Tag: suffering

God Among Us: The Word As Flesh

barnstormingblog5 Comments

dandy910152

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

 

For me it is the virgin birth,
the Incarnation,
the resurrection
which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical.
Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws.
I am always astonished
at the emphasis the Church puts on the body.
It is not the soul she says that will rise
but the body, glorified.
~Flannery O’Connor

dandy9101510

Good is the flesh that the Word has become,
good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body for knowing the world,
sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
feeling, perceiving, within and around,
good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
growing and aging, arousing, impaired,
happy in clothing, or lovingly bared,
good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
longing in all, as in Jesus, to dwell,
glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell,
good is the body, for good and for God,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
~Brian Warren Good is the Flesh: Body, Soul, and Christian Faith

 

The Word was made flesh.
As our pastor preached last Sunday: this one verse in John is the crux, the heart, the center point of the Gospel.
Without God putting on flesh to become like the rest of us, He is not one of us.  He must be fully God and fully man — both.

So He comes from the body of a mother, born a baby frail and weak, just like us. He hurts, He thirsts, He hungers, He stumbles, He falls, He weeps.
And He dies as we do.

Yet He rises again to walk, speak, eat, and be touched so that we too may rise as He does.
The Word was made flesh so our flesh, weak and frail though we are,  becomes His body glorified.
~EPG

sosoft

The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
We beheld the glory of the Father, full of grace and truth.
In the beginning was the Word, The Word was with god.
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
He came to his own, and his own received him not.

icecrystals112815

 

Tears Need No Translation

barnstormingblog1 Comment

raindrops111415

rose111415

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
— J. R. R. Tolkien

We forget that God is right there, waiting for us to turn to him, no matter how dire our situation.  We forget the reassuring words of his messengers: “Fear not.”   God always seeks to draw close to us — even in the depths of hell.

…it comes down to this: the only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to live life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death.  It means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves, instead of for others.  It means choosing generosity over greed.  It also means living humbly, rather than seeking influence and power.  Finally, it means being ready to die again and again — to ourselves, and to every self-serving opinion or agenda.
~Johann Christoph Arnold

We watch once again as unspeakable terror strikes down people so much like ourselves — those who are living ordinary lives, doing routine things.  Tears never need translation, no matter what foreign or local neighborhood soil is soaked with the blood of innocents.

Evil exists, visits our world daily and yesterday settled like a shroud over Paris.   As we learned after the airplanes-as-weapons tragedies of 9/11, massive expense, military action and legislation can barely keep evil-doers at bay and tend to even encourage them.   No place on this earth can ever be truly secure through the efforts of mere man.  After all, we too are fallen, and those who do evil can look so much like ourselves.

So we must fall back on what we were told long ago and each and every day in 365 different verses in the Word itself: fear not.
Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.

The goal of this life is to live for others, to live in such a way that death cannot erase the meaning and significance of a life.  We are called to give up our selfish agendas in order to consider the needs of the other guy and the greater good.  Cherish life, all lives, including, as is crystal clear from Christ’s example,  those who hate and want to murder us.

Our only defense against evil is God’s offense; only He will lead us to Tolkien’s “where everything sad will come untrue”, where tears are no longer translated as sorrow,  but can only be understood as tears of joy.

raindrops1114151

mapleleaf111415

rose2111415

Let my prayer arise~
Lord I have cried to Thee,
hearken unto Thee.
Incline not my heart
to evil words.

An Oath to Live

barnstormingblog4 Comments

mossdrop1

morningmoon118151

It is…the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life…
The man who kills a man kills a man.
The man who kills himself kills all men.
As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.
~ G.K. Chesterton

Suicide rates globally have climbed 60% in the past forty five years,
particularly in developed countries where most folks are sheltered and fed,
where daily survival is entirely in our own hands.
Based on the distress and anguish of the patients I see every day,
there will be no slowing of this trend:
this temptation, this contemplation, this resignation of dying, only a passive
“I wish I were dead” or
“the world is better off without me”~
wipes out the worth of the world.

~where there is no oath of loyalty to live, our own or others’,
as stressful, painful and messy as life can be,
~where there is no honoring of the holiness of the created being,
whether unborn, or breathing heavy through daily struggles, or suffering or dying,
~when there is no longer resistance to standing up to the buffeting winds of life,
only a toppling over, taking out everything and everyone in the way,
~then with each suicide, the world also is wiped out,
the value of all people killed in one act of self-murder.

November is Suicide Prevention Month

woods27

morninglight11815

The Future Flowering

barnstormingblog3 Comments

hydrangeaaugust

wwurec

 

We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard heartedness, all indifference, and all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering every­where, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.
~Hermann Hesse, from Vivos Voco, 1919

Hundreds of thousands of people have the choice of living (and likely dying) oppressed in the midst of conflict, too often with the risk of being enslaved and raped, or to try escape to an uncertain fate on the other side of a border, a fence, a turbulent sea.

So many of us are here, living in countries that sustain and grow us, because we descend from people who escaped war, or hunger, or extreme poverty. Many of us worship a God who was a refugee Himself from a king who sought Him dead.

Can we extend a hand of hope to millions who also want to put roots down in safety so their lives, and their childrens’ lives, may flower?   Even if it means less soil for us all, are we not the privileged gardeners to prepare the ground so all people may flourish?

 

herb9151

seattleflorist12

woodlandred

seattleflorist2

Like a Child From the Womb

barnstormingblog4 Comments

sunset95151

aftertherain1
sunset95155
 I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
         And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
         I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
         The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
         Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
         And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
         I arise and unbuild it again.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley from “The Cloud”
sunset828153
This has been a week of cloudy images — some light and carefree,
some heavy laden and threatening,
some brilliant, some not so much~~
some lying face down in the water on a Turkish beach,
it seems at a glance almost as if napping, but this sleep is forever.
This has been a week of the world slapped to its senses
to witness children dying trying to escape war and evil —
this is nothing new in the history of humanity.
We kill our unborn children every day in our own private wars
that we justify without guilt or regret.

Now confronted by images of dead children while eating breakfast,
this one boy out of thousands dead made millions cry cloudy with the shame of it,
so many tears falling like raindrops soaking deep on holy ground,
ground we must share with the poor and oppressed,
ground we no longer can hoard.

These images change from one moment to the next,
birthing life, taking life,
a child in the womb to ghost in the tomb,
lying drowned on a beach
we come undone,
we unbuild the walls we hide behind.
sunrise94154
sunset95157
sunset88152

To Be Alive

barnstormingblog4 Comments

sunrise726152

sunset725151

 

You are alive.
It needn’t have been so.
It wasn’t so once, and will not be forever.
But it is so now.

And what is it like:
to be alive in this one place of all places anywhere where life is?
Live a day of it and see.
Take any day and LIVE IT.
Nobody claims that it will be entirely painless, but no matter.

It is your birthday and there are many presents to open. The world is to be opened.
It is the first day because it has never been before
and the last day because it will never be again.

BE ALIVE.
~Frederick Buechner from The Alphabet of Grace

 

During these turbulent times
when too many regret living and quit,
when too many are deprived of taking a first breath,
when too many live shrouded in pain and sorrow:

I tend to forget each day is a gift to be opened and savored.
Each day a first day, a last day, a birthday of amazing grace.

I am alive, by God, it needn’t have been so, but is so now.

3rlaceydaisy

3rwildrose

3rlavender

pinkweed

3rhollyhocks

Radiance Once So Bright

barnstormingblog3 Comments
Remembering my father, Henry Polis, today on the 20th anniversary of his death from cancer:
photo by Nate Gibson
photo by Nate Gibson

 

sunset712151

birchbaysunset
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
               Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
                      We will grieve not, rather find
                      Strength in what remains behind;
                      In the primal sympathy
                      Which having been must ever be;
                      In the soothing thoughts that spring
                      Out of human suffering;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
                              Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
~William Wordsworth from “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”
sunset712152
begonia622158
bluewwu
wwulily2

Scattered Joy

barnstormingblog4 Comments

hydrangea62215

feverfew62215

begonia62215

wwuoakleaf6

The settled happiness and security which we all desire,
God withholds from us by the very nature of the world:
but joy, pleasure, and merriment, he has scattered broadcast.
We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.
It is not hard to see why.

The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world
and oppose an obstacle to our return to God:
a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony,
a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe
or a football match, have no such tendency.

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns,
but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
~C.S. Lewis from The Problem of Pain

 

It is easy for us to lose focus on the “why” of our existence:
so much of our time and energy spent seeking safety and security,
striving for a journey filled with happiness, joy and contentment,
as if that sole goal is our only ultimate destination and purpose.
This is not our home, we are mere wayfarers.

The nature of a fallen world leads us down roads
filled with potholes and flat tires and hurting people
scattered by the wayside, often alone, oppressed and suffering,ourselves sometimes among them.

Though we rejoice in the glimpses we have of joy broadcast like seed,
sprouting brief moments of happiness,
and the temporary comfort of contentment,
God calls us to know discomfort
so that we gratefully accept the gift of grace,
and understand what it means to give it to others:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 I needed clothes and you clothed me,
I was sick and you looked after me,
I was in prison and you came to visit me.
~Matthew 25:35-6

 

seedpods2

pinkweed

sweetpeas

tennant62121

sunset625151

 

Prepare for Joy: A Reflection of God’s Face

barnstormingblog2 Comments

hydrangeawinter2

“Save me from all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion; from violence, battle, and murder; and from dying suddenly and unprepared.”
~The Book of Common Prayer

It used to be that people feared a sudden, unprepared death,
because they feared meeting God sudden and unprepared.
Now, we only fear death —
because we don’t fear God.
Turn on any street corner, walk through any airport, sit on the edge of any hospital bed, and you can see the glorious wonder of it:
All the faces of humanity carry the image of God.
What if deciding to end a human life is somehow the desecration of God’s image?
What if a human life is not only a gift of grace right till the end – but is a reflection of God’s face right till the end?
~Ann Voskamp from “A Holy Experience” in a blog post about the death of her friend Kara Tippetts from breast cancer

Such hard news this week:
A plane goes down in the French Alps, killing unsuspecting travelers, some so young, who had no thought of meeting their God that day.
A wife and mother, who has known for months she was dying, prepared herself and her family and left this world on God’s terms, not of her own volition.

What is man that we are His reflection, His face mirrored in ours,
whether we are old and dried up and wrinkled beyond recognition,
or we are a floating conceptus, yet to implant and thrive?

It is not up to us; we are not our own, but belong, body and soul, to Him.

quinceflower

Prepare for Joy: A Terrible Clarity

barnstormingblog1 Comment
10974197_10152586644562046_2617999342651512955_o
photo by Jim Randall burmachronicle.com

 

Romantic love is blind to everything
except what is lovable and lovely,
but Christ’s love sees us
with terrible clarity and sees us whole.
Christ’s love so wishes our joy
that it is ruthless against everything in us
that diminishes our joy.
The worst sentence Love can pass
is that we behold the suffering
which Love has endured for our sake,
and that is also our acquittal.
The justice and mercy of the judge
are ultimately one.
~Frederick Buechner

 

To see with terrible clarity
the Love we are shown,
the Love given freely to the undeserving,
the Love paying our ransom in full,
the Love enduring all for us~

this Judge convicts,
metes out justice upon His own head,
serves the whole sentence Himself,
sets us free
to see and share
the Love we are shown.

sunrisepond22115