Tag: humility

The Fierce Humility of Rain

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Praise to the Maker of the torrent
and the hurricane,
praise for the fierce humility of rain:

whose motion will not end, neither come to rest
nor ascend again until, like grace,
it finds the lowest empty place.
~Matthew Baker “Rainfall”

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See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build — but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

Mine, O thou Lord of life, send my roots rain
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Thou art indeed just, Lord”

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As I look out through a tear-streaked window at the beginning of this lightening day,
I fear inadequacy to the task before me:
Parched and struggling patients line my schedule.
Anxious and weary and barren too young,
seeking something, anything
to ease their distress in a hostile world,
preferably an easy pill to swallow.
Nothing that hurts going down.

While others thrive around them,
they wilt and wither,
wishing to cease breathing.

Lord of Life, equip me to find the words to say that might help.
May it be about more than genetics, neurotransmitters and physiology.

In this dry season for young lives,
send your penetrating rain
to fill with grace
the emptiest space.
Reach down and shake their roots
fiercely
and slake their thirst.

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Between Midnight and Dawn: Having Loved His Own

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Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

…so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
John 13

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What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:
Christ washed the feet of Judas.
~George Marion McClellan
from “The Feet of Judas” in The Book of American Negro Poetry 1922

As an aide in a rest home caring for the crippled feet of the elderly,
as a medical student in an inner city hospital seeing the homeless whose socks had to be peeled off carefully to avoid pulling off gangrenous toes, as a doctor working with the down and out detox patients from the streets who had no access to soap and water for weeks,

I’ve washed feet as part of my job.

People always protest, just as Peter did when Jesus started to wash his feet.

We never believe our feet,
those homely gnarled bunioned claw-toed calloused parts of us,
deserve that attention.

We are ashamed to have someone care about them, care for them, when we don’t care enough on our own.

I have never washed the feet of someone about to betray me, leading me to my death.

I have never had my feet washed by someone who understood my heart needed cleansing even more than my feet, who loved me that much.

Until now.

This one thing should not be forgot:
Kneeling, He wears the humility and towels of a servant as His only raiments. He gently cups our heels in His palms, washes and dries our soles and arches and toes, as our hearts are held, beating and bejeweled as royalty,  in His loving hands.

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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: As Warm As Tears

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As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”
Luke 19:41

 

Love’s as warm as tears,
Love is tears:
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between
Hedges, where once was green.

Love’s as fierce as fire,
Love is fire:
All sorts–infernal heat
Clinkered with greed and pride,
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,
Laughing, even when denied,
And that empyreal flame
Whence all loves came.

Love’s as fresh as spring,
Love is spring:
Bird-song hung in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering ‘Dare! Dare!’
To sap, to blood,
Telling ‘Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best.’

Love’s as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His.
~C.S. Lewis

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Jesus is reported to have wept twice in the gospels.  When informed His friend Lazarus was dead, He weeps in response to the grief and lack of faith demonstrated by friends and family even though they knew Jesus’ power to heal and restore.  The second time was on Palm Sunday, as triumphantly He approached Jerusalem and stopping, looked down upon the city, knowing what lay ahead.   This time the stakes were not the loss of one life, but the loss of an entire city due to the unbelief and lack of faith of its people.

Indeed, Jerusalem, still torn between factions, faiths and fanatics, has not really known peace ever since.

And our own country, more fractured and torn than ever before in living memory, is raising up its own version of factions and fanatics.  How can this end well?

I am struck by the compassion shown in the Lord’s tears.  These are not tears of self-pity, nor anticipation of His own imminent personal suffering, but tears shed over the continued blindness of mankind.  They expected the militant entrance of a victorious king, unaware their salvation rode into their midst on a donkey’s colt.

Can we not,  the impatient and ignorant electorate, learn from this?  — humility and sacrifice is far more powerful in the kingdom of God than weapons, verbal barbs and hatred.

Those sacred tears shed so long ago, and still shed, were never for Himself, but for us.

Human tears rolling down the face of God;
Divine tears washing the face of man.

Peace no longer is hidden from us; we know from where our help comes.
Now that we know, there are no excuses for our blindness.

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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: Breaking Through

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9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
~Luke 18:9-14

 

Walking in February
A warm day after a long freeze
On an old logging road
Below Sumas Mountain
Cut a walking stick of alder,
Looked down through clouds
On wet fields of the Nooksack—
And stepped on the ice
Of a frozen pool across the road.
It creaked
The white air under
Sprang away, long cracks
Shot out in the black,
My cleated mountain boots
Slipped on the hard slick
—like thin ice—the sudden
Feel of an old phrase made real—
Instant of frozen leaf,
Icewater, and staff in hand.
“Like walking on thin ice—”
I yelled back to a friend,
It broke and I dropped
Eight inches in
~Gary Snyder “Thin Ice”

 

This presidential election season has been an exhausting exercise in self-aggrandizement — candidates turning up the heat by exalting themselves over their competition, all while standing on the deep frozen lake of voter emotions.

The trouble with such overheating in the middle of winter is that we all end up walking on too-thin ice: both those who are far too overconfident in expressing their own righteous views and opinions about how much better they are than others, and those of us who listen and believe the blowhards.

We’ll all end up breaking through the ice, thoroughly doused by the chilly waters below.

Lord, have mercy on us,
help us recognize the cracks forming beneath our feet,
by putting us on our knees before you
and you alone.

 

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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

I Tremble for my Country

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“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” –
–Thomas Jefferson, in “A Summary View of the Rights of British America”
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice can not sleep forever…
― Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia on the need for abolition of slavery

Would Thomas Jefferson, architect of our Declaration of Independence celebrated today, be trembling for his country still? I believe he would, considering his views were radical in his day, his religious convictions unconventional, and his plantation managed by slaves of African descent. He personally understood the moral quicksand on which he tenuously stood–the conflict he felt was as close as his own home. He would recognize and mourn our abuse of our liberties secured and maintained through the blood of our forefathers, our brothers, sisters and children.

Today we are sinking deeply in that same quicksand, having done no better than Jefferson at forging a personal and moral foundation on which to firmly stand. We have squandered our autonomy with selfishness rather than a selflessness borne out of gratitude for the gift of freedom. We want to secure and protect what is ours before we consider in humility if others have what they need first. We have used up land and and animals and water without regard to those who will come after us, failing to be stewards of the garden so generously given to our care.  We trample daily on others’ rights in the name of self-determination and freedom of choice, especially destroying the defenseless for imperfect genetics, wrong gender or simply being ill-timed.

History as recorded in the Word and elsewhere shows when everyone does as they see fit, there is no immunity from judgment and wrath:

In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Judges 17:6

And how well has that worked out for us?
It took a true servant King who sacrificed Himself to save us from destroying ourselves.
He is still trying and still waiting for our response.

Let us remember with conviction today the source of our life and liberty; His justice does not sleep.

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Listening to Lent — The Fire of Life

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Humble and Human, willing to bend You are
Fashioned of flesh and the fire of life, You are
Not too proud to wear our skin
To know this weary world we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

Humble in sorrow, You gladly carried Your cross
Never refusing Your life to the weakest of us
Not too proud to bear our sin
To feel this brokenness we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

Humble in greatness, born in the likeness of man
Name above all names, holding our world in Your hands
Not too proud to dwell with us, to live in us, to die for us
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

We lift you high

Humble
You are humble
Make me humble like You
We lift You high
~Audrey Assad

To wear our skin
is to know our frailty
our bruises and callouses,
our sunburns and warts,
our spasming backs.
and toothaches.

To pulse within our hearts
is to know our temptation
for self-promotion,
knowing our desire
to fill our own emptiness
rather than love others first.

To inhabit our souls
you have humbled yourself
to pull together
our million broken pieces,
becoming the adhesive
to glue us back whole,
loving us by becoming us
as we crumbled to dust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzNfA4Tj2KI

Listening to Lent — Bow and Be Simple

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I will bow and be simple,
I will bow and be free,
I will bow and be humble,
Yea, bow like the willow tree.
I will bow, this is the token,
I will wear the easy yoke,
I will bow and will be broken,
Yea, I’ll fall upon the rock.
~Shaker Hymn
 

I am not one to yield to the wind freely.
More poplar than willow,
there is inflexibility rather than suppleness
in my rigid branches and trunk.

This means I break, and frequently,
when bending might be easier.
This means I lie in broken pieces
awaiting salvage, or the flames.

Yea, fallen in fragments upon the rock.

A Canticle for Advent: Stars Were Glowing

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Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You has got a manger bed.
All the evil folk on earth
Sleep in feathers at their birth.
Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You has got a manger bed.

1. Have you heard about our Jesus?
Have you heard about his fate?
How his mammy went to the stable
On that Christmas Eve so late?
Winds were blowing, cows were lowing,
Stars were glowing, glowing, glowing.

2. To the manger came the Wise Men.
Bringing from hin and yon,
For the mother and the father,
And the blessed little Son.
Milkmaids left their fields and flocks
And sat beside the ass and ox.
~Appalachian Carol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBKjkxV0edY

40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
1Corinthians 15: 40-42

There is splendor in the humility of an earthly body sleeping on straw in a feed trough, so vulnerable, so frail, so perishable.  There is splendor that even the stars glowed brighter knowing this Star had fallen to earth.
Glowing, glowing, never ever gone.

 

Grander Than The Sky

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There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
― Victor Hugo in Les Misérables

We are on a cross-country road trip to take our daughter back to college, with no time for stopping and taking good focused photos. I apologize these are taken in Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota through a buggy-mess windshield at 70 mph.

The expanse of sky stretching seemingly to infinity never fails to awe me on these trips.

As high and broad and endless the sky appears, so much more so are our souls deep within us. We are created everlasting; instead, in our Fall and brokenness, we face the limitations of our bodies. We feel so finite yet our souls are anything but — they are the image and reflection of our Creator.

When we look up– at the clouds, at the stars, at the moon and sun, we are reminded to look within and acknowledge in deep humility — we are His. Bugs and all, even when we are speeding along through our God-given life, too busy to notice the grandeur around us and in us.

He notices.

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Lenten Grace — Holy Ground

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

The present is holy ground.
— Alfred North Whitehead

It matters less what has happened or what will happen.  What matters is happening right this very moment.

We are sentient creatures with a proclivity to bypass the present to dwell on the past or fret about the future.   This has been true of humans since our creation.   Those observing Buddhist tradition and New Age believers of the “Eternal Now” call our attention to the present moment through the teaching of “mindfulness” to bring a sense of peacefulness and fulfillment.

Yet I don’t believe the present is about our minds, or how well we dwell in the moment.  It is not about us at all.

The present is holy ground where we are allowed to tread.  We are asked to remove our shoes in an attitude of respect to a loving God who gives us life, as we approach each sacred moment with humility.

There will be no other just like this one.  There may be no other beyond this one.  Right now, this moment barefoot, I am simply grateful to be here.