Tag: glory

Like Right Now

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It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out––no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
~William Stafford “Yes” from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

Of course there are no guarantees — no matter how selfless we are, how devout our practices, how righteous we appear in others’ eyes.

The natural disaster still happens, the illness progresses, the unexpected still happens because there is no warranty on how things must go while we’re here.

What is guaranteed is our vision of God’s glory as portrayed through His infinite sacrifice, His infinite worth, His infinite value, His infinite presence and transcendence. We glorify him through our enjoyment of Him — right now, right here — the bonus of another morning, another noon, another evening. It is bonus, not anything we are owed.

Guaranteed glorious. Unlimited warranty.

Consider How the Lilies Grow

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Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:—
We are as they;
Like them we fade away,
As doth a leaf.

Consider
The sparrows of the air of small account:
Our God doth view
Whether they fall or mount,—
He guards us too.

Consider
The lilies that do neither spin nor toil,
Yet are most fair:—
What profits all this care
And all this coil?

Consider
The birds that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;
God gives them food:—
Much more our Father seeks
To do us good.
~Christina Rossetti from “Consider”

…if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face
of the hummingbird
to touch me.
~Mary Oliver from “Lilies”

Homer Smith: [the final English lesson] Oh, *I* built a chapel…

All of the sisters: *I* built a chapel.

Homer Smith: *You* built a chapel…

All of the sisters: *You* built a chapel.

Homer Smith: *We” built a chapel…

Mother Maria: [points to heaven] *He* built a chapel.

Homer Smith: [pause, then] Amen.
~Scene from “Lilies of the Field”

Wiser Lake Chapel (our church)

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty,
He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool,
and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.
~Julia Ward Howe — final original verses of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”

We are Your lilies, the glory of this Sabbath morning.
Consider us, Oh Lord,
Consider us the tears borne of love from Your eyes,
So brief and so beautiful.

So Bugged

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Sometimes I’d get mad
because things didn’t work out well,
I’d spoil a flapjack,
or slip in the snowfield while getting water,
or one time my shovel went sailing down into the gorge,
and I’d be so mad I’d want to bite the mountaintops
and would come in the shack
and kick the cupboard and hurt my toe.

But let the mind beware,
that though the flesh be bugged,
the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.
~Jack Kerouac from The Dharma Bums

Little things can bug us.  In fact, like a thistle covered with aphids which entices ants,  we can be bugged on top of bugged.

Yet we still bloom. We are on notice there is joy to be found. What solace is this?  

Though bugs exult in irritating us, flaunting our flawed flesh, it is a reminder of our vulnerability during our short stay on this good earth, bugs and all.  

The rest is all glorious, right down to the thirsty roots that hold us fast. 

A Bright Sadness: The Anguish of Earth

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The pain and tears of all the years were met together on Calvary. The sorrow of heaven joined with the anguish of earth; the forgiving love stored up in God’s future was poured out into the present; the voices that echo in a million human hearts, crying for justice, longing for spirituality, eager for relationship, yearning for beauty, drew themselves together into a final scream of desolation.
~N.T. Wright from Simply Jesus

To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life
in the presence of God,
under the authority of God,
to the glory of God.

To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God.

To live all of life coram Deo is to live a life of integrity.

It is a life of wholeness that finds its unity and coherency in the majesty of God.

It is a life that is open before God.
It is a life in which all that is done is done as to the Lord.
It is a life lived by principle, not expediency;
by humility before God, not defiance.
It is a life lived under the tutelage of conscience that is held captive by the Word of God.
~R.C. Sproul

As millions watched and wept over the burning of a venerated cathedral built to the glory of God, we must remember even this anguish happened under the gaze of God. Our sorrow over a building destroyed is trivial compared to the loss felt during Christ’s suffering and death.

The temporal ashes of the Notre Dame Cathedral mix now with our own mortal ashes. We have been redeemed through no action of our own. Our debt has been paid out of Christ’s sheer grace and love.

As we walk together with our Christian brothers and sisters through Holy Week and beyond into the holiness of every day, may we remain under the gaze of God, under the authority of God, open before God, captivated by the Word of God.

We see the gaping hole in the ceiling of a great cathedral just as we witness the open hole of Christ’s tomb: whatever we do, wherever we do it, it is to be in His name, to His glory, under His Holy gaze.

Coram Deo.


A Bright Sadness: A Twig of Evidence

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This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond –
Invisible, as Music –
But positive, as Sound –
It beckons, and it baffles –
Philosophy, don’t know –
And through a Riddle, at the last –
Sagacity, must go –
To guess it, puzzles scholars –
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown –
Faith slips – and laughs, and rallies –
Blushes, if any see –
Plucks at a twig of Evidence –
And asks a Vane, the way –
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit –
Strong Hallelujahs roll –
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul –
~Emily Dickinson

Doubt can feel like the bare branches of winter – plenty of bleak bark, and nothing that feels alive or real or even meaningful.

Yet spring ushers in such profound intervention that doubt is ushered out with little ceremony. What was mere potential is now bud and bloom. What was mere twig is now glorious.

And so, with the resurrection, are we.

The Giving Snow

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Under the giving snow
blossoms a daring spring.
~Terri Guillemets



As if we need a reminder
that nature doesn’t check the calendar
and the weather does what it pleases when it pleases:

~a snow fell for hours yesterday
and we remain cloaked and drifted this morning~

we look more pristine than we are.

Underneath this fluffy blanket
we’re barely presentable,
sleep-deprived,
wrinkled and worn,
all mud and mildew beneath.

But Spring will come
rising from its snowy bed,
lit from an inner fire
that never burns out.

Through clouds like ashes
we turn aside to see God’s glory;
our eyes carefully covered
from the glaze of snow,
we feel His flash of life as He passes by.


Every Morning, So Far, I’m Alive

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Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I’m alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky—as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.
~Mary Oliver  “Landscape”

photo by Cheryl Bostrom

In gratitude to poet Mary Oliver, who did not wake up this morning on this side of the veil, but did wake up to unimaginable glory on another side:

Even in mid-January,
when endless days drag on dark and damp~
even when I am unconvinced
new life and light will ever return,
these mosses grow with enthusiasm,
requiring so little to stay alive~

they patiently encourage me
to fly with strong wings,
to keep open the doors of my heart
to the possibility
that even now,
especially now when I can’t imagine it,
I too will thrive.


When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
~Mary Oliver from “When Death Comes”

An Advent Paradox: Glory in the Darkest Place

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O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
dispel the shadows of the night,
and turn our darkness into light.
~from O Come O Come Emmanuel

 

 

 

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, O Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem star may lead me
To the sight of Him who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

 

I leave home in darkness to go to work and come home in darkness in the late afternoon.  It seems for days on end the sun never shines as I’m tucked away with patients in clinic consult rooms hearing their own struggle against the darkness.

Where is the light that I promise to each of them if I can’t feel it myself?

Yet Glory is present in the darkest place and the Light has come.

I will remember His promise.
Even in the darkness I know His face.
He knows I know.

 

 

 

[Verse 1]
Out of the depths of silent night
Immanuel, come hear our cry
Our grief is strong, our burdens great
The night is long and hope is faint

[Verse 2]
You came to set the captives free
A Morning Star of joy and peace
Why does this darkness feel so deep?
Why can’t our weary spirits see?

[Chorus]
Glory, glory
Glory in the darkest place
Glory, glory
Glory, let Your mercy reign

[Verse 3]
Out of the depths of silent night
A Savior born, a mother’s sigh
The darkness trembled at this Star
A beam of hope for troubled hearts

[Verse 4]
You came to make Your blessings known
And bear our curse of death alone
You came to share our suffering
So in our sorrow, we could sing

[Chorus]
Glory, glory
Glory in the darkest place
Glory, glory
Glory, let Your mercy reign
Glory, glory
Glory in the darkest place
Glory, glory
Glory, let Your mercy reign
Brittany Hope

An Advent Paradox: Eternal Yet Not a Day Old

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O child, Creator of all! 
How humbly you lie in the manger.
You who rule powerfully in heaven!

There the heaven of heavens cannot contain you;  here, however, you are held in the narrowest manger.

There, in the beginning of the world, you decorated the earth with green grasses that produced seed, with fruit-bearing trees that produced fruit, you ornamented the heavens with the sun, the moon, and the stars, the sky with winged birds, the waters with fish, you filled the land with reptiles, draft animals, and beasts; here, however, in the end of the world, you are wrapped in swaddling clothes!

O majesty! O lowness!
O sublimity! O humility!
O immense, eternal, and Ancient of Days!
O small, temporal infant whose life is not yet one day upon the earth!

~Adam of Dryburgh from  The Roads from Bethlehem

 

 

 

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
John Calvin

 

 

 

 

We are blinded to the Glory given to us in a narrow manger if we allow ourselves to perceive it as something routine and commonplace.  There is nothing commonplace about the gifts of Creation or the gift of His Son as Savior.

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated even a blade of grass,  given how focused I am in mowing it into conformity and submission.  Or the fruit of the trees, the birds of the air, the fish of the seas, the beasts of burden who work for us. Too often I’m not up early enough to witness the pink sunrise or I’m too busy to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets.

I miss opportunities to rejoice innumerable times a day.  It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel joy, and for that moment time stands still.  Life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation and sending the Son of God to earth as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.

If a blade of grass, if a palette of color, if all this is made for joy, then the coming of Jesus into the world means I was made for joy as well.

Even small temporal commonplace me.

 

To Hone and Tend Creation

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Creation is the arena in and through which God wishes to reveal himself. 
In creating, in preserving, in pursuing; in hallowing, in participating, in wooing—
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have made all creation, 
and all its creatures, great and small, their delight.

We recognize that, being made in his image, we are appointed as his stewards. 
This does not give us carte blanche with God’s world. 
We are not given creation to plunder, 
but to hone and tend in such ways that every little part of it gives glory to God.
~Kathleen Mulhern in Dry Bones

 

 

fog101948

 

milkcoma

 

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I like the thought of creation being “wooed” into existence by God.  Indeed I need to be gently wooed into tackling the day and tending my part of creation.  The night may have been sleepless, the worry endless, the efforts I make futile.

Yet I’m here for a reason, as is every spider, mouse and even mosquito.  It is all to His glory, as insignificant as I feel.

There can be nothing but wooing wonder in all He has made.

 

 

 

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