Tag: Trust

Shortcake With Soul

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A cobbler is shortcake with a soul…
~Edna Ferber

 

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Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet.

Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.
~Stephen Dunn from “Sweetness”

 

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Even when the softness of sunset lingers long
with residual stains of dappled cobbler clouds
lasting long to the sweetness of next day’s dawn,
I’m reminded to “remember this, this moment, this feeling”~

I realize that it will be lost, slipping away from me
in mere moments, a sacramental fading with time.
I can barely remember the sweetness of its taste,
so what’s left is the mere stain of its loss.

Walking this life’s cobbled path,
only guessing where it leads,
I ponder the messy sweetness
of today’s helping of soulful shortcake,
treasure it up, stains and all,
knowing I could never miss it
if I didn’t taste and savor it to begin with.

 

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blackberrybowl

A Next Breath, or Not

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nomail

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. 
~Scout Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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How can I appreciate something
so constant and reliable,
like breathing the next breath,
so predictable
it never registers
in my consciousness
until the moment
it might be rent asunder,
lost forever,
as delicate and transitory as a web
hanging heavy with evening frost?

Knowing
the breath I rely on
for my very existence
is not a given,
it then becomes
the most precious thing of all.

For our ephemeral fragility on this earth,
for our dependency on our Maker,
who, solid as a mountain,
gives us our next breath,
or not,
I am truly and forever
thankful.

olh2

Between Known and Unknown

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birdonpostrodenberger
photo by Harry Rodenberger

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rockvine

Though I have never caught the word
Of God from any calling bird,
I hear all that the ancients heard.
 
Though I have seen no deity
Enter or leave a twilit tree,
I see all that the seers see.
 
A common stone can still reveal
Something not stone, not seen, yet real.
What may a common stone conceal?
 
Nothing is far that once was near.
Nothing is hid that once was clear.
Nothing was God that is not here.
 
Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.
Here in the sun I sit alone
Between the known and the unknown.
~Robert Francis “Nothing is Far”
danpnp
Heaven and earth are only three feet apart,
but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.
A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted
and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God.
~Celtic saying
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A few times
in a few places
I have felt like I can almost reach out
and touch heaven
~His glory is that close~
but too soon I pull back,
put my hand back in my pocket,
rock back on my heels,
balancing barely
between the known
and the unknown.
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octmorning169

In the Beauty of the Lilies

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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”

 

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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”

davidslilies

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”

 

 

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

 

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thank you to VanderGiessen Nursery for the opportunity to photograph their lovely lilies yesterday!

Epiphany

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All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
~T.S. Eliot from “Journey of the Magi”

 

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Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his Glory Manifest.
~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany”

Venus & Mercury
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. 
The beauty of it smote his heart,
as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. 
For like a shaft, clear and cold,
the thought pierced him that in the end
the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:
there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
~J.R.R. Tolikien, The Return of the King

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Epiphany is the day of acknowledging God’s glory revealed in our lives, illuminating the darkness that surrounds us. With infinite heaviness and lightness we accept our new role as weak and crumbling vessels become beautiful as God is made manifest within us.

It is not the easy path to accept the ultimate freedom that requires our true sacrifice of self, just as it was not easy for the visiting magi traveling far from home — or for Mary saying yes to God even as her own heart is pierced by what that means for her.

Today we too shall say yes, trusting Him as we take His offered hand.

 

“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 Norris from God With Us

 

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God Among Us: Opening Heart and Hands

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fencepostssunset32

…an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
Matthew 1:20-22,24

 

I see the hands of Joseph.
Back and forth along bare wood they move.
There is worry in those working hands,
sorting out confusing thoughts with every stroke.
“How can this be, my beautiful Mary now with child?” 
Rough with deep splinters, these hands,
small, painful splinters like tiny crosses
embedded deeply in this choice to stay with her.
He could have closed his hands to her,
said, “No” and let her go to stoning.
But, dear Joseph opened both his heart and hands
to this mother and her child.
Preparing in these days before
with working hands
and wood pressed tight between them.
It is these rough hands that will open
and be the first to hold the Child.
~Catherine Alder from “Advent Hands”

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In these weeks of Advent waiting,
we are stretched beyond what we ever thought possible:
to change our plans to God’s plan,
to accept what is unacceptable,
to include the excluded,
to grasp understanding of the incomprehensible,
to open closed heart and hands
and let the Christ Child in
so we can hold Him as Joseph did that night.
If Joseph could do it,
despite all he’d been taught,
despite the derision–
if he could still trust,
and obey,
and believe,
how can we not?
~EPG

 

Go to sleep my Son
This manger for your bed
You have a long road before You
Rest Your little head

Can You feel the weight of Your glory?
Do You understand the price?
Or does the Father guard Your heart for now
So You can sleep tonight?

Go to sleep my Son
Go and chase Your dreams
This world can wait for one more moment
Go and sleep in peace

I believe the glory of Heaven
Is lying in my arms tonight
Lord, I ask that He for just this moment
Simply be my child

Go to sleep my Son
Baby, close Your eyes
Soon enough You’ll save the day
But for now, dear Child of mine
Oh my Jesus, Sleep tight

He was her man, she was his wife
And late one winter night
He knelt by her
As she gave birth
But it wasn’t his child,
It wasn’t his child

Yet still he took him as his own
And as he watched him grow
It brought him joy
But it wasn’t his child
It wasn’t his child

But like a father he was strong and kind
And I believe he did his best
It wasn’t easy for him
But he did all could
His son was different from the rest
It wasn’t his child
It wasn’t his child

And when the boy became a man
He took his father’s hand
And soon the world
Would all know why
It wasn’t his child
It wasn’t his child

But like a father he was strong and kind
And I believe he did his best
It wasn’t easy for him
But he did all could
He grew up with his hands in wood
And he died with his hands in wood
He was God’s child,
He was God’s child

He was her man
She was his wife
And late one night
He knelt by her
As she gave birth
But it wasn’t his child
It was God’s child

 

How could it be
This baby in my arms,
Sleeping now, so peacefully?
“The Son of God,” the angel said,
How could it be?

Lord I know, He’s not my own
Not of my flesh, not of my bone.
Still Father let this baby be
The son of my love.

Chorus
Father show me where I fit into this plan of Yours,
How can a man be father to the Son of God?
Lord, for all my life I’ve been a simple carpenter,
How can I raise a King, How can I raise a King?

He looks so small, His face and hands so fair,
And when He cries the sun just seems to disappear.
But when He laughs, it shines again,
How could it be?
~Michael Card

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The Holiest Thing

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3rpoppies

What God arranges for us to experience at each moment
is the holiest thing that could happen to us.
~Jean-Pierre Caussade

I know there are moments
when there is no holiness in sight,
and even God hides His face;
certainly His Son cried out in anguish too.
So we tread barefoot and bloodied on this holy ground,
whether rocky, muddy, crumbling or cushioned,
and He is there, walking before us,
ready to pick us up if we fall.

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Listening to Lent — Unchanging Love

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wwuheather

If thou but trust in God to guide thee,
and hope in God through all thy ways,
God will give strength, what e’er betide thee,
to bear thee through the evil days.
Who trusts in God’s unchanging love
builds on the rock that naught can move.

Only be still, and wait God’s leisure
in cheerful hope, with heart content
To take what e’er thy Maker’s pleasure
and all discerning love hath sent;
We know our inmost wants are known,
for we are called to be God’s own.

Sing, pray, and keep God’s ways unswerving;
so do thine own part faithfully,
And trust God’s word; though undeserving,
thou yet shalt find it true for thee.
God never yet forsook at need the soul
that trusted God in-deed.
~Georg Neumark

Trust~
a challenge for us
who are so volatile, so transient and fleeting,
to imagine an unchanging love
that lasts
through the worst storms and violent upheavals.

He of strength and hope
loves us~~
the weak, the broken, the undeserving.
He causes us to burst into bloom.

Need a Hug

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20120823-152402.jpg photo from iowacorn.org

“I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are plenty of mornings when we climb out of bed and know we need a hug to help us meet the obligations of the day. The troubles we face can seem so overwhelming, we can’t do it without help and encouragement. Without that support, it can be tempting to turn and run, or hunker and hide.

Instead some of us choose to battle through troubles alone, relying solely on the strength of our own feeble problem-solving skills, or our frail muscle power to persevere. Others rely on the seductive fickle embrace of the bottle or other addictions to get through the day.

Today as we drove through drought-stricken dust-stormed central Iowa, I sense the deep need of the people here for any kind of encouragement and hope as they watch their crops dry up on the stalk. 91 degrees with a strong hot wind from the south withers farms, families and faith.

Many here are being called to live through this time of trial wrapped within the arms of God. We are asked to gratefully surrender our supposed autonomy; He graciously surrendered Himself for us to sustain us eternally through times like these.

We need to throw ourselves into His arms before we too dry up and blow away like dusty chaff. He bathes us in living water, a drenching from above, soaking us through and through in His sacrificial embrace.

20120823-103504.jpg photo by Josh Scholten