Tag: christianity

Between Midnight and Dawn: The One Who Waits For Us

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frontyardviolet2

As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.
Isaiah 55:10-12

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And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.
~Anne Porter from “Music”

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as these wind-tossed days blow out
our lights and our heat,
as storms of life
take our energy and leave us limp,
out fitful sleep becomes refuge
instead of restoration

to wander this blustery path
alongside the One who
readies us for the coming radiance
of meadow blooms,
of bird song
and sleigh bell frog chorus
and trees clap their hands

this is a timely remembrance
of His promises kept~
this is not all there is

 

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: A Hidden Wholeness

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drizzlecroci

 

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart…
Psalm 51:17a

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there is in all things …. a hidden wholeness.
~Thomas Merton

 

…sometimes
I touch solitude on the shoulder
and surrender to a great tranquility.
I understand I need courage
and sometimes, mysteriously,
I feel whole.
~Luis Omar Salinas from “Sometimes Mysteriously”

 

dilly7

 

When we are at our most tender and vulnerable,
hurting, alone and barely able to breathe–
that is when we gift ourselves to God,
and He welcomes us with open arms,
knowing the sacrifice we make.

He was once just like us, alone and hurting.

No longer burnt offerings, nor money,
but He asks for a sacrifice of us,
broken and yielding,
ready for healing,
begging for wholeness.

He becomes our glue to shore up our shattered pieces.

 

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Broken to be Given

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broken

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
Luke 22:19

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…
Luke 24: 30-31

 

God uses broken things.
It takes broken soil to produce a crop,
broken clouds to give rain,
broken grain to give bread,
broken bread to give strength.
It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume.
~Vance Havner

 

Just as bread needs to be broken
in order to be given,
so, too, do our lives.
~Henri Nouwen

Jan_Davidsz_de_Heem_-_Vase_of_Flowers_-_Google_Art_Project
Jan Davidsz de Heem. Vase of Flowers, 1660 National Gallery of ARt

We yearn for perfection,
for flawless and faultless,
unblemished,
aiming for symmetry,
straight and smooth.

Life serves up something
far different
and our eye searches
to find the cracks,
scratches and damage,
whether it is in
a master’s still life portrait
replete with snails,
crawling flying insects
and broken blossoms,
or in the not so still life
of our next door neighbor.

In the beginning we were created
unblemished,
image bearers of perfection.
No longer.
We bear witness to brokenness
with shattered lives,
fragile minds and weakening bodies.
It is our leaks and warts
that stand out now.

To restore
the lost relationship with Him,
God provides the glue
needed to heal the broken.

He broke Himself
to mend us,
binding us to Him
forever.

And I might add:
a lonely snail wandering into sidewalk foot traffic,
crushed, cracked and dying, clinging to the pavement,
its broken shell a gift of metaphor
of our own leaking brokenness.

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Beginning to Anticipate

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…in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation.
2 Peter 3: 13-15

 

March. I am beginning
to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings
the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost
where the moles have nosed up their
cold castings, and the ground cover
in shadow under the cedars hasn’t softened
for months, fogs layering their slow, complicated ice
around foliage and stem
night by night,

but as the light lengthens, preacher
of good news, evangelizing leaves and branches,
his large gestures beckon green
out of gray. Pinpricks of coral bursting
from the cotoneasters. A single bee
finding the white heather. Eager lemon-yellow
aconites glowing, low to the ground like
little uplifted faces. A crocus shooting up
a purple hand here, there, as I stand
on my doorstep, my own face drinking in heat
and light like a bud welcoming resurrection,
and my hand up, too, ready to sign on
for conversion.
~Luci Shaw “Revival”

 

Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom,
the moon only when it is cloudless? 
To long for the moon while looking on the rain,
to lower the blinds and be unaware
of the passing of the spring –
these are even more deeply moving. 
Branches about to blossom
or gardens strewn with flowers
are worthier of our admiration.
~Yoshida Kenko

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I know this longing, this anticipation, as I know my own back yard:
waiting for a view of the mountain from my kitchen window

There are more days its snowy peak is hidden
than days it is blossom-stark floating cloud-like above the horizon of our barn roof

Visitors to the farm are too often told “the mountain is right there”~~~
as I point to a bank of nondescript gray clouds

My loving and longing for it, my knowing it is always there, in hiding,
moves me more than the days it is simply given to me.

The beauty of anticipation,
confident of fulfillment to come
my thirstiness
to be slaked
my hunger to be
satisfied.

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fallcrocus

wlccroci

 

During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Drenched and Flooded

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“Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.  That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”
Luke 7

 

God of our life,
there are days when the burdens we carry
chafe our shoulders and weigh us down;
when the road seems dreary and endless,
the skies grey and threatening;
when our lives have no music in them,
and our hearts are lonely,
and our souls have lost their courage.

Flood the path with light,
run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise;
tune our hearts to brave music;
give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age;
and so quicken our spirits
that we may be able to encourage the souls of all
who journey with us on the road of life,
to Your honour and glory.
~Augustine of Hippo

 

Those final few days of His life may have been like this:
the sky oppressive with storm clouds,
the shouldered burden too painful,
the soul weighed down, discouraged, disheartened.
Each step brought Him closer
to a desperate loneliness borne of betrayal and rejection.

But the end of that dark walk was just the beginning
of a journey into new covenant.

Instead of rain, those clouds bore light,
flooding the pathway so we can come together to lift the load.
Instead of loneliness, there arises community.
Instead of stillness, there is declaration of glory.
Instead of discouragement, He embodies hope for all hearts.
The promise fulfilled spills over our path.
We are drenched in gratitude, flooded with grace.

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: The World Bereft

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waterfall

All my longings lie open before you, Lord;
    my sighing is not hidden from you.
 My heart pounds, my strength fails me;
    even the light has gone from my eyes.

For I am about to fall,
    and my pain is ever with me.
 I confess my iniquity;
    I am troubled by my sin.
 Many have become my enemies without cause;
    those who hate me without reason are numerous.
 Those who repay my good with evil
    lodge accusations against me,
    though I seek only to do what is good.

 Lord, do not forsake me;
    do not be far from me, my God.
 Come quickly to help me,
    my Lord and my Savior.
from Psalm 38

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The darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Inversnaid” 

 

birchmorning

There is despair in the wilderness of untamed hearts.
Such wildness lies just beneath the surface;
it rounds and rounds, almost out of reach. 
How are we spared drowning in its pitchblack pool?
How can we thrill to the beauty rather than be sucked into the darkness?

He came not to destroy the world’s wildness,
but to pull us, gasping,
from its unforgiving clutches as we sink in ever deeper.
As weeds surviving in the wilderness,
we must grow, flourish, and witness to a wild world bereft.

O let us be left.
Let us be left.

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drizzleweed

 

During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Awaking

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For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

I Woke: —
Night, lingering, poured upon the world
Of drowsy hill and wood and lake
Her moon-song,
And the breeze accompanied with hushed fingers
On the birches.

Gently the dawn held out to me
A golden handful of bird’s-notes.
~Lenora Speyer “The Gift”

 

pansyface

1. Whence is the goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away,
never the like did come a-blowing,
Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May,
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away.

2. What is that light so brilliant,
breaking Here in the night across our eyes.
Never so bright, the day-star waking,
Started to climb the morning skies!
What is that light so brilliant, breaking,
Here in the night across our eyes.
~Traditional French Carol

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
~Be Thou My Vision, first stanza

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Stealing our senses all away.
Overwhelmed by the golden notes of songs, even if uttered only by birds.
A brightest light breaks apart the darkest night.
The brilliance climbing the morning skies.

This is what it is like for us:  our best thought.
Our Day-Star, Lord of our hearts,
awakens from the deepest of sleeps
and we, our senses stolen by glory,  are overjoyed.

 

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: A Handful of Dust

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shadowself

dandyshadow2

By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.
Genesis 3:19

 

I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T.S. Eliot in “Burial of the Dead” from “The Wasteland”

This shadowland we live in is not all there is nor will ever be.We are tangible — dust arising from the ground and settling back into it when the soil reclaims us.

We do not want to think of ourselves as dust.  There is too much of us living right now; we cast shadows before and behind us depending on the time of day and time of life.  We are substance: our shadows are only ephemeral reflections of our presence on earth.

Yet the dust we were and the dust we become is a fearsome thing.Nothing but dust…until the Creator lifts us up in the palm of His hand, and blows on us. Now we breathe and pulse and weep and bleed.

We become something other than mere shadow. There need be no fear moving beyond shadow to the light that created it.

Morning, as always, sets fire to our doubt.

We become His as He breaths into us, awed, to the last grain of fearful dust with which we are made.  We become so much more.

So much more.

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Blowing Open My Heart

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photo by Gilbert Lennox, Ireland

 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:  If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3: 18-20

 

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
~Seamus Heaney “Postscript” from The Spirit Level

 

…they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
~James Wright from “The Blessing”

 

‘Tis strange that death
should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
~William Shakespeare from “King John”

 

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,   
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,   
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,   
Trod with a lighter tread.
~William Butler Yeats from “The Wild Swans at Coole”
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Working outside before the sun was up on a recent rainy morning,  I heard overhead the swishing hush of wings in flight and the trumpeter swan doleful hymn called out as dozens passed above me in a long meandering line against the early dawn grayness.

The swan flocks predictably arrive here in late autumn to eat their fill, feasting in the harvested cornfields surrounding our farm, their bright white plumage a stark contrast to the dulling muddy soil.  In mild winters, they tend to stick around awhile, but soon they will lift their long graceful necks and fan out their wings to be picked up the wind, leaving us behind and beneath, moving on to their next feeding and breeding grounds.

These incredible creatures bring such joy with their annual arrival and brief stay, their leave-taking a metaphor for this dying time of year, reminding me once again nothing on earth can last, that God is greater than our earthly hearts.

“‘Tis strange that death should sing…” but in fact,  ’tis strange that death should fly in and out on silken wings.

I give myself over to their beauty, and walk with lighter tread, singing a new song:
I am grateful my sore heart still soars beyond this soil.

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

 

Between Midnight and Dawn: Eternity Awaits

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sunnyfield

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
~Matthew 13:44-46

 

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
~R.S. Thomas “The Bright Field”

 

The gospel is not about giving up and going without for its own sake; it is about making room for something wonderful.  Here (in Thomas’ poem) we discover that what we thought was lost and receding is in reality still ahead of us; we are not declining towards a sunset, but traveling towards the dawn!
~Malcolm Guite from The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter

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I too must learn to turn aside,
and truly see, as if for the first and last time,
the brightness that illuminates even the darkest day.
We approach the dawn, even when it is midnight.
We know the Light is there, even if hidden, buried in that bright field.

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn