Tag: truth

Our Plodding Resistance

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If that’s what he means,’ says the student to the poetry teacher, ‘why doesn’t he just say it?’ 

‘If God is real,’ says the parishioner to the preacher, ‘why doesn’t he simply storm into our lives and convince us?’ 

The questions are vastly different in scale and relative importance, 
but their answers are similar. 

A poem, if it’s a real one, in some fundamental sense 
means no more and no less than the moment of its singular music and lightning insight; it is its own code to its own absolute and irreducible clarity. 

A god, if it’s a living one, is not outside of reality but in it, of it, 
though in ways it takes patience and imagination to perceive. 

Thus the uses and necessities of metaphor, which can flash us past our plodding resistance and habits into strange new truths. 

Thus the very practical effects of music, myth, and image, which tease us not out of reality, but deeper and more completely into it.
~Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

We are an impatient and unimaginative people; we want proof of God and we want it now. Yet we plod through our days blind and deaf to His presence in our lives, with little awareness of Him walking beside us.

So each day I try to take the blinders off and look for Him, listen for Him and wait on Him to make His presence known.

I will call Him by Name.

Unanswerable Questions

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When I lay these questions before God I get no answer.
But a rather special sort of “No answer.”

It is not the locked door.
It is more like a silent,
certainly not uncompassionate,
gaze.

As though he shook his head not in refusal but waiving the question.

Like, “Peace, child; you don’t understand.”

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable?
Quite easily, I should think.
All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

How many hours are there in a mile?
Is yellow square or round?

Probably half the questions we ask –
half our great theological and metaphysical problems –
are like that.
~C.S. Lewis from  A Grief Observed

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I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. 
You are yourself the answer.
Before your face questions die away.
~C.S. Lewis from Till We Have Faces

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And now brothers, 
I will ask you a terrible question, 
and God knows I ask it also of myself. 
Is the truth beyond all truths, 
beyond the stars, just this: 
that to live without him is the real death, 
that to die with him the only life?
~Frederich Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

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And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
~Mary Oliver from Long Life

Some mornings it is impossible to stay a silent observer of the world.  I demand answers to the unanswerable.

Overnight, wind and rain have pulled down nearly every leaf, the ground carpeted with the dying evidence of last spring’s rebirth, dropping temperatures robing the surrounding foothills and peaks in a bright new snow covering.

There can be no complacency in witnessing life in progress.
It blusters, rips, drenches, encompasses, buries.
Nothing remains as it was.

And here I am, alive.
Awed.
A witness.
Called to comment.
Dying to hear a response.

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How Late I Came

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How late I came to love you,
O Beauty so ancient and so fresh,
how late I came to love you.

You were within me,
yet I had gone outside to seek you.

Unlovely myself,
I rushed toward all those lovely things you had made.
And always you were with me.
I was not with you.

All those beauties kept me far from you –
although they would not have existed at all
unless they had their being in you.

You called,
you cried,
you shattered my deafness.

You sparkled,
you blazed,
you drove away my blindness.

You shed your Fragrance,
and I drew in my breath and I pant for you,
I tasted and now I hunger and thirst.
You touched me, and now I burn with longing.
~St. Augustine 

 

 

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God spoke
but I didn’t listen.
God fed me
but I chose junk food.
God showed me beauty
but I couldn’t see Him.
God smelled like the finest rose
but I turned away.
God touched me
but I was numb.

So He sent His Son
as Word and food,
beauty and fragrance,
reaching out broken hands
so I would know
my hunger and thirst
is only and always
for Him alone.

 

 

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Alive to Happiness

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We hadn’t seen each other
for days, only three days, to be
exact, but when I came through
the door and she turned
her head, the way she smiled
changed me again from one
who passes from this world to the next,
back to one who falls
into his wife’s arms and rests
his head on her shoulder and feels
when they lie down together her warm heart
beating against his chest,
     her hands hungry for his holding,
     his hands alive to her happiness.
~Shann Ray, “Mountain Homecoming” from Balefire: Poems

 

 

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On this day,
this tragically public day
when lives shatter before cameras

it is important to remind myself
that not all couplings happen
in blinding drunkenness
in a power differential
in utter selfishness
in a way the truth can never be known
nor trusted.

I need to know
this travesty called investigation
has nothing to do with truth and justice
but is politically sanctioned assault
of two people.
I won’t give it my approval by watching.

I want to know
in our joining
there is joy,
there is sweetness
in need
and sacrifice,
in giving
and taking,
in loving
and staying steadfast,
still alive, always alive
to happiness.

 

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A Slender Cord

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The builder who first bridged Niagara’s gorge,
Before he swung his cable, shore to shore,   
Sent out across the gulf his venturing kite   
Bearing a slender cord for unseen hands   
To grasp upon the further cliff and draw
A greater cord, and then a greater yet;   
Till at the last across the chasm swung   
The cable then the mighty bridge in air!
So we may send our little timid thought   
Across the void, out to God’s reaching hands—
Send out our love and faith to thread the deep—
Thought after thought until the little cord
Has greatened to a chain no chance can break,
And we are anchored to the Infinite!
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We dangle from a slender thread,
twisting and turning, swinging to and fro
with the breezes.
This silken line connects us in ways we barely see
to hold on to us when buffeted
by storms and rain and drought.

We are anchored fast to eternity, and never let go.

From here to infinity.

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Heaven-Handling Flung

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Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Carrion Comfort”

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These mounting deaths by one’s own hand
make grim headlines and solemn statistics.

In my clinic, patient after patient says the same thing:

this struggle with life
makes one frantic to avoid the fight and flee
to feel no more bruising and bleed no more,
to become nothing but chaff and ashes.

they contemplate suicide as
they can not recognize the love of
a God who cares enough to
wrestle them relentlessly–
who heaven-handling flung them here by
breathing life into their nostrils

Perhaps they can’t imagine
a God
(who He Himself created
doubters
sore afraid
of His caring
enough to die for us)

so no one
is ever now,
nor ever will be

~nothing~

such darkness
now done
forever.

 

 

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Choosing Up Sides

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The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness and everyone must choose his side.
~G. K. Chesterton

 

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…our hands have always been able to heal as much as harm. 
…since the dawn of humanity, each of us contains three people—
the angel, the demon, and the one who decides which we will obey.
~Billy Coffey

 

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It shouldn’t take plunging into a profound darkness,
swallowed in a pit of sadness and sorrow
to experience God’s immense capacity for love and compassion,
but that is when our need for light and forgiveness is greatest.

It should not take sin and suffering to remind us
life is precious and worthy of our protection,
no matter how tempted we are to choose otherwise.

We are created,
from the beginning,
in the beginning,
with the capacity to choose sides between darkness and light
and we choose too often to be cloaked in darkness.

Our God chooses to shine the light of His Creation,
to conquer our darkness through illuminating grace,
dispersing our shadows,
suffering the deepest darkness on our behalf
to guarantee we are eternally worthy of His loving protection.

How then shall we choose when He so clearly chooses us?

 

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The Morning After

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A lily shivered
at His passing,
supposing Him to be
the Gardener.
~Margaret D. Smith “Easter morning, yesterday”
from A Widening Light -Poems of the Incarnation

 

 

Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.
John 21:12

 

It is too easy to let go of Easter — to slide back into the Monday routine, managing our best to survive each day, teeth gritted, as we have before.

We are so blind, thinking Him the Gardener as He passes by; we just don’t pay attention to Who is right before us, tending us.

God knows this about us.  So He meets us for breakfast today and every day and feeds us, a tangible and meaningful act of nourishing us in our most basic human needs though we’ve done nothing to deserve the gift. He cooks up fish on a beach at dawn and invites us to join Him though we have done nothing to deserve it.

The night before he shared a meal and broke bread in Emmaus to open the eyes and hearts of the blinded.

This is no mere Gardener.

When He offers me a meal,  I accept it with open eyes of gratitude, knowing the gift He hands me is nothing less than Himself.

 

 

…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.
Paul Harding in Tinkers

 

Preparing Through Parable: For I Was Hungry and Thirsty

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31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 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.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25: 31-46

 

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The final parable of Jesus prepares us to enter Holy Week, as we once again become the crowd shouting the mixed messages of Palm Sunday.

Jesus arrives to Hosannas as a King with glory, laud and honor, not at all treated as the “least of these” on that Sabbath.

Yet within days he was rejected, betrayed, sold for silver, convicted and punished as a common criminal with the assent of those who had earlier welcomed him with such warmth.

So who are we to become on this day?
Do we claim adoration but  in reality practice rejection?
Do we give him a kiss that ultimately is his betrayal?
Do we protest when he washes our dirty feet but argue about who among us is greatest?
Do we prepare a glorious meal but then offer up only vinegar?
Do we throw our cloaks down at his feet, dress him in an elegant robe but later strip him naked to cast lots for the clothing off his back?
Do we rescue him from his unjust captivity or do we turn the other way when he is flogged, beaten and crucified?

Who are we – his people, his family, his church – during this week to come?

We are clearly told: we feed the hungry, offer drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the lonely and care for the sick.  We are his hands, his feet, his heart, his spirit on earth.

Let us never forget.

 

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand. He prepares me with parable.

 

 

 

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Preparing Through Parable: Not Like Others

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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

 

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Not like the others:
we want to believe we are better, special, untouched by the sins of the world.

We are fooling ourselves.

We are all alike in our need: humbled and hobbled, lame and broken.
God’s mercy acts as glue to our souls in pieces and we are made whole.

Humbled to holiness and wholly humbled.

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand. He prepares me with parable.

 

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