please- to see all that is around me. I want to chew on it again and again, simply savoring and simply glad.

And What if?

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What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge “What if you slept…”

What might our dreams tell us of heaven?

The last few nights I dreamed of those with whom I once had a warm friendship but no longer do.

My dreams were of grace and reconciliation, of walking and talking together and rediscovering our common goals and beliefs rather than dwelling on estrangement and sadness as we’ve gone our separate ways.

Upon waking, I wondered what vision of heaven this suggests: finding the lost treasure of connection that I allowed to let go.

Restoring a friendship is like waking, holding a strange and beautiful flower plucked in a dream. I cradle it gently in my hand as the precious gem it is.

What then is still possible? And what might I do with this flower now?

To Keep Looking Out

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Dawn comes later and later now,
and I, who only a month ago
could sit with coffee every morning
watching the light walk down the hill
to the edge of the pond and place
a doe there, shyly drinking,

then see the light step out upon
the water, sowing reflections
to either side — a garden
of trees that grew as if by magic —
now see no more than my face,
mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,

startled by time. While I slept,
night in its thick winter jacket
bridled the doe with a twist
of wet leaves and led her away,
then brought its black horse with harness
that creaked like a cricket, and turned

the water garden under. I woke,
and at the waiting window found
the curtains open to my open face;
beyond me, darkness. And I,
who only wished to keep looking out,
must now keep looking in.
~Ted Kooser “A Letter in October”

God knows we seek out light
these autumn mornings

praying to see multicolors filling the lines outside;
my face a shadow in a blackened window pane

Some mornings we can only see our own reflection
mirrored by darkness, startled by time, as we wonder what comes next.

God knows, as each year passes, we need His Light illuminating us as we look beyond ourselves, but even more as we look within.

A Broken Globe

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The skull wasn’t there.
We listened

to the heartbeat.
Would our child

live? Air tinted

gray, I moved
closer, searched the screen

for the halo
of bone,

touched glass

and stroked
our bad luck,

my finger leaving
its smudge

on the oval glow,

delicate as a grape.
The head would

never form.
Grace stared

at the brightness

then closed her eyes,
the light flickered

on our hands.
This second child. Never.

The dark

washed in,
heavy as water.

Did our baby know pain?
Inside tiny feet

kicking, small hands

open, fingers
reached out. Drift

of white static,
this broken globe

we had made.
~Brian Komei Dempster “Glow” from Seize

The call came in the middle of a busy night
as we worked on a floppy baby with high fever,
a croupy toddler whose breathing squeezed and squeaked,
a pale adolescent transfusing due to leukemia bleeding.

It was an anencephalic baby just born, unexpected, unwanted
in a hospital across town, and she needed a place to die.

Our team of three puzzled how to manage a baby without a brain–
simply put her in a room, swaddled, kept warm but alone?
Hydrate her with a dropper of water to moisten her mouth?
Offer her a taste of milk?

She arrived by ambulance, the somber attendants
leaving quickly, unnerved by her mewing cries.

I took the wrapped bundle and peeled away the layers
to find a plump full term baby, her hands gripping, arms waving
once freed;  just another newborn until I pulled off her stocking cap
and looked into an empty crater — only a brainstem lumped at the base.

No textbook pictures had prepared me
for the wholeness, the holiness of this living, breathing child.

Her forehead quit above the eyebrows with the entire skull missing,
tufts of soft brown hair fringed her perfect ears,
around the back of her neck.
Her eyelids puffy, squinting tight, seemingly too big
above a button nose and rosebud pink lips.

She squirmed under my fingers, her muscles strong, breaths coming steady despite no awareness of light or touch or noise.

Yet she cried in little whimpers, mouth working, seeking,
lips tentatively gripping my fingertip. A bottle warmed,
nipple offered, a tentative suck allowing tiny flow,
then, amazing,  a gurgling swallow.

Returning every two hours, more for me than for her, I picked her up
to smell the salty sweet scent of amnion still on her skin as she grew dusky.

Her breathing weakened, her muscles loosened, giving up her grip
on a world she would never see or hear or feel — to behold
something far more glorious.

I gazed into her emptiness, waiting my turn to be filled.

Revealing the Inner Tree

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If we could,
like the trees,
practice dying,
do it every year
just as something we do—
like going on vacation
or celebrating birthdays—
it would become
as easy a part of us
as our hair or clothing.

Someone would show us how
to lie down and fade away
as if in deepest meditation,
and we would learn
about the fine dark emptiness,
both knowing it and not knowing it,
and coming back would be irrelevant.

Whatever it is the trees know
when they stand undone,
surprisingly intricate,
we need to know also
so we can allow
that last thing
to happen to us
as if it were only
any ordinary thing,

leaves and lives
falling away, the spirit, complex,
waiting in the fine darkness
to learn which way
it will go.
~Grace Butcher, “Learning from Trees” from Poetry of Presence

And is it not enough that every year
A richly laden autumn should unfold
And shimmer into being leaf by leaf,
It’s scattered ochres mirrored everywhere
In hints and glints of hidden red and gold
Threaded like memory through loss and grief,
When dusk descends,when branches are unveiled,
When roots reach deeper than our minds can feel
And ready us for winter with strange calm,
That I should see the inner tree revealed
And know its beauty as the bright leaves fall
And feel its truth within me as I am?

It is not yet enough. So I must try,
In my poor turn, to help you see it too,
As though these leaves could be as rich as those,
That red and gold might glimmer in your eye,
That autumn might unfold again in you,
Feeling with me what falling leaves disclose.
~Malcolm Guite from “And is it Not Enough?”

If I were to die as a leaf does,
I would want to change my clothes just bit by bit,
overnight oozing gradually to scarlet,
bleeding into the green a little bit more,
until I’m so unrecognizable,
I’ll seem brand new.

That would be ideal.

The reality is a fading to grey and brown,
my edges withered and torn,
bug-bitten with holes and weather-beaten bruised,
dangling and fearful of letting go
and so forgotten.

So I remember:
no one, not one, falls
without its Maker knowing.
No one, not one, dies
without being made brand new.

Mirrored Light

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photo by Joel DeWaard

What is this unfolding, this slow-
going unraveling of gift held
in hands open
to the wonder and enchantment of it all?

What is this growing, this rare
showing, like blossoming
of purple spotted forests
by roadsides grown weary with winter months?

Seasons affected, routinely disordered
by playful disturbance of divine glee
weaving through limbs with
sharpened shards of mirrored light,
cutting dark spaces, interlacing creation,
commanding life with whimsical delight.

What is this breaking, this hopeful
re-making, shifting stones, addressing dry bones,
dizzying me with blessings,
intercepting my grieving
and raising the dead all around me?
~Enuma Okoro “Morning Reflections” from At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time

Everything is made to perish;
the wonder of anything at all is that it has not already done so.
No, he thought.
The wonder of anything is that it was made in the first place.
What persists beyond this cataclysm of making and unmaking?
~Paul Harding from Tinkers

God does not leave us to perish in the valley of dry bones.

We may think we are invincible, yet the truth is:
we are mere dust, ready to blow away.
The immense power of the breath of God fills newborn lungs and will someday restore the empty lungs of the resurrected dead.

He rebuilds our muscle and sinews, reconnects us bone to bone, person to person, living to rattle and sing as the body of Christ, mirrored reflections in His image.

This unfolding, this growing, this blossoming, this breaking:
Lord, keep dizzying us with your blessings, now and always.

As the Rain Begins…

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The room darkened, darkened until
our nakedness became a form of gray;
then the rain came bursting,
and we were sheltered, blessed,
upheld in a world of elements
that held us justified.
In all the love I had felt for you before,
in all that love,
there was no love
like that I felt when the rain began…
~John Updike from “The Blessing” from Collected Poems.

As the rains return,
as we shelter together,
blessed by the passing years and miles,
our unknowns have become known,
our understanding breathed in silence.

Though we be gray as the clouds above,
our hearts still beat in synchrony
each pulsing moment
more sacred than the last.

Lyrics: A soft voice, a kind word
A tender touch in a hard world
Your voice like rain after the seeds are sown
Your kindness and grace is all I’ve ever known

We’re not the same, you and me
You’re an evergreen and I’m a maple tree
Sometimes I’m bare, sometimes I’m sweet
You can carry on consistently
And in a million little ways, you show
How to take two souls and make one home

You love the dirt, I find life in words
I sit and think, you relish your work
You could teach, teach a master class
Without a word you show us how to make a feast from scratch
And in a million little ways, you show
How to take two souls and make one home
And in a million little ways, you show
How to take two souls and make one home

A sanctuary for our children
A sanctuary for our fears and hopes
Here in the wilderness, our world longs for this
To be known and loved
To be known and loved

Lyrics: In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing
And the sky is clear and red,
When the summer’s ceased its gleaming
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure’s lost its meaning –
I’ll be homeward bound in time

Bind me not to the pasture
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I’ll return to you somehow

If you find it’s me you’re missing
If you’re hoping I’ll return,
To your thoughts I’ll soon be listening,
And in the road I’ll stop and turn
Then the wind will set me racing
As my journey nears its end
And the path I’ll be retracing
When I’m homeward bound again

Bind me not to the pasture
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I’ll return to you somehow

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing
I’ll be homeward bound again.
~Marta Keen “Homeward Bound”

So Easy to Love

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It’s easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain.
Leave the mountains alone for now.
Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.
People are lined up to admire them.
Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.
Be grateful even for the boredom
That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.
Think of the frost
That will crack our bones eventually.
~Tom Hennen “Love for Other Things”

shuksan9271821

My only purpose this moment
is looking at a lizard.
Does he know he’s not alone?

He breathes with tiny push-ups,
his skin all hairline caverns
soaking up the sun.

I doubt, alive, I’m liable to get
closer to timelessness than this,
looking at a little lizard breathing.
~Barry Spacks “Looking at a Lizard” from Shaping Water

Oh, it is easy to love the beautiful things of God’s creation~
we drive long hours to stand in awe,
gaping at mountains and valleys and waterfalls
and kaleidoscopes of color

so if God decides He wants a slug or lizard or bug
and allows drought and mud and frost
and ice storms and hurricanes
then I guess, if He so chooses,
He could look at each of us and say
I need one of you too.

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