Tag: Christ

Listening to Lent — The Great Unchangeable

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rainyquince

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,
Risen Son of God!

Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of glory and of grace!

One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God
~Charitie Bancroft

To know I am written there
on His hands,
His heart,
purchased,
pardoned,
understood–
He changes not
as He changes me.

Listening to Lent – Through the Gloom

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sunset32314Death shall not destroy my comfort,
Christ shall guide me thro’ the gloom;
Down he’ll send some heav’nly convoy,
To escort my spirit home.

(Refrain):
Oh, hallelujah! How I Love my Savior,
Oh, hallelujah! That I Do.
Oh, Hallelujah! How I love my Savior!
Mourners, you may love him too.

Jordan’s stream shall not o’erflow me,
While my Savior’s by my side;
Canaan, Canaan lies before me!
Soon I’ll cross the swelling tide.
(Refrain)

See the happy spirits waiting,
On the banks beyond the stream!
Sweet responses still repeating,
“Jesus! Jesus!” is their theme.
(Refrain)
~American Folk Hymn

There are families in despair
just down the road apiece from us:
the uncertain earth gave way and slid far,
overcoming houses and the people within.
The missing outnumber the known dead.
The searchers struggle on quicksand;
The mourners drown
in enveloping inevitability.
There is no where to turn,
no comfort to find
but that we belong,
body and soul,
to our Savior
who came to fetch us
from the muddy flow of our lives.

Listening to Lent — Let It Freely Burn

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sunset319141

Come down, O love divine, seek Thou this soul of mine,
And visit it with Thine own ardor glowing.
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
And kindle it, Thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn, til earthly passions turn
To dust and ashes in its heat consuming;
And let Thy glorious light shine ever on my sight,
And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

Let holy charity mine outward vesture be,
And lowliness become mine inner clothing;
True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part,
And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.

And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long,
Shall far out-pass the power of human telling;
For none can guess its grace, till he become the place
Wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling.
~Bianco De Siena

This could be why sunrise and sunset
grabs hold of me wholly,
clothes this lowly soul in robe and slippers,
in finery lit from above.

The mistakes of the day
burned to dust in the evening fire,the hope of dawn and new beginning
illuminating the dispersed darkness.

 

Listening to Lent — Be Mindful

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pastoralpond2
Spem in alium nunquam habui
Praeter in te, Deus Israel
Qui irasceris et propitius eris
et omnia peccata hominum
in tribulatione dimittis
Domine Deus
Creator caeli et terrae
respice humilitatem nostram
I have never put my hope in any other
but in You, O God of Israel
who can show both anger and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins
of suffering man
Lord God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our lowliness
~Spem in alium, Thomas Tallis 
Mindfulness is a mantra of intentional living,
of not letting anything escape
unnoticed or unappreciated.For God to be mindful of us,
to acknowledge our humble existence
owed only and solely to Him,
He sees a rippled reflection of Himself;
we image bearers distorted
by the thrown rocks of our sin.So He came alongside us,
walked our paths,
suffering like us,
for us,
instead of us.Not only is He mindful of our lowliness,
He became the most lowly
so we can now reflect Him perfectly,
one blood,
one heart,
one mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cn7ZW8ts3Y

Listening to Lent — Show Me the Way

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reflected

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way!

O sisters let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sisters let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe & crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O brothers let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
Come on brothers, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O fathers let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O fathers let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe and crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O mothers let’s go down
Come on down, don’t you wanna go down?
Come on mothers, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way

O sinners, let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sinners, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe and crown?
Good Lord show me the way
~American Spiritual

Sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, sinners~
that covers us all, not a one left out.
Cleansed and crowned
and studying what we need to know:

Good Lord, show us the way to you.

Listening to Lent — World Without End

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rainyyard

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur.
Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Simul ergo cum in unum congregamur:
Ne nos mente dividamur, caveamus.
Cessent iurgia maligna, cessent lites.
Et in medio nostri sit Christus Deus.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Simul quoque cum beatis videamus,
Glorianter vultum tuum, Christe Deus:
Gaudium quod est immensum, atque probum,
Saecula per infinita saeculorum. Amen.

English Translation
Where charity and love are, God is there.
Love of Christ has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice in Him and be glad.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And from a sincere heart let us love one.

Where charity and love are, God is there.
At the same time, therefore, are gathered into one:
Lest we be divided in mind, let us beware.
Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease.
And in the midst of us be Christ our God.

Where charity and love are, God is there.
At the same time we see that with the saints also,
Thy face in glory, O Christ our God:
The joy that is immense and good, Unto the
World without end. Amen.

When I hear such powerful words
sung in unity of spirit
with diversity of voice and song,
my impulse to be divisive
is convicted, found guilty of separation
rather than blending in wholly.

May my disparate parts be gathered together
within His immense capacity for goodness,
my broken fragments glued together,
knitted whole by His loving charity,
His understanding of me as better than myself
in this world without end.

Listening to Lent — Fields of Our Hearts

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sproutsfield

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
Thinking that never he would wake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green,

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain.
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
~John Crum

The ground is slowly coming to life again;
snowdrops and daffodils are surfacing from months of dormancy,
buds are swelling
the spring chorus frogs have come from the mud to sing again
and birds now greet the lazy dawn.

Everything, everyone, has been so dead, so hidden;
His touch calls us back to life,
love is come again
to the fallow fields of our hearts.

Imperishable Bliss

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barnstorm
But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.
~Wallace Stevens from “Sunday Morning”
Earthly contentment~
whether a full stomach
or adequate bank account
or a covering of snow~
won’t last.
May I not settle in comfort,
but seek to fill
my continual need
with what will not perish,
even as the snow melts
and the light fades,
to rest assured,
I will be changed.
febbarn2
sunsettreeglory

The Air Sighs

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marchmoonbaker

When, in the cavern darkness, the child
first opened his mouth (even before
his eyes widened to see the supple world
his lungs had breathed into being),
could he have known that breathing
trumps seeing? Did he love the way air sighs
as it brushes in and out through flesh
to sustain the tiny heart’s iambic beating,
tramping the crossroads of the brain
like donkey tracks, the blood dazzling and
invisible, the corpuscles skittering to the earlobes
and toenails? Did he have any idea it
would take all his breath to speak in stories
that would change the world?
~Luci Shaw “Breath”
Breath that created the world
by forming the Words
that tell the stories
that change the world.
We rest in that breath today,
sighing in Sabbath.

northernlandscape2

Rather Be a Hammer

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frost125143I’d rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes, I would, if I could, I surely would…
~Simon and Garfunkel from “El Condor Pasa”

If I had a hammer,
I’d hammer in the morning,
I’d hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I’d hammer out danger,
I’d hammer out a warning,
I’d hammer out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
~Lee Hays, Pete Seeger

Strangely enough~
it is the nail,
not the hammer,
that binds together
creating the strength
the safety
the permanence of
foundation and roof.

The hammer is only a tool
to pound the nail in
where it is most needed
where it won’t be forgotten
where the hole it leaves behind
is a forever reminder
of what I, as hammer, have done
and how I am forgiven.