You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power, and infinite is your wisdom. You are worthy of our praise, though we are but a speck in your creation. You awaken our hearts to delight in your praise. You made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. St. Augustine of Hippo, 354-430, Confessions, Book I, Chapter 1
As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace. ~Denise Levertov “The Avowal”
Do I truly trust what holds me up, like the hawk gliding in the air or the swimmer afloat on water?
Instead I work restlessly to earn something tangible to rely on, putting my faith in all the wrong things in my search for comfort, for wholeness, for purpose, for identity and meaning.
But that’s not what God’s plan requires. That is not what He asks of me. I don’t have to earn anything through my effort.
I am sought out. I am held up. I can rest in Him and stop searching restlessly. I am only asked to open up to receive His all surrounding and endless grace.
O Beauty ancient, O Beauty so new Late have I loved Thee and feebly yet do. Though you were with me, I was not with You. Then You shone Your face and I was blind no more
Chorus: My heart searches restlessly and finds no rest ‘till it rests in Thee. O Seeker You sought for me, Your love has found me; I am taken by thee.
I sought this world and chased its finer things, Yet were these not in You, they would not have been. My ceaseless longing hid the deeper truth, In all my desirings, I was desiring You.
Lord, in my deafness You cried out to me. I drew my breath and now Your fragrance I breathe O Fount of Life, You are forever the same; O Fire of Love, come set me aflame. ~Daniel Purkapile, “Prayer of St. Augustine”
Coffee in one hand leaning in to share, listen: How I talk to God.
“Momma, you’re special.” Three-year-old touches my cheek. How God talks to me.
While driving I make lists: done, do, hope, love, hate, try. How I talk to God.
Above the highway hawk: high, alone, free, focused. How God talks to me.
Rash, impetuous chatter, followed by silence: How I talk to God.
First, second, third, fourth chance to hear, then another: How God talks to me.
Fetal position under flannel sheets, weeping How I talk to God.
Moonlight on pillow tending to my open wounds How God talks to me.
Pulling from my heap of words, the ones that mean yes: How I talk to God.
Infinite connects with finite, without words: How God talks to me. ~Kelly Belmonte “How I Talk to God”
I don’t always realize I am constantly in a dialogue with God, but He knows and He hears. He talks back to me but I’m not always hearing Him.
Whenever I’m occupied with the daily-ness of life and am thinking “if only” this or that could be different, I’m telling God I know better. He lets me know in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that He made the world, He knows what comes next and I don’t.
If I get impatient or irritable rather than grateful and awed, I’m talking like a petulant child wanting my way. When God gifts me with a moment of color in the sky or a golden light across the landscape, I need to pause, waiting in my personal wilderness, and remain wordless.
The Infinite is trying to talk to the finite. I am only asked to listen.
You heard my voice, I came out of the woods by choice Shelter also gave their shade But in the dark I have no name So leave that click in my head And I will remember the words that you said Left a clouded mind and a heavy heart But I am sure we could see a new start So when your hopes on fire But you know your desire Don’t hold a glass over the flame Don’t let your heart grow cold I will call you by name I will share your road But hold me fast, hold me fast ‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer And hold me fast, hold me fast ‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer I wrestled long with my youth We tried so hard to live in the truth But do not tell me all is fine When I lose my head, I lose my spine So leave that click in my head And I won’t remember the words that you said You brought me out from the cold Now, how I long, how I long to grow old So when your hope’s on fire But you know your desire Don’t hold a glass over the flame Don’t let your heart grow cold I will call you by name I will share your road But hold me fast, hold me fast ‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer And hold me fast, hold me fast ‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I’m under And I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I’m under The skies I’m under Source: LyricFindSongwriters: Benjamin Walter David Lovett / Edward James Milton Dwane / Marcus Oliver Johnstone Mumford / Winston Aubrey Aladar Marshall
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4
To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness- especially in the wilderness – you shall love him. ~Frederick Buechner from A Room Called Remember:Uncollected Pieces
I usually think of wilderness as a distant peak far removed from anything or anyone. From my farmhouse window on a clear day, I can see a number of distant peaks if the cloud cover moves away to reveal them.
Or perhaps the wilderness is a desolate plain that extends for miles without relief in sight.
Wilderness is also found in an isolated corner of my human heart. I keep it far removed from anything and anyone. During my televisit computer work, I witness this wilderness in others, many times every day.
A diagnosis of “wilderness of the heart” doesn’t require a psychiatric manual: there is despair, discouragement, disappointment, lack of gratitude, lack of hope. One possible treatment to tame that wilderness is a covenantal obedience to God and others. It reaches so deep no corner is left untouched.
There come times in one’s life, and this past year especially, when loving God as commanded seems impossible. We are too broken, too frightened, too ill and too wary to trust God with faith and devotion. We are treading life simply to stay afloat.
During this second Lenten pandemic, God’s love becomes respite and rescue from the wilderness of my own making. He is the sweet cure for a bitter and broken heart.
Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road, my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first
through the woods, then out into the open fields past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop
and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue, green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.
I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening
a prayer for being here, today, now, alive in this life, in this evening, under this sky. ~David Budbill “Winter: Tonight: Sunset”from While We’ve Still Got Feet
I strive to remember, each day, no matter how things feel, no matter how tired or distracted I am, no matter how worried, or fearful or heartsick over the state of the world or the state of my soul:
it is up to me to distill my gratitude down to this one moment of beauty that will never come again.
One breath, one blink, one pause, one whispered word: wow.
Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away.
You know you’re alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
It was like a church to me. I entered it on soft foot, Breath held like a cap in the hand. It was quiet. What God there was made himself felt, Not listened to, in clean colours That brought a moistening of the eye, In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness Of the heart’s passions – that was praise Enough; and the mind’s cession Of its kingdom. I walked on, Simple and poor, while the air crumbled And broke on me generously as bread. ~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”
There are January days when I am surrounded by mist and fog and partly cloudies- a brief gift of blue sky and gilt light.
God is felt on days like this, neither seen or heard, His stilling presence overtaking me with each breath I draw, following the path of each glistening tear, becoming the arcing ground reaching to meet my foot with each bold step I take.
This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box. Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers, And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate, And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box, For I have time for nothing But the endeavour to balance myself Upon a broken world. ~Amy Lowell, “September, 1918” fromThe Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell
Am I the only one who awakes this morning with a prayer asking that today be the start of healing rather than conflict and hostility and pain, that the barbaric destruction of yesterday transform to reconciliation and understanding–
no more angry mobs, no more inciting speeches, no more windows bashed, no more doors breached, no more explosives hidden away, no more conspiracies hatched, no more untruths believed as gospel…
no more rising infection counts no more overflowing ICUs no more mounting deaths…
Am I the only one who awakes this morning with a prayer to seek only to celebrate the sunrise to watch the clouds glide past to praise God in His heaven to watch His Light slowly replenish itself after weeks – no, months – no, years – no, decades of darkness,
to take out this one day and taste it and find that it is good, especially in the midst of deprivation then put it away for self-keeping to share when and if I find someone else as hungry for grace and mercy as I am,
so as to balance myself somehow in the beauty of this world while teetering on its brokenness?
Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age, God’s breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six-days world transposing in an hour, A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear; Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, Exalted manna, gladness of the best, Heaven in ordinary, man well drest, The milky way, the bird of Paradise, Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood, The land of spices; something understood. ~George Herbert “Prayer”
~Heaven in Ordinary~ Because high heaven made itself so low That I might glimpse it through a stable door, Or hear it bless me through a hammer blow, And call me through the voices of the poor, Unbidden now, its hidden light breaks through Amidst the clutter of the every day, Illuminating things I thought I knew, Whose dark glass brightens, even as I pray. Then this world’s walls no longer stay my eyes, A veil is lifted likewise from my heart, The moment holds me in its strange surprise, The gates of paradise are drawn apart, I see his tree, with blossom on its bough, And nothing can be ordinary now. ~Malcolm Guite from “After Prayer”
We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure. ~Macrina Wiederkehr from A Tree Full of Angels
I follow the crumb trail most days; my problem, like so many others I know, is to realize the crumbs satisfy more than any seven course meal. It may take longer to get full, but I need the exercise, and the hungrier I get, the better the crumbs taste.
Considering the distance between us and God, seemingly insurmountable to overcome, yet He leaves us the crumb trail to follow. How amazing it only takes a few words to Him, our gratitude and praise, our pleas and pain, our breath hot in His ear~ unhesitating He plummets to us; then we are lifted to Him.
Heaven dwells in the ordinary crumbs, fills us in our plainness, dresses us up, prepares us to be loved, prepares us to be accepted and understood prepares us to be transformed by no less than our very Creator.
It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter
from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come. I modernise the anachronism
of my language, but he is no more here than before. Genes and molecules have no more power to call him up than the incense of the Hebrews
at their altars. My equations fail as my words do. What resources have I other than the emptiness without him of my whole being, a vacuum he may not abhor? ~R.S. Thomas “The Absence”
Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness. ~Fleming Rutledge from Advent- The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ
There is no light in the incarnation without witnessing the empty darkness that precedes His arrival; His reason for entering our world is to fill our increasing spiritual void, our hollow hearts, our growing deficit of hope and faith.
God abhors a vacuum.
We find our God most when we keenly feel His absence, hearing no reply to our prayers, our faith shaken, not knowing if such unanswered prayers are heard.
In response, He has answered. He comes to walk beside us. He comes to be present among us, to ransom us from our self-captivity by offering up Himself instead.
He fills the vacuum completely and forever.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of Angels O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord!
God of God, Light of Light Lo, He abhors not the Virgin’s womb Very God Begotten, not created O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord!
Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above! Glory to God All glory in the highest O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord!
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning Jesus, to Thee be glory given Word of the Father Now in flesh appearing O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord!
“Like Mary, we have no way of knowing… We can ask for courage, however, and trust that God has not led us into this new land only to abandon us there.” ~Kathleen Norrisfrom God With Us
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always the tall lily. Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings, the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering, whom she acknowledges, a guest.
But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions courage. The engendering Spirit did not enter her without consent. God waited.
She was free to accept or to refuse, choice integral to humanness.
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Aren’t there annunciations of one sort or another in most lives? Some unwillingly undertake great destinies, enact them in sullen pride, uncomprehending. More often those moments when roads of light and storm open from darkness in a man or woman, are turned away from in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair and with relief. Ordinary lives continue. God does not smite them. But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
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She had been a child who played, ate, slept like any other child – but unlike others, wept only for pity, laughed in joy not triumph. Compassion and intelligence fused in her, indivisible.
Called to a destiny more momentous than any in all of Time, she did not quail, only asked a simple, ‘How can this be?’ and gravely, courteously, took to heart the angel’s reply, perceiving instantly the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb Infinite weight and lightness; to carry in hidden, finite inwardness, nine months of Eternity; to contain in slender vase of being, the sum of power – in narrow flesh, the sum of light. Then bring to birth, push out into air, a Man-child needing, like any other, milk and love –
but who was God.
This was the moment no one speaks of, when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed, Spirit, suspended, waiting.
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She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’ Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’ She did not submit with gritted teeth, raging, coerced. Bravest of all humans, consent illumined her. The room filled with its light, the lily glowed in it, and the iridescent wings. Consent, courage unparalleled, opened her utterly. ~Denise Levertov “The Annunciation”
Like most people living in 2020, I want things to be the way I want them: my plans, my timing, my hopes and dreams first and foremost.
And then the unexpected happens and suddenly nothing looks the way it was supposed to be. There is infinite weight within infinite emptiness.
Only then, as an emptied vessel, can I be filled.
In my forty years of clinical work, I’ve never before seen such an epidemic of hopelessness. Debts seem too great, reserves too limited, foundations too shaky, plans dashed, the future too uncertain.
In the annunciation of the angel approaching a young woman out of the blue, Mary’s response to this overwhelming event is a model for us all when we are hit by the unexpected.
She is prepared; she has studied and knows God’s Word and His promise to His people, even in the midst of trouble. She is able to articulate it beautifully in the song she sings as her response. She gives up her so-carefully-planned-out life to give life to God within her.
Her resilience reverberates through the ages and to each one of us in our own multi-faceted and overwhelming troubles: may it be to me as you say.
May it be. Your plans, Your purpose, Your promise – all embodied within me.
Let it be.
Even if it pierces my soul as with a sword so that I leak out to empty; you are there to plug the bleeding hole, filling me with your infinite light.
Everything inside me cries for order Everything inside me wants to hide Is this shadow an angel or a warrior? If God is pleased with me, why am I so terrified? Someone tell me I am only dreaming Somehow help me see with Heaven’s eyes And before my head agrees, My heart is on its knees Holy is He. Blessed am I.
Be born in me Be born in me Trembling heart, somehow I believe That You chose me I’ll hold you in the beginning You will hold me in the end Every moment in the middle, Make my heart your Bethlehem Be born in me
All this time we’ve waited for the promise All this time You’ve waited for my arms Did You wrap yourself inside the unexpected So we might know that Love would go that far?
Be born in me Be born in me Trembling heart, somehow I believe That You chose me I’ll hold you in the beginning You will hold me in the end Every moment in the middle, Make my heart your Bethlehem Be born in me
I am not brave I’ll never be The only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy I’m just a girl Nothing more But I am willing, I am Yours Be born in me Be born in me Trembling heart, somehow I believe That You chose me I’ll hold you in the beginning You will hold me in the end Every moment in the middle, Make my heart your Bethlehem Be born in me
Even without family gathered around us this day, we do have each other and that is a blessing in and of itself. May we revel in our thanksgiving feast for two because, through thick and thin and COVID, we are still together.
