Tag: intentional

Unintentionality

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I go to nature not because
its flowers and sunsets speak
to me (though they do) or
listen to me inquire but

because I have filled it with
unintentionality, so that I
can miss anything personal in
the roar of sunset, so that

I can in beds of flowers hold
my head up too.
~A.R. Ammons from The Ridge Farm from Complete Poems

Take the tangle instead of the trouble it causes.
Take the world inside
as seriously as any other.
Take your elderly mother and father
at face value as they have to.
Take the mirror of the sky
mirrored in the bay.
Take the swell of new-mown hay
and the river conversing
where the valley opens its mouth
and the land begins to creak less
as the evening steals light away—
Take the wick in the far hills
and take the sun and the wind
and the look of nothing for granted.
Take a little less, all right
and try not to take fright.
Take the end in mind
instead of the end in sight.
~Brian Turner “Take This” from Taking Off

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from The Book of Hours

Each of us,
intentionally made by our Creator
in His image,
yet we discover the beauty and terror of living
in His shadow.

So much happens which we don’t intend
but there is nothing unintentional with God.

Books and lectures tell us to live intentionally
while each day contains something that
brings us to our knees.

I tell myself:
even though I don’t know what tomorrow will be,
I will not take fright
and hold my head up
I’ll just keep going
while taking His Hand and following
wherever He intends to take me.

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Intended for Joy

barnstormingblog4 Comments

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
~John Calvin as quoted in  John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (Oxford, 1988) by William J. Bouwsma

It is too easy to become blinded to the glory surrounding us if we perceive it to be routine and commonplace.

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated a blade of grass,  given how focused I am at mowing it into conformity.

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 or to witness our horses turning to gold in the evening glow.

I didn’t notice how the light was illuminating our walnut tree until I saw the perfect reflection of it in our koi pond — I had marveled at a reflection instead of the real thing itself.

I almost missed the miracle of a spider’s overnight work in the grass; from a distance, it looked like a dew-soaked tissue draped like a tent over the green blades. When I went to go pick it up to throw it away in the trash, I realized I was staring at a small creature’s masterpiece.

I miss opportunities to rejoice innumerable times a day.  It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel the joy, and in that moment time stands still.  Life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.   If a blade of grass, if a leaf turning color, if a chance reflection, if a delicately knit tent in the grass — if all this is made for joy, then maybe so am I.

Even colorless, plain and commonplace me, created an image-bearer and intended reflector of Light.

Maybe so am I.

A Bright Sadness: Ignore It or See

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Divinity is not playful.
The universe was not made in jest
but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.
By a power that is unfathomably secret,
and holy,
and fleet.
There is nothing to be done about it,
but ignore it,
or see. 
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—
his eternal power and divine nature—
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20


We weren’t conceived by random happenstance,
including so many millions not welcomed
but wished or washed away before taking a breath.

We are here because we were earnestly needed and wanted,
by a power and divinity beyond comprehension
with a capacity for love and compassion
beyond anything in our earthly experience.

We aren’t a cosmic joke,
or random couplings of DNA.
We aren’t pawns in the universe’s chess game.

We may look silly as we intentionally loll about in the smelly stuff of life,
or we may think what we say or do doesn’t matter a hill of beans,
but we are created to clearly see God for who He is,
and in whose image He made us.

He won’t be ignored;
we have no more excuses.
It is time to open our eyes,
to come and see.

Intentional

barnstormingblog4 Comments

mammatus2

 

sunsetgrasscentral

 

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

 

pondtree

 

It is too easy to become blinded to the glory surrounding us if we perceive it to be routine and commonplace.

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated a blade of grass,  given how focused I am mowing it into conformity.

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 or to witness the ever-changing cloud formations above.

I didn’t notice how the light was illuminating our walnut tree until I saw the perfect reflection of it in our koi pond — I had marveled at a reflection instead of the real thing itself.

I miss opportunities to rejoice innumerable times a day.  It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel the joy, and in that moment time stands still.  Life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.   If a blade of grass, if a palette of color, if a chance reflection, if a movement of clouds — if all this is made for joy, then maybe so am I.

Even colorless, plain and commonplace me, created an image-bearer and intended reflector of light.

Maybe so am I.

 

 

maplelight

 

stormybaker