good stuff

Just think about it:

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
(James 1:17, NASB)


How can we doubt His goodness? How can we not see His light every day? How can we not live in and out of thanksgiving?

~lg

Solomon, Solomon

The other day I was reading about Solomon and thinking about nursery rhymes. This is what happened:


Solomon, Solomon
King of the land
Your wisdom is golden
Your palace is grand
The temple is sparkling
And so is your smile
Your words bring you praise
On the banks of the Nile

Solomon, Solomon
King of great fame
Egypt and Sheba
Are singing your name
The fig trees are growing
To shade every man
With riches and safety
By royal command

Solomon, Solomon
Plated in gold
Your heart is divided
Your love has gone cold
Tear your fine velvet
Repent now and mourn
From splendor to ashes
The kingdom is torn


~lg

When we garden

When we garden
We remember the beauty of an Eden morning
Naked as the lilies in all their splendor
We were born with dirt under our fingernails
And we spend too much time scrubbing it off
When we should be digging with the worms
Joining our toil with God’s imagination

The violets whisper the ancient garden's song
Nodding their heads in purple chorus
Forget-me-not
Forget-me-not

~lg

habits of renewal

Put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. . . (Col 3:10)

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:2)

Renewal is a choice, a way of thinking, an opening of the mind to the pattern of Truth. It doesn't happen automatically. Renewal happens when we make a regular habit of facing ourselves with the mirror of God's image. It seems to be glass at first, but as we look further up and further in the glass melts into a pool of unfathomable depth and beauty. We need habits of renewal which cause us to gaze intently, drink deeply, and dive joyfully into all that God is.

Brother Lawrence speaks to this habit-making:

"We cannot escape the dangers which abound in life without the actual and continual help of God. Let us, then, pray to Him for it continually. How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him but in thinking of Him often? And how can we think of Him but by a holy habit which we should form of it? You will tell me that I am always saying the same thing. It is true, for this is the best and easiest method I know; and as I use no other, I advise all the world to do it. We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure. This is an argument which well deserved your consideration."


~lg

green

Weeping willows cry green tears of joy,
dripping into the silver creek,
for spring.
Fair forests are wrapped in ethereal emerald gauze,
dressed for an evening dance
with spring.

What is this naive colour,
defying old man winter's mothballs,
rippling secret laughter through sleepy forests
racing to the horizon to catch up with the sun?

This is green,
green so new God must have thought it up only moments ago.


~lg

401 reverie

The wooded hills beckon in the evening sunfall
The bare brown carpet invites spring
invites me to come up and commune
with the strength of the oaks and the
delicate beauty of the birch child
Amethyst clouds light the ridge above
and elvish whispers stir the leaves to a hesitant dance

The woods are not awake yet
But their clear blood begins to rise
in the warmth of lengthening days
They give to us a taste of the first sweetness of spring
Pouring their joy out from wounds
Drink from the promise of hope
and let your tongue sing our song
Shadows of geese sail though the sundogs
which circle their master three times before
sinking to the horizon's bed

The woods will sleep another night

~lg

Intercessions - April 1

Father of peace and healing,

You are the one who breaks insurmountable dividing walls. Make a footbridge of peace over troubled waters. Where disappointment and bitterness wedge souls apart, bind them together with cords of mercy and the balm of Gilead. Be near to the brokenhearted, and save the ones who are crushed in spirit. Gather their pieces in tenderness and speak healing to their brokenness. May your gentleness make them great. Restore souls and rescue the estranged from division. Be their peace.

Amen

Ps 18:35; 34:18


~lg

my internet

In the effort to detach myself from the computer over Lent, a new pile emerged on the coffee table. I came to call this pile (which varied over the weeks) my "new internet." These were the pages I surfed, with a sense of satisfaction I never get from reading off a screen. As you can see, it was a little of this, and a little of that, reflecting my current interests: theology, PEI, L. M. Montgomery, Hadrian's Wall, good stories, topped by my Bible and journal, which help make sense of everything else I read. Lent is over but the pile (slightly changed) is still there, a welcome stack of paper friends. The only thing missing from the picture is a steaming cup of coffee!

~lg

spring floods

The Forks of the Credit are swollen with the force of spring. Heaven’s thoughts, hurled down in the rain and snow, are now converging to water the earth. The waves are high, higher than the banks, higher than our thoughts can hold them. We are frightened by their icy strength, until we can hear the undercurrents of joy. The northwest wind breaks over the mountains and hills, waking up the trees of the field. Their bony applause welcomes the wind and the rising waters. Clap your hands, put on your rubbers, you cannot hold back the impetuous vernal flood.



God . . . has infinite treasure to bestow, and we take up with a little sensible devotion, which passes in a moment. Blind as we are, we hinder God and stop the current of His graces. But when He finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, He pours into it His graces and favors plentifully; there they flow like a torrent which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, spreads itself with impetuosity and abundance.
(Brother Lawrence - The Practice of the Presence of God)

~lg

giving up computer time

I've been slow to post because I've given up much of computer time for Lent! In the absence of the glowing screen and its habitual power over my free time, I've had time to think some lovely thoughts, but they haven't made it to a word processor yet. One of these days...

~lg

nature knows

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. (Psalm 19:7)

One of the ways I believe God’s word is perfect is in its timeliness. Just as Jesus came at the fullness of time, so God sent his word to his people in the fullness of time. The fact that the words of Scripture were given to the Hebrews and to the early Christians at the time they were is no accident. God has tied the revelation of his nature to particular periods of history, to particular modes of expression, to a particular way of seeing the world. God’s word is living, so it always speaks to every generation. But God chose people to express his word in oral tradition and in writing in their own language and idiom. So we must treasure the language of the Bible. We must dig deep into its figures of speech, into the comparisons made, into the methods of expression and the metaphors used to describe the ways of God.

We live in a world that is at times completely out of touch with the earth. No longer tied to the seasons and rhythms of the land and the sea, we forget or ignore the lessons nature has to teach us. The ancient writers did not have this luxury. The Scriptures are filled with creation as a living testimony and witness to God. The mountains shout, the trees applaud and the heavens declare. Too easily we can dismiss nature’s appearance in the Bible as mere metaphor and the crude anthropomorphisms of an ignorant culture. But I happen to think they were on to something, or rather, that God was on to something.

We need an understanding of the natural world viewed both as God’s creation and God’s revelation. Yes, we do make the distinction between “special” and “general” revelation. Christ falls in the first category, and creation in the second. But for those who know Christ – in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in whom all things are made new, in whose being all things in heaven and on earth are summed up and made perfect – we have been given an incredible treasure in the works of nature. If we listen closely, we can hear the story of Christ in the rivers and wrens. Creation whispers the secrets of the kingdom of God for those willing to listen.

(See previous posts talking trees, secrets and rara avis.)

~lg

theology

After I finished my thesis, I took an unofficial break from theology, at the least on the level to which I had been accustomed. Burnt out, with another big writing project to finish, I think I was just too tired to think anymore. My rows and rows of theological books temporarily lost their luster. (horrors!) But then I started reading a book which was given to me by my wonderful Aunt Karen. It's an autobiography of a woman named Leanne Payne, who has been influential in my aunt's life. Her writing is both theological and deeply spiritual, the perfect mix to spark the synapses I had sent on an extended vacation. Long story short, last night I picked up Alexander Schmemann's For the Life of the World, a book about the sacraments that I really should have finished long ago. I read the first three pages and I was hooked again. I thought about it as I drifted off to sleep. I thought of the book when I woke up this morning, wondering if I could sneak a few pages in with my devotions this morning, or when I come home for lunch. I even wrote a blog post about it. Yup, the signs are all there. I'm in love.

~lg

Beauty

"But the fear of God reigning in the heart is the beauty of the soul; it recommends those that have it to the favour of God, and is, in his sight, of great price; it will last for ever, and bid defiance to death itself, which consumes the beauty of the body, but consummates the beauty of the soul."

~Matthew Henry, from his commentary on Proverbs 31:30

Time

"Time is a sheer gift, the soil in which the soul's understanding buds and blossoms and virtues can be realized."

~Leanne Payne, Heaven's Calling

The archer

I feel the weight of the quiver
A gift and a burden of fire in my bones
The forest is silent and I pluck the bow
It sings like an instrument

I reach back to feel feathers
Drawing out smooth and straight
The heart of a tree
And a red tip

I hear the oak leaves shiver
And suddenly I can smell the earth
In the meeting of taut string and limb
My arms strengthen

I do not shoot
I am waiting and watching
Learning the names of my arrows
Tuning string to match strength

When the wind blows again
The trees will open a path
With clear eye and steady hand
I will be ready

~lg