Tag: Christ

Withholding Nothing

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If humans could be
that intensely whole, undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus!  If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!
~Denise Levertov from “The Metier of Blossoming”

 

There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.
~Elisabeth Elliott (born 1926, died yesterday 6/15/15)
a woman who lived with unswerving impetus in Christ,
withholding nothing of herself,
and encouraging the rest of us to blossom out of ourselves.

 

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Roses Will Only Smile

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i shall imagine life

is not worth dying if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed’s
a rose roses(you feel
certain)will only smile
~e.e.cummings

 

only the Rose knows
a life is worth His dying ~
only He, through His pain,
transforms each weed of us
to a thing of beauty.
Smiling in His knowing, such death
is never in vain.
~EPG

Blossom Cheeks

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Lined with light
the twigs are stubby arrows.
A gilded trunk writhes
Upward from the roots,
from the pit of the black tentacles.

In the book of spring
a bare-limbed torso
is the first illustration.

Light teaches the tree
to beget leaves,
to embroider itself all over
with green reality,
until summer becomes
its steady portrait
and birds bring their lifetime
to the boughs.

Then even the corpse
light copies from below
may shimmer, dreaming it feels
the cheeks of blossom.
~May Swenson “April Light”

 

Only a week ago we waited
on corpse light~
a mysterious illumination that came alive
on a bright Sabbath morning,
taking bare stubs of people.
begetting them green,
bursting them into blossom,
their cheeks pink with life,
in promise of faithful fruitfulness.

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Blooming in your Hand

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Imagine a world, this ridiculous
tentative thing blooming
in your hand.  There in your hand, a world
opening up, stretching, after the image
of your hand.  Imagine
a field of sheep grazing, or a single sheep
grazing and wandering in the delight
of grass, of flowers
lifting themselves, after their fashion,
to be flowers…

…its prancing taking it far into the field
where, free of the other, it leapt for
no clear reason, and set out walking
through a gathering of flowers, parting
that grip of flowers with its face.
~Scott Cairns from “The Theology of Delight”

And so should we leap,
for no clear reason other than
we are held in His outstretched open hand,
blooming His image,
delighted and delightful.

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The Wait’s Begun Again

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…I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel.
For that rare, random descent.
~Sylvia Plath from “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”

 

But it is no trick of radiance nor random.
It was planned and real, this descent,
and yes,
He seizes us and does not let go.
No reason to fear neutrality
as He makes it impossible to be neutral.
We wait, a long wait
and tire of waiting,
but there is content in the wait.
A wide awake, eyelids-now-opened
content.

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Prepare for Joy: He Emptied Himself

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Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 
but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2: 6-8

 

[The Incarnation is like] a wave of the sea which,
rushing up on the flat beach,
runs out, even thinner and more transparent,
and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears.
~Hans Urs von Balthasar from Origen: Spirit and Fire

 

This is a week of emptying.  It is impossible to approach tomorrow’s supper and His anguished prayer without feeling hollowed out, our empty spaces then filled to the brim with grace. More over, through commemoration of these historical events, God on earth once again empties Himself onto our earthly soil and into our fleshly souls.  He washes our dirty feet, feeds us at His table, and pleads for our forgiveness when we deserve none of it.  He loses Himself in us.  Through Him,  we are welcomed home, whole and holy.

Hollowed, then hallowed.

 

Let him kneel down, lower his face to the grass,
And look at light reflected by the ground.
There he will find everything we have lost.
~Czeslaw Milosz from “The Sun”

 

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Prepare for Joy: Before It Sours

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Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.        
~Gerard Manley Hopkins  “Spring”
Once we were innocent, now no longer.  Cloyed and clouded by sin.
Given a choice, we chose sour over the sweetness we were born to,
giving up walks together in the cool of the day
to feed an appetite never sated.
So Christ made a choice to win us back with His blood
as if we were worthy of Him.
He says we are.  He dies to prove it.
Every day I try to believe it can be sweet again.
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Prepare for Joy: An Unlovely Thorn

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Christ … is a thorn in the brain.
Christ is God crying I am here,
and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you,
but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you,
here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God.
To walk through the fog of God
toward the clarity of Christ is difficult
because of how unlovely,
how ungodly that clarity often turns out to be.
~Christian Wiman from Image Journal “Varieties of Quiet”

We spent over 20 hours traveling yesterday, through two train stations, finding a crowded bus shuttle on the streets of New York City, then passing through four airports, enduring one cancellation and another delay.  It was a painfully difficult trial of endurance, something so ungodly and unlovely after experiencing wonderfully clarifying and nurturing visits with beloved family members.

Yet we made it home despite the long lines, the packed planes and trains, the noise, the security pat downs, the overpriced everything, the sea of humanity everywhere.

We would endure anything in order to be together with family — Christ endured so much more to bring us into His family, declaring “I am here for you!”   He leads us through the fog to come home to Him — even though the process may be appalling, offensive, degrading, and requiring painful endurance.

We are home, clearly one of His family.

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Prepare for Joy: A Breath of Fresh Air

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I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.
~Stevie Smith from “Black March”

Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.~Richard Rohr

He knows me, and calls my name when I least expect  it, when I am in despair, alone, grieving.  Only then do I know Him and in naming Him, am changed. Together, our voices are a breath of fresh air.

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Prepare for Joy: Take Off Your Shoes

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“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
Exodus 3:5

 

I muse, not for a moment thinking I
will hear reply when softly, voices brush
my ear, as sparrows sing and flit and fly
inside the flaming bush, whose tongues, I blush

to realize, are tongues of praise as well
as tongues of flame. “Give tongue to songs that flit
unsung within your heart like unrung bells,”
the voices seem to sing. “Be bold and let

your words flame out, oh, let them leap and dance.
Say that the King has come and speaks good news.
Make highways straight. Fill deserts with green plants.
All ground is holy now. Take off your shoes.
And dance!”
~David Schelhaas

 

I must go barefoot;  I feel each pebble, thorn and uneven spot when I tread the hours of the day and stub my toes in the dark of night.  There is no chance I can remain unsung and unrung when I feel everything through my soles.

Soon it will be time to sing, to dance, and to peal in joy.

 

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