This is exactly what God does for us. He punishes us and then comes to be with us in our punishment.
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How the Lord loves
And thus the Lord’s love flows upon us from His wounded side . . .
A balm for every wound
Today, there is a balm for every wound,
a dew sprinkled over every dryness;
a cleansing water for every stain.
Today, the stubborn heart learns to bend
and the stiff spine learns to bow.
In the twinkling of an eye the frozen are thawed
and icy hearts warmed through and through,
making them declare as never before: Alleluia!
“. . . for they shall see God”
It’s still the Easter season . . .
It’s still the time, the season, of remembering Christ’s appearances to those He loved. Let us not move too quickly back into ordinary time. (Is there ever an “ordinary” time with Christ in our lives?) Luci Shaw captures this need to learn to recognized Him in this Sunday-poem. We, too, need to “get beyond the way he looks” in our everyday lives:
He who has seen Me has seen the Father (James Tissot)
“. . . for they shall see God”
Matthew 5.8
Christ risen was rarely
recognized by sight.
They had to get beyond the way he looked.
Evidence strong than his voice and face and footstep
waited to grow in them, to guide
their groping from despair,
their stretching beyond belief.
We are as blind as they
until the opening of our deeper eyes
shows us the hands that bless
and break our bread,
until we finger
wounds…
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No matter how bad it gets
My Soul’s Sap Quivers
Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the…
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Who knew?
Originally published on Mudroom.
Who knew that You were the breeze hiding behind the trees
playing hide n’ seek only to capture me?
Who knew that You taught the eagle how to fly
so I could learn how to soar?
And who knew that You gave the sparrow its song
so I could listen for dialogue between Heaven and earth?
Who knew that You gave the woodpecker its cadence
so I could hear drumbeats from Heaven…drumbeats?
Who knew that every night You watch the sunset and smile
and every morning You watch the sunrise
and it still bring tears to Your eyes
because beauty is a masquerade for Your Glory
so You stre-e-e-e-e-e-etch the sunrays to hide Your face
so we won’t be consumed so soon;
instead You allow us to feel the warmth of Your grace
takin’ it all in day by day
but who knew day by day would sever a branch
and cause the leaves in our hearts to fall
and swallow up so much hurt and pain
and eventually the sun rays we would despise
just from not knowing the Truth from the lies
so now it makes sense to believe a lie
because the Truth is just one more story
so You knew to live with us was extremely mandatory
so You stayed and stayed with us intimately
showing us Your son and how He represented You matter of factly
not giving up on a people group so satisfactorily consumed with nothingness.
So You stayed,
and put a star side by side to show us our relationship with You
and then You bring the moon out every night with the brilliance from the Sunlight
to show us even when it’s dark, You shine
and You remind us of Your precious promise again and again
by the banner of brilliant colors all huddled up over each other in the sky with no end
just like Your Name.
And who knew even after hearing Your Truth
we would still need Your help.
You knew so You stayed
and put Your voice in the mouth of the sparrow,
in the pattern of the buzzing bee,
in the legs of the grasshopper,
in the dancing wings of the hummingbird,
in the quietness of the dew resting atop the blade of a reed of grass,
in the twinkle of each star,
in the heart of each of Your children.
And who knew if we would only acknowledge You like nature does, we would know You.
Who knew?
“Let Him find you everywhere he may look . . .”
It’s Good Shepherd Sunday. From earlier this year. It’s still true.
In this Year of Mercy, it is important for you to remember that the Shepherd is looking for you, not just everyone else. We are all, in some sense of another, lost sheep. Let Him find you.
“The Gospel tells us that the Lord went in search of the lost sheep. How are we to understand this search? . . . Now if anybody seeks anything earnestly, it is not in one little corner only, but in every corner and place till he finds it. And so God seeks you–let him find you everywhere he may look, in all circumstances of your life. Whatever shame comes on you, know that that is the place in which God is looking for a gentle and meek soul; therefore suffer yourself to be constantly trodden underfoot until you have well learned your lesson of meekness.
“God is looking for a poor man…
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Ephemeral Beauty
“Jesus’ tears were also ephemeral and beautiful. His tears remain with us as an enduring reminder of the Savior who weeps. Rather than to despair, though, Jesus’ tears lead the way to the greatest hope of the resurrection. Rather than suicide, Jesus’ tears lead to abundant life.”
~Makoto Fujimura
Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom,
the moon only when it is cloudless?
To long for the moon while looking on the rain,
to lower the blinds and be unaware
of the passing of the spring –
these are even more deeply moving.
Branches about to blossom
or gardens strewn with flowers
are worthier of our admiration.
~Yoshida Kenko
Beauty, to the Japanese of old, held together the ephemeral with the sacred. Cherry blossoms are most beautiful as they fall, and that experience of appreciation lead the Japanese to consider their mortality. Hakanai bi (ephemeral beauty) denotes sadness, and yet in the awareness of the pathos of life, the Japanese found profound beauty.
For the Japanese, the sense of beauty is deeply tragic, tied to the inevitability of death.
Jesus’ tears were also ephemeral and beautiful. His tears remain with us as an enduring reminder of…
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Spoon Chimes
Originally posted on Mary Ann Morgan’s blog:
You wouldn’t notice them except on windy days. They are hidden in the weeping cherry, hanging by the garden and dancing on the lowest branches of the oak out front. There are spoon chimes all over our yard. He made them for me from a box a spoons leftover from a church project. He knows how much I love the sound they make.
I want to be a chime, sitting at the ready for the Spirit to move me. But I need to bump into other chimes to actually sing. A chime will never make a sound swinging solo on the most blustery days. We need each other. That’s the way God set it up. He designed us for dependence on him and for community.
I think about this on the lonely days.
There are days that this house echoes with a quiet that is hard to bear. What keeps me from the friendship I crave? Probably fear. It is strange that when we need others most, we feel the least presentable. My house is in utter chaos with 9 puppies and all the poo and pee that comes with them. I wash blankets from morning until midnight daily. On top of that the normal housework has been seriously neglected as well as our own laundry. Inviting someone into this mess feels preposterous.
This adds to the grief I am already sorting through. To surrender to this fear might bind me to a silence that was not meant for me. I was made to sing within a beautiful community, offering a song while rubbing elbows with others.
Like the spoon chimes we need each other to truly become what we were made to be.
Psalm 133 ~”How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the fragrant anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head and ran down onto his beard and onto the border of his robe. Harmony is as refreshing as the dew on Mount Hermon, on the mountains of Israel.”
Witnesses to Hope 