the violin
has this way
of unraveling me.
Madeleine L’engle says all of life is a rhythm,
“tension, release; tension, release. Work, discipline, obedience,”
and I would add, joy, pain, healing, peace...like that of a violin,
“pull the bow string taut, and then let it go.”
The tension keeps you in the vein of life,
the release keeps you from breaking.
Madeleine tells me, “The strings must be taut before they will play,
but if they are not released, they will break.” And so we sing.
sometimes the violin saves me.
i learn from these lungs of wood the wail of green and stabbing joy,
teaching me to cry, to crescendo; to love, to ease.
string after string, tension and release.
you just need to drop everything and go listen to this song right now.
your muse will thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fm3qbYfxGY&feature=related
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
because i always write about the incarnation
The Incarnation of Christ, as one of the core Christian beliefs, is composed of the Word given skin, of theology given a body, lungs, hands, and eyes. John 1 speaks of the Incarnation beginning with creation, stating that “all things were made through Him” (John 1:3). In this divine creative process, all things that were brought into existence began with the Living Word, and as humans made in the image of God, our words are intended to function similarly. Our words are not intended to stay stagnant or shelved, but to grow into our very doing, to become incarnate in the tangible outworking of our lives, and this applies particularly to the arts. A biblical view of creative writing unfolds out of an understanding of the Incarnation, which teaches that just as the Word became flesh in the Son of God, language is intended to become manifest in life.
It has always been the natural succession of words to blossom into corresponding action, ever since the creation of the world, when God said, “’Let there by light,’” and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). In this perfect universe, untouched by sin, there was no gap between language and literality. What God said, was, without discrepancy. His Word was enfleshed perfectly in sun, earth, sky and sea. The oneness of word and actuality is glorifying to God, which He expresses in Isaiah, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return void…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
But the entrance of sin into the world drove a destructive wedge between our language and our living. In this gap, untruth interrupts holiness. In the divide between the Word of the Lord and the way of sinners, the poison of hypocrisy is formed, which is simply the word unlived. James recognizes the dangerous tendency to disconnect our language from our living, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Rather than deception, James pronounces blessing for those who look to God’s Word and then proceed to live it.
The purpose of the Christian writer, then, is to patch this divide, to re-join, restore and remind us that the Word once became flesh and walked among us and that we, like Him, are made to be whole. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the wholeness that existed in Eden; in Him there is no crevice to crack to seamless flow of word and deed. And Scripture teaches us how to live like Him, as we read the divine word and seek to translate it into obedience. This incarnation of word in action, language in living, makes us whole. As writers, we are entrusted with the work of reminding a broken people of this wholeness, of picking up the pieces through story, metaphor and creative word, and so returning the minds of men to the Incarnation.
The written word, as creatively communicated in story and poetry, can help us to interpret our lives in light of the greater, eternal context.
Madeleine L’engle comments in Walking on Water, “Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.” Creative word is powerful in its ability to inspire connectedness between daily life and heavenly glory. Words can be for us anchors and footholds, able to tie down the majesty of idea to our level of living. Michael Malone, a contemporary novelist, compares reading literature in one of his books to peering through a periscope: both enable us to “see around corners” and expand our vision. Stories give us the incredible gift of perspective: offering us a glimpse of eternal reality, showing us the connectedness of life, and assuring us that the glory we read of in Scripture and the daily cycle of our lives do, in fact, operate in the same sphere.
Flannery O’Connor suggests this as well, “The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.” Good writing connects the regular details of our lives with the glory of our souls and puts them on the same plane.
The response of the Christian to the revelation of God should be that of Mary’s, who said to the angel Gabriel, “May it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:39). Mary, who Scripture describes as a woman in God’s favor, invited the divine word to manifest itself in her very life, which was fulfilled literally in the Incarnation. In the same way, we invite the Incarnation into our lives when we obey God’s Word. We give our faith a face when we love the widow, feed the hungry, visit the sick.
The Christian writer, Madeleine L’engle writes, should be like Mary as well, “who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.” L’engle remarks, “I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.’” In the creative process, the writer-artist responds to each idea like Mary to the angel’s revelation, “Yes, manifest yourself in my very flesh, that I may nurture you, cultivate you to grow, and pour you into the world for men to see”. The Christian writer uses language as a frame, clothing the abstractness of idea in the flesh of syllables, sentences and words, and then presenting it to the world as a bright and shining advent.
Of course, language is a gift that, like any other, may be abused. If language is so nearly knitted together with living, then language that is untrue will necessarily result in untrue living. Just as there is sanctifying power in the word of truth, there is destructive power in words of untruth (John 17:17, 1 Timothy 4:5). The heightened responsibility of the writer, as stewards of this powerful word, is clear: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36).
It is from words that our actions are born, and it is by words that we will be judged. The glorious task entrusted to the Christian writer is to fashion words in the manner of the Incarnation: words that point men to wholeness, and language that teaches us how to live.
It has always been the natural succession of words to blossom into corresponding action, ever since the creation of the world, when God said, “’Let there by light,’” and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). In this perfect universe, untouched by sin, there was no gap between language and literality. What God said, was, without discrepancy. His Word was enfleshed perfectly in sun, earth, sky and sea. The oneness of word and actuality is glorifying to God, which He expresses in Isaiah, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return void…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
But the entrance of sin into the world drove a destructive wedge between our language and our living. In this gap, untruth interrupts holiness. In the divide between the Word of the Lord and the way of sinners, the poison of hypocrisy is formed, which is simply the word unlived. James recognizes the dangerous tendency to disconnect our language from our living, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Rather than deception, James pronounces blessing for those who look to God’s Word and then proceed to live it.
The purpose of the Christian writer, then, is to patch this divide, to re-join, restore and remind us that the Word once became flesh and walked among us and that we, like Him, are made to be whole. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the wholeness that existed in Eden; in Him there is no crevice to crack to seamless flow of word and deed. And Scripture teaches us how to live like Him, as we read the divine word and seek to translate it into obedience. This incarnation of word in action, language in living, makes us whole. As writers, we are entrusted with the work of reminding a broken people of this wholeness, of picking up the pieces through story, metaphor and creative word, and so returning the minds of men to the Incarnation.
The written word, as creatively communicated in story and poetry, can help us to interpret our lives in light of the greater, eternal context.
Madeleine L’engle comments in Walking on Water, “Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.” Creative word is powerful in its ability to inspire connectedness between daily life and heavenly glory. Words can be for us anchors and footholds, able to tie down the majesty of idea to our level of living. Michael Malone, a contemporary novelist, compares reading literature in one of his books to peering through a periscope: both enable us to “see around corners” and expand our vision. Stories give us the incredible gift of perspective: offering us a glimpse of eternal reality, showing us the connectedness of life, and assuring us that the glory we read of in Scripture and the daily cycle of our lives do, in fact, operate in the same sphere.
Flannery O’Connor suggests this as well, “The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.” Good writing connects the regular details of our lives with the glory of our souls and puts them on the same plane.
The response of the Christian to the revelation of God should be that of Mary’s, who said to the angel Gabriel, “May it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:39). Mary, who Scripture describes as a woman in God’s favor, invited the divine word to manifest itself in her very life, which was fulfilled literally in the Incarnation. In the same way, we invite the Incarnation into our lives when we obey God’s Word. We give our faith a face when we love the widow, feed the hungry, visit the sick.
The Christian writer, Madeleine L’engle writes, should be like Mary as well, “who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.” L’engle remarks, “I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.’” In the creative process, the writer-artist responds to each idea like Mary to the angel’s revelation, “Yes, manifest yourself in my very flesh, that I may nurture you, cultivate you to grow, and pour you into the world for men to see”. The Christian writer uses language as a frame, clothing the abstractness of idea in the flesh of syllables, sentences and words, and then presenting it to the world as a bright and shining advent.
Of course, language is a gift that, like any other, may be abused. If language is so nearly knitted together with living, then language that is untrue will necessarily result in untrue living. Just as there is sanctifying power in the word of truth, there is destructive power in words of untruth (John 17:17, 1 Timothy 4:5). The heightened responsibility of the writer, as stewards of this powerful word, is clear: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36).
It is from words that our actions are born, and it is by words that we will be judged. The glorious task entrusted to the Christian writer is to fashion words in the manner of the Incarnation: words that point men to wholeness, and language that teaches us how to live.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Sugarcane fields in Brazil are actually burned before they can be harvested, and the green stalks are fire-rusted when the women start cutting with machete blades in the honey of morning. The fire sprawls and dies, washing the field clean of venomous snakes and dry leaves, but preserving the water-rich roots and stalks. So the women begin their harvest of hand: they shoulder machetes against the sweet-splintered earth, splitting the shoots with their last cries of green, and hauling the cane into tall, wet piles. The brown of their arms ripens in the sun as it clips small circles over the earth, the blade obedient to its revolving course. The women who work the sugarcane field are paid by production, not by the hour, so they will push themselves until dusk. Some will toil the field for twelve hours a day, and then return home to their other world of cooking and cradles.
i watched a documentary once of photographer Sebastiao Salgado who called these women warriors. And I see it, in his pictures. The sugarcane field is their battleground, and they wrestle for their days with the sling of steel. They struggle through thickets of brown, enemy stem. The earth is their Goliath, and they face each morning with a jaw full of resolve and a pocket full of rocks. The sugar will be visited by salt, its sister, in the narrow of their eye and the bright of their brow, as the women labor from their bones up. The hours are long in the swelling sun, and the women will suffer muscle pains, machete cuts, and scorpion encounters before the day is done. Their lungs will itch with the ash from recent smoke, their shoulder blades will ache like Atlas; nevertheless, they will fight to claim the day. And after they have claimed it, they will parcel it up and haul it home and pour it into the mouths of their children and the sweet of their sleep. And we will put it in our tea.
My mother is no stranger to sugar. She heaps it into her mornings with teaspoons, usually into inviting cups of green or black tea. Tea is my mother’s morning ritual; a portion of peace before the sun and the kids are up, and in tramples the day. If she is late putting on the kettle, she will heat her mug three or four times in the microwave before she gets around to drinking it, because she refuses to drink it if not perfectly hot. Many a time i will click open the microwave door to find Thomas Kincaid with a handle, forgotten and cold, leaving a tea-rusted rim on the glass. She will set down her cup for a litany of interruptions, which have become just a part of the ritual that she accepts.
But the one morning ritual she tries not to interrupt is her time in tribute to the morning Maker. This time does not hinge on whether or not she has styled her bangs, made the French toast, or tackled the laundry; she will sit in the hovering morning light with her tea and Bible and claim just one hour of quiet. She and the chandelier make soft silhouettes against the fifty-paned beau window (i know for a fact there are fifty panes because she cleaned and glazed them all one year for my dad’s birthday), which splinters the Oriental rug with its shadows. There are piles of chaos waiting to be sorted and disentangled, but if she can pocket this one remnant of morning for the holy, half the battle is already won.
And usually, there is quite the battle at hand. Her planner notes themselves are an inky labyrinth of lists through which she must daily navigate. We always make fun of her for those lists, scrawled out in cursive and circles and cross-outs, on yellow legal pads that she stashes behind the phone. After tea and Bible study, she will spend the rest of the day devotedly connecting those dots and wearing different hats: mother, wife, homeschooling teacher, foster parent, manager of our 150-year-old home, part-time social worker, hostess, friend. And of course she will sprinkle in sledding parties, music nights, and mother-daughter teas into the cracks for good measure.
In between mugs, she will pick up the three year old from daycare, run my sister to piano lessons, create a care package to send me at college, and throw a baby shower for a soon-to-be single mother she’s watched grow up. Then she will cook dinner, which is faithfully a family event at our house, sing the brush-your-teeth song just so, and tuck three daughters, two foster kids, and one husband into bed before the day is done.
She’s been reading a book this year called “Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life” and a peek at the margins show a bolded and heralded hand-written YES next to the sentence, “A Christian home overflows its boundaries; it is an outpost of the Kingdom of God, where the hungry are fed and the naked are clothed and there is room enough for everyone.” This echoes the idea set forth in Isaiah 54, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left…”. This is my mother’s philosophy of house.
“i have eight children,” she likes to say. Three daughters and five foster children, not counting the foreign exchange student from France, the pastor’s daughter from Brazil, the neighboring family who lived with us one summer, our nursing student friend, various missionaries on furlough, great uncles, college friends, and the handful of other pilgrims, kin, and folks who have added to the tent pegs.
The strain of the Brazilian women shows in their hands. Their calluses fill the white sugar sacks like sweet pillows, ton by ton, stalk by stalk. My mother’s work is not so tangibly measured, but she is no less generous. Salgado writes in his book Migrations, in preface of the faces and stories that scatter the world, “More than ever, I feel that the human race is one,” and i believe him. There is a thread of similarity that spins sameness between the tangled fields of sugar stalk and the thicket-clutter of a happy kitchen. Women wake before the rest to scuffle with the light and harness it into something they can give; they wrestle the morning for their fruit: the harvester women with their machetes, and my mother with a silver spoon.
i watched a documentary once of photographer Sebastiao Salgado who called these women warriors. And I see it, in his pictures. The sugarcane field is their battleground, and they wrestle for their days with the sling of steel. They struggle through thickets of brown, enemy stem. The earth is their Goliath, and they face each morning with a jaw full of resolve and a pocket full of rocks. The sugar will be visited by salt, its sister, in the narrow of their eye and the bright of their brow, as the women labor from their bones up. The hours are long in the swelling sun, and the women will suffer muscle pains, machete cuts, and scorpion encounters before the day is done. Their lungs will itch with the ash from recent smoke, their shoulder blades will ache like Atlas; nevertheless, they will fight to claim the day. And after they have claimed it, they will parcel it up and haul it home and pour it into the mouths of their children and the sweet of their sleep. And we will put it in our tea.
My mother is no stranger to sugar. She heaps it into her mornings with teaspoons, usually into inviting cups of green or black tea. Tea is my mother’s morning ritual; a portion of peace before the sun and the kids are up, and in tramples the day. If she is late putting on the kettle, she will heat her mug three or four times in the microwave before she gets around to drinking it, because she refuses to drink it if not perfectly hot. Many a time i will click open the microwave door to find Thomas Kincaid with a handle, forgotten and cold, leaving a tea-rusted rim on the glass. She will set down her cup for a litany of interruptions, which have become just a part of the ritual that she accepts.
But the one morning ritual she tries not to interrupt is her time in tribute to the morning Maker. This time does not hinge on whether or not she has styled her bangs, made the French toast, or tackled the laundry; she will sit in the hovering morning light with her tea and Bible and claim just one hour of quiet. She and the chandelier make soft silhouettes against the fifty-paned beau window (i know for a fact there are fifty panes because she cleaned and glazed them all one year for my dad’s birthday), which splinters the Oriental rug with its shadows. There are piles of chaos waiting to be sorted and disentangled, but if she can pocket this one remnant of morning for the holy, half the battle is already won.
And usually, there is quite the battle at hand. Her planner notes themselves are an inky labyrinth of lists through which she must daily navigate. We always make fun of her for those lists, scrawled out in cursive and circles and cross-outs, on yellow legal pads that she stashes behind the phone. After tea and Bible study, she will spend the rest of the day devotedly connecting those dots and wearing different hats: mother, wife, homeschooling teacher, foster parent, manager of our 150-year-old home, part-time social worker, hostess, friend. And of course she will sprinkle in sledding parties, music nights, and mother-daughter teas into the cracks for good measure.
In between mugs, she will pick up the three year old from daycare, run my sister to piano lessons, create a care package to send me at college, and throw a baby shower for a soon-to-be single mother she’s watched grow up. Then she will cook dinner, which is faithfully a family event at our house, sing the brush-your-teeth song just so, and tuck three daughters, two foster kids, and one husband into bed before the day is done.
She’s been reading a book this year called “Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life” and a peek at the margins show a bolded and heralded hand-written YES next to the sentence, “A Christian home overflows its boundaries; it is an outpost of the Kingdom of God, where the hungry are fed and the naked are clothed and there is room enough for everyone.” This echoes the idea set forth in Isaiah 54, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left…”. This is my mother’s philosophy of house.
“i have eight children,” she likes to say. Three daughters and five foster children, not counting the foreign exchange student from France, the pastor’s daughter from Brazil, the neighboring family who lived with us one summer, our nursing student friend, various missionaries on furlough, great uncles, college friends, and the handful of other pilgrims, kin, and folks who have added to the tent pegs.
The strain of the Brazilian women shows in their hands. Their calluses fill the white sugar sacks like sweet pillows, ton by ton, stalk by stalk. My mother’s work is not so tangibly measured, but she is no less generous. Salgado writes in his book Migrations, in preface of the faces and stories that scatter the world, “More than ever, I feel that the human race is one,” and i believe him. There is a thread of similarity that spins sameness between the tangled fields of sugar stalk and the thicket-clutter of a happy kitchen. Women wake before the rest to scuffle with the light and harness it into something they can give; they wrestle the morning for their fruit: the harvester women with their machetes, and my mother with a silver spoon.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
i wrote this at cornerstone
So i wrote an intro for this, then erased it because for some reason i feel like it needs to be left unexplained. So there you have it.
He told me
salvation is not seamless.
It is sure, but not without the grit of the fight
as we struggle through the husk
as we pin down blessings with our naked teeth
for that home-made, hand-tackled joy
that blooms out of our throats
into something we can sing
together; a tribe of tattered saints.
At least,
i am no icon:
stilted in the smoke and hollow plaster,
nothing but holiness clenched under the bright of brow.
Actually,
i trudge my way into the kingdom
most of the time.
i skin my knees
on the way into glory
so that my golden hat was scraped off long before,
somewhere in the thickets of my flaw,
and my hands are raw with the coming.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
the harsh and the holy...part II
My mental framework lately has been that God is a consuming fire, and we, the wicks. This is Annie Dillard but also Jeremiah theology, who cried, “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). This is a truth, but it is lacking its complement. It is not a holistic perspective. Extremes like this need to be tempered, or I will only touch half the vision.
Here is what i mean: I need to temper my fire with grace, and salt my grace with fear. God is both mercy and judgment. He is both Lion and Lamb. He is gloriously both and one.
There is a violent side of grace just as there is a tender side of grace. And the latter has lately been my musing. Grace that nurtures, grace that heals, grace that comes in thin whispers rather than branches wrapped in flame.
My pastor spoke on this side of grace on Palm Sunday. Coats and palm branches are soft, he said. The triumphal entry of Christ is God's Light Touch to the World, He comes gentle. Jesus with children on His knee, Jesus touching the eyes of men born blind.
Clearly there is a dichotomy that needs to be reconciled. How can God be a pillar of fire and also a babe? How can His voice shake the earth and strip the trees at one time, and at another speak in a trembling whisper? i have a suspicion God is glorified in being BOTH. He is magnified when two seemingly opposite entities collide in Who He Is and unite in a divine harmony. The contrast plays off each other, sharpening the other into brilliance.
So i am thinking perhaps grace, like some other gifts of God, comes in seasons. Christmas shows us the tenderness of God, and Easter shows us the wrath. Just as Christ arrived in the tender newness of life in one season, and departed in raw violence in the next, perhaps grace is lavished on us through both the soft and the fierce. Even the earth and its turnings speak to the glory of God.
i believe God is gloriously both. He smashes tables and holds children. He is Judge of the Earth, Pillar of Fire, Lion of Judah; and He is Healer, Babe, and Lamb. He is soft AND savage--"the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16). And we worship Him because He knows how to meet us where we are. He knows when we need to be wrestled and when we need to just rest in His lap.
Here is what i mean: I need to temper my fire with grace, and salt my grace with fear. God is both mercy and judgment. He is both Lion and Lamb. He is gloriously both and one.
There is a violent side of grace just as there is a tender side of grace. And the latter has lately been my musing. Grace that nurtures, grace that heals, grace that comes in thin whispers rather than branches wrapped in flame.
My pastor spoke on this side of grace on Palm Sunday. Coats and palm branches are soft, he said. The triumphal entry of Christ is God's Light Touch to the World, He comes gentle. Jesus with children on His knee, Jesus touching the eyes of men born blind.
Clearly there is a dichotomy that needs to be reconciled. How can God be a pillar of fire and also a babe? How can His voice shake the earth and strip the trees at one time, and at another speak in a trembling whisper? i have a suspicion God is glorified in being BOTH. He is magnified when two seemingly opposite entities collide in Who He Is and unite in a divine harmony. The contrast plays off each other, sharpening the other into brilliance.
So i am thinking perhaps grace, like some other gifts of God, comes in seasons. Christmas shows us the tenderness of God, and Easter shows us the wrath. Just as Christ arrived in the tender newness of life in one season, and departed in raw violence in the next, perhaps grace is lavished on us through both the soft and the fierce. Even the earth and its turnings speak to the glory of God.
i believe God is gloriously both. He smashes tables and holds children. He is Judge of the Earth, Pillar of Fire, Lion of Judah; and He is Healer, Babe, and Lamb. He is soft AND savage--"the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16). And we worship Him because He knows how to meet us where we are. He knows when we need to be wrestled and when we need to just rest in His lap.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
the harsh and the holy
Annie Dillard says, “I came here to study hard things—rock, mountain, and salt sea—and to temper my spirit on their edges.” This is the woman who talks about “the smash of the holy”...“the bladelike arms of God.” This makes her a kindred spirit.
There is no other God i want to know. Something in me is wired to love extremes, to love fierceness, to be awed at the harsh and the holy. If it doesn’t have an edge i don’t want it. If it doesn’t have an edge, how can it shape me? how can it carve and create? how can it wound and heal?
Don’t be fooled, a dull edge is not safe, it is lethal, muting all the rage of life. It’s the prick and the puncture that we want, sparking us to something, quickening our souls to the world, igniting us to love and outrage.
If God were only meek and mild, if He politely raised His hand in the back row of my mind to suggest a cosmic word, rather than devouring my eyes clean with His brightness, i would not love Him. But i do love Him, and He reigns in pillars of fire and tables shattered and curtains slashed.
Grace on the loose. Grace in utter rampage. Hallelujahs flame like arrows. Blessings wrestle us down to our teeth. How else is He supposed to get my attention, thick as i am?
Hosea 6:1-3
"Come, let us return to the Lord
he has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
on the third day He will raise us up,
that we may live before Him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth."
There is no other God i want to know. Something in me is wired to love extremes, to love fierceness, to be awed at the harsh and the holy. If it doesn’t have an edge i don’t want it. If it doesn’t have an edge, how can it shape me? how can it carve and create? how can it wound and heal?
Don’t be fooled, a dull edge is not safe, it is lethal, muting all the rage of life. It’s the prick and the puncture that we want, sparking us to something, quickening our souls to the world, igniting us to love and outrage.
If God were only meek and mild, if He politely raised His hand in the back row of my mind to suggest a cosmic word, rather than devouring my eyes clean with His brightness, i would not love Him. But i do love Him, and He reigns in pillars of fire and tables shattered and curtains slashed.
Grace on the loose. Grace in utter rampage. Hallelujahs flame like arrows. Blessings wrestle us down to our teeth. How else is He supposed to get my attention, thick as i am?
Hosea 6:1-3
"Come, let us return to the Lord
he has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
on the third day He will raise us up,
that we may live before Him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
He will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth."
Monday, February 25, 2008
day by day
day by day
dreams
swell from their starch pillow husks,
gold-drenched and shimmering, and
rise like the souls of martyrs,
after the lions,
after the salt,
to clutter the universe
anew.
night stales between shadows
snuffed flat
by the gathering lights.
dreams
swell from their starch pillow husks,
gold-drenched and shimmering, and
rise like the souls of martyrs,
after the lions,
after the salt,
to clutter the universe
anew.
night stales between shadows
snuffed flat
by the gathering lights.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
advent
the souls of men are too often born,
red-raw and howling,
of scandals and spectacles:
the scarlet letter branded on the breast
and blooming in the womb.
tangled advents snatched from the clench of children
and scattered under the table to the host beneath:
the imperial souls so ill-sheathed:
dogs and circus freaks,
whores and seraphs, all communing
at the knee.
our legacy roars forth
in violent elegance
of such as these.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
First Snow
First Snow (December 2007)
white,
the plunder of ghosts,
has made a fury of the rooftops
i savor on my sympathy:
are not i also such a flicker
fury that I sometimes seem
dissolving in the streetlight
so suddenly swallowed.
white,
the plunder of ghosts,
has made a fury of the rooftops
i savor on my sympathy:
are not i also such a flicker
fury that I sometimes seem
dissolving in the streetlight
so suddenly swallowed.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Proverbs 21:1
Just a thought from my devotion this morning...
Proverbs 21:1, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it where He will."
Psalm 73:26, "God is the ROCK of my heart." Water is fluid, flowing, smooth; but rock is solid and unmoving. So when the two are brought together, the water flows as directed by the rock. The rock in a streambed defines the boundaries as the water submits to them. Praise God that He is this Rock, unchangeable in truth, unshakeable as my foundation. The obedient heart is that which 1) puts itself willingly into the hand of God, and 2) accepts the boundaries He has set. Because it is the rock that channels the water, and the boundaries that in fact direct our way.
May my heart be as water directed by the Rock: an outpouring, a life-giving source, obedient to the boundaries of the rock that determines my path.
Proverbs 21:1, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it where He will."
Psalm 73:26, "God is the ROCK of my heart." Water is fluid, flowing, smooth; but rock is solid and unmoving. So when the two are brought together, the water flows as directed by the rock. The rock in a streambed defines the boundaries as the water submits to them. Praise God that He is this Rock, unchangeable in truth, unshakeable as my foundation. The obedient heart is that which 1) puts itself willingly into the hand of God, and 2) accepts the boundaries He has set. Because it is the rock that channels the water, and the boundaries that in fact direct our way.
May my heart be as water directed by the Rock: an outpouring, a life-giving source, obedient to the boundaries of the rock that determines my path.
Friday, January 4, 2008
come simple
Matthew 11:25-26 "At that time Jesus declared, 'I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them instead to little children; yes, Father, for such was your good pleasure."
The parables all unwrap themselves—
strings and lines fall simply away—
when the scribes count their stars,
the rocks hold their breath,
the years tilt on their very eve,
and the universe unclenches of its shining advents
and stoops to fill instead
the cradle of a child's hand.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
~a colorful variety of grace~
The place seemed tired and the people tattered. As I stepped gingerly over the threshold of the former Chelsea hotel in downtown Chicago, the place did not exactly present an elegant scene. There was a handful of young people lingering around the gray-lit lobby, and they appeared to me more like high-schoolers in detention rather than guests of the Christian shelter and ministry I thought I was visiting.
The place had first sparked my interest because of its heart for hospitality, for sharing life and home together, which I hope to emulate in my own future ministry. I came envisioning hostels and accents and coffee conversations. But as my friends and I toured through the dust-traced rooms, I realized this was not the sparkling ideal I had set up in my mind.
As my gaze sauntered down the hallways, I collected pieces of texture: broken terra cotta stranded on the windowsills, a tantrum of scattered paint over the walls, rust stains that trickled down from ceiling seams. The people seemed rough, too. They weren’t the captivating mystics I so often muse about, you know, the rootless independents who embark on spiritual journeys through Europe, making their living through art and the pack on their back. But these people, for the most part, were unapologetically average. They wore indie band tee-shirts, pushed through the dinner line in wheelchairs, displayed a wide array of inked arms and pierced faces, and laughed indiscreetly through bad teeth. In a sense they intimidated me because I was unsure of how to relate to them.
A man with glasses as big as vintage records and a beard like scribbling asked if we would like to stay for dinner, so we accepted the invitation and shuffled to the back of the long line. I engaged in a few conversations as we entered the dining area, the whole time feeling about as inconspicuous as a red piano key.
But then a brilliant display of color distracted my eye. There, blooming out of the white, cracked wall, striking in contrast, were hundreds of handmade crosses. Each cross as different as the soul who made it; each one the story of a life of faith. There were crosses of every detail and design: painted crosses, decadent in color, cardboard crosses, rough and brown, simple silver crosses, traditional wooden crosses, crosses made of sequins, twigs, beaded wire, newspaper clippings. I itched for my camera. The image shed a new light on the place for me, and I tucked it away, leaving me in a quiet awe.
We ate with the ministry’s discipleship group in a small side room, and as they invited me into their home, welcomed me to their table, and ushered me into their lives, their faith, I found, was real. Real to the raw. And in it, we found an easy fellowship. Rich, our friend with dark dreadlocks and carpenter hands, told me in his down-to-earth way of his hope to become ordained this year. He is praying about returning to Brazil, where he grew up, to share Christ with his father. Sadie, a philosophy major, shared about her recent trip to Palestine and the lives of quiet injustice she witnessed there that continue to shape her. Rob, who has one blue eye and one patch, grinned at me and invited me to come back and visit anytime. He is homeless and shines with the joy of the Lord. I felt that our little table hosted a lot of vision. And as I was sitting there, amongst such rich stories of the faith, one thought kept returning to me: this is the church. All of us love Christ. All of us want to bring His presence into our tangled, tainted world.
Then I thought of the crosses and realized what a striking visual this is. This is the church. It is built of people of all varieties of grace. There is no mold for the saints. The saints are bohemian artists, celibate nuns, suburban soccer moms, charismatic youth, gray-haired elders, third world orphans, seminary graduates, the least, the last, the prodigals, and the prostitutes. As Christ saves them, all are His. We are His church and we are His children. The crosses and the lives that crafted them, in their colorful array of differences, each stake their faith in the same raw red of redemption that stretches through us all.
Just as each cross on the wall expresses a different perception of the One Lord, so we all bear a unique image of the same Savior. God chooses to reveal to each of His children different attributes of His character, in order to shape us according to His individual design. Some see Him as the Lion of Judah: fierce and noble and strong. Others know Him as the Shepherd, gently and lovingly guiding His own. Maybe Jesus is the Potter to the paint people, the Bread of Life to the cardboard people, the Bridegroom to the sequin people. He is all these things, and something vibrant and dynamic happens when the paint people and the cardboard people and the sequin people come together to worship at the foot of the cross.
As we come, from all points on the spectrum of souls, from every tribe, tongue and nation, we find a common ground in faith. And as we come, bringing together our glorious variety of grace, we can communally reflect the fullness of Who He Is. In light of this, the same scene I had once deemed so unimpressionable claimed a new significance. Under this bright mural of faith, those I had considered strangers became brothers, those I thought dissimilar became sisters, and this myriad of people found beauty in coming together as the living, thriving Body of Christ.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
boiling point
my dad always says
that when I latch onto my newest idea
everything else goes out the window
and i pour myself into this one, all consuming thing
until it is accomplished.
he says its my blessing and my curse.
so what I want to know is
where do I get these ideas, anyway?
just one of those days.
one of those spells.
one of those souls.
that wakes up needing tibetan prayer flags
red wood forests
central park in snow.
i want to snuggle down in the swiss philosophy house
and talk brave and get my hands messy and kick up my heels.
i want to be a muckraker and dish it all out.
but instead i sigh and suffocate
under a pile of boxes and numbers and grids.
my vision will not stale in parentheses.
it begs a little room to swell.
that when I latch onto my newest idea
everything else goes out the window
and i pour myself into this one, all consuming thing
until it is accomplished.
he says its my blessing and my curse.
so what I want to know is
where do I get these ideas, anyway?
just one of those days.
one of those spells.
one of those souls.
that wakes up needing tibetan prayer flags
red wood forests
central park in snow.
i want to snuggle down in the swiss philosophy house
and talk brave and get my hands messy and kick up my heels.
i want to be a muckraker and dish it all out.
but instead i sigh and suffocate
under a pile of boxes and numbers and grids.
my vision will not stale in parentheses.
it begs a little room to swell.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
He Who Lives in Inapproachable Light!
If we ask to see God’s face, we need to know what this means. God’s revelation is no small thing. The Almighty does not disclose His glory lightly. If we are going to pray for revolution, we need to be ready for utter and even painful transformation. Moses is one such man who asked to see God’s glory, and God revealed Himself in an incredible act of grace, but He also warned, “But…you cannot see my face, for one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20).
We cannot come face to face with the Creator Redeemer and remain unchanged. We cannot encounter the glory of the Risen Lord and continue to live in our sin. Habakkuk 1:13 says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil.” The Holy of Holies cannot entertain sin in His presence: the encounter will either break us, or change us. We must either be destroyed or transformed.
Do you want to see His face? Are you willing to submit your sin and mess to the One who lives in inapproachable light? Are you ready to fall under the severe exposure of His loving eyes? Sometimes we pray for intimacy, we say we want to know only Christ, but we want the relationship without the conviction. We want the sweet assurance of being near the Savior without the deep wound of knowing and sacrificing our sin.
But the painful exposure is also the purifying process. When we are exposed to God’s likeness, we begin to be transformed into His likeness. In such intimacy with the Eternal Light, it is impossible not to be illuminated, and impossible not to reflect His brilliance. When we step into the light, we begin to also reflect it. As God said, “No one may see me and live”—our sinful self will no longer live! Shane and Shane has a song, "May the Vision of you be the death of me!" Amen. And being dead to sin we will live to Him. 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
We cannot come face to face with the Creator Redeemer and remain unchanged. We cannot encounter the glory of the Risen Lord and continue to live in our sin. Habakkuk 1:13 says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil.” The Holy of Holies cannot entertain sin in His presence: the encounter will either break us, or change us. We must either be destroyed or transformed.
Do you want to see His face? Are you willing to submit your sin and mess to the One who lives in inapproachable light? Are you ready to fall under the severe exposure of His loving eyes? Sometimes we pray for intimacy, we say we want to know only Christ, but we want the relationship without the conviction. We want the sweet assurance of being near the Savior without the deep wound of knowing and sacrificing our sin.
But the painful exposure is also the purifying process. When we are exposed to God’s likeness, we begin to be transformed into His likeness. In such intimacy with the Eternal Light, it is impossible not to be illuminated, and impossible not to reflect His brilliance. When we step into the light, we begin to also reflect it. As God said, “No one may see me and live”—our sinful self will no longer live! Shane and Shane has a song, "May the Vision of you be the death of me!" Amen. And being dead to sin we will live to Him. 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
