"But their minds were hardened. For to this day ... that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away ... But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
(Paul the Apostle - to the Corinthians)
Join me, won't you, in beholding the glory of the Lord?
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Of Beholding
"The eye is the lamp of the body."
(Jesus speaking - Matthew 6)
A blind woman runs her fingers across the hem of her dress and notices a tear. She slips her hand over the smooth edge of a plate on which spring lettuce and colorful ripe tomatoes are held; she notices a chip in the porcelain. She has beheld, if only by touch.
But she has yet to behold the colorful food.
Or maybe she glances the delicate leafs and cold, soft succulent tomatoes with the tips of her fingers, and she lifts them to her tongue and tastes, with heightened sensitivity, the squish of the fruit in her mouth. Yes, she has beheld. Truly, has she not? Maybe with limitation, but she has seen much.
The eye.
A lamp.
Of the body.
Our bodies quiver at sensations. We can behold or perceive any number of ways. So why does Jesus point us to this metaphor of eye is the lamp?
The EYE has everything to do with THINGS, a myriad of things, both material and immaterial, and the function of beholding them. Receiving them into ourselves. Another way to say it is the eye has everything to do with the Nouns in our lives - the people, the places, the things or ideas that surround us and touch us - or we them - daily. In other words, our eyes and our surroundings, whether they be material or ideological, are deeply relational, whether we mean for them to be or not.
And like any relationship with which we engage, we are altered by degrees.
Jesus has a far superior way of talking about all of this. Read with me, won't you?
"So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
Imagine for a single moment, a human light bulb. Seriously. Sounds ridiculous, I agree. But, by contrast, imagine a human body without light. (What do you see?) I know what I see. I see death. A casket with a man. Or a woman. Expired. Lights out.
Or a young boy who has lost hope, no spark or light shines from his eyes, his soul. Or a young woman who sits despondently on a park bench at the center of a lazy town, alone. I see a one-year-old who is held securely in the arms of her foster father, just newly received into their loving home. She has yet to behold (and to trust) the love embracing her. She lacks expression. No light. No smiles. Only a weariness that no baby girl ought to know. She wears the look of care worn by a 25-year-old with three kids and no husband, not of an infant. What has happened? I don't know what happened to one so young, but today I watch her play and her sweetness is adorable. She's a happy preschooler today, she smiles freely (a bit shyly, but easily grins) and brings so much joy to me every time I visit with her family. No more sadness. None like before.
Most of us have functioning vision. But seeing, do we ever see? And seeing, what do we see?
I have an under-developed sense of concrete perception, because by temperament and by habit, I "focus" on abstracts versus concrete objects. This means I do not properly see my environment unless I am deliberately focusing on it, thinking about its details, such as, the serrated leaf on a beech nut tree, or the scurry of an ant across the dry mulch around the lilies just outside my window. I have to focus, or attend, to really perceive a thing. For example, my mind right now is focused on the abstraction of vision, not the physical components of the eye. I am focused on making words appear on a screen, but even that has little to do with the physical pecking at the alphabet in front of me. It's about the idea. So, I am attending my nouns, but not concretely. Until just this moment I was unaware of the firmness of the old oak teacher's chair upholding me, and the pressure of my right elbow on the edge of my desk, antique and finished in provincial-colonial stain. Or, perhaps, later if I am not attending, I will miss the breeze of this warm summer day moving deliciously across my face and arms. Yes, sensory vision. It richly feeds our souls.
A healthy eye. What does this mean? The answer is tucked in this clause, "your whole body will be full of light." And the assertion that follows, " ... but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
What makes our body full of darkness (and decay)?
A bad eye.
The stuff we perceive sneaks past our retinas and leaps down into our souls, torquing our hearts if we are not careful. Or it fills us with strength in time of need. But, if it's torquing our souls, then where lies the trouble?
Or another way to ask it: What makes the eye bad? I suspect that it's something that a trip to your local optometrist can't do a thing about. It's not glaucoma, or allergies, or cataracts, or retinal detachment or macular pucker (whatever that is, it's not that.)
A bad eye (or a good eye) has EVERYTHING to do with the THING we behold, and not just our beholding a thing, but the manner in which we take it into our souls and particularly our perception of a thing and the naming of it. In fact, a bad eye vs. a healthy eye is fundamentally a linguistic problem, and more specifically, a Truth problem. That may sound crazy-odd, but without language, a truth cannot be fully apprehended. We cannot taste, feel, smell, listen, or see any thing with particular meaning unless we can name it, and in naming, we touch the smooth skin of the plum; we hear the pounding waves of a high tide; we smell the salty air; and watch the soaring eagle.
Of beholding, we can do something about it, at least, if the eye is working normally and the brain is processing information as it should. Beholding is all about the act. It IS the observing, the attending, the being still and taking time to really see a thing (like the hundreds of tiny petals on a Queen Anne's lace growing in a grassy field or along the untrimmed edge of a country lane. Or the contemplation that love is like a balmy kiss on a cool brow).
Beholding.
The other part of beholding uses the function of our PERCEPTION of the thing itself, and this is another matter entirely, differing from the manner (physiologically, speaking). Perception moves us beyond the act into the linguistic-moral mode, the mode that discerns fact from fiction; truth from error; forgiveness from vengeance; love from hate; justice from perversion; or, discerns whether it's the time to cast away stones or the time to gather stones; the time to embrace from the time to refrain; the time to laugh from the time to weep.
I can see the thing, but can I comprehend the beauty - or the truth? I can see the hole in the tale pipe, right? I can smell the smoke on the evening breeze. I can hear the crying of the child. I can feel the balmy kiss. But what do they mean? Is my body filled with confusion - or darkness? Or light? What have I beheld up to this point? (Do I have a choice?)
"If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness." (That's how Jesus said it).
I can feel the pain of a gash on my foot, or the fissure left in my soul, long and old. I can attend to the sounds of a whispering, echoing condemnation. Or I can behold the words of love from a friend, knowing it's okay for once to perceive rightly just how good they are and okay to drink in like honey from a comb, and, so, brightening the face, giving light to the eyes, dispelling darkness. You see, Jesus over time, in beautiful settings, heals perception. All those wrong-headed things we've beheld in sinful places, all those things that make dense and opaque our bodies with darkness, Jesus replaces with himself -- the Truth.
Have we beheld Him? The person as truth, the Truth - an abstract no more - deeply relational.
It reminds me of a blind man and something Jesus did for him one day.
The fellow, blind as a stone, yet perceiving through his other senses, sat in a public place. He heard the crowd gathering. He understood what his eyes could not. He cried loudly:
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Do you see him? Can you hear him? Lots of people pushing, tugging, elbowing, some telling him to shush. But, he just wouldn't. He rightly perceived his condition and the Master. He needed help. He cried out, unashamed. What did Jesus do? He responded. He called the man to himself and fixed his own holy eyes on the blind beggar, and he proclaimed:
"Go your way, your faith has made you well."
Do we see? Jesus saw. He saw the man's vision ~ his faith, the ability to see what others could not, and the man, exerting himself with all his strength toward another man, Jesus, who bid him come, the man went in faith and beheld Jesus.
It changed his life forever.
(Jesus speaking - Matthew 6)
A blind woman runs her fingers across the hem of her dress and notices a tear. She slips her hand over the smooth edge of a plate on which spring lettuce and colorful ripe tomatoes are held; she notices a chip in the porcelain. She has beheld, if only by touch.
But she has yet to behold the colorful food.
Or maybe she glances the delicate leafs and cold, soft succulent tomatoes with the tips of her fingers, and she lifts them to her tongue and tastes, with heightened sensitivity, the squish of the fruit in her mouth. Yes, she has beheld. Truly, has she not? Maybe with limitation, but she has seen much.
The eye.
A lamp.
Of the body.
Our bodies quiver at sensations. We can behold or perceive any number of ways. So why does Jesus point us to this metaphor of eye is the lamp?
The EYE has everything to do with THINGS, a myriad of things, both material and immaterial, and the function of beholding them. Receiving them into ourselves. Another way to say it is the eye has everything to do with the Nouns in our lives - the people, the places, the things or ideas that surround us and touch us - or we them - daily. In other words, our eyes and our surroundings, whether they be material or ideological, are deeply relational, whether we mean for them to be or not.
And like any relationship with which we engage, we are altered by degrees.
Jesus has a far superior way of talking about all of this. Read with me, won't you?
"So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
Imagine for a single moment, a human light bulb. Seriously. Sounds ridiculous, I agree. But, by contrast, imagine a human body without light. (What do you see?) I know what I see. I see death. A casket with a man. Or a woman. Expired. Lights out.
Or a young boy who has lost hope, no spark or light shines from his eyes, his soul. Or a young woman who sits despondently on a park bench at the center of a lazy town, alone. I see a one-year-old who is held securely in the arms of her foster father, just newly received into their loving home. She has yet to behold (and to trust) the love embracing her. She lacks expression. No light. No smiles. Only a weariness that no baby girl ought to know. She wears the look of care worn by a 25-year-old with three kids and no husband, not of an infant. What has happened? I don't know what happened to one so young, but today I watch her play and her sweetness is adorable. She's a happy preschooler today, she smiles freely (a bit shyly, but easily grins) and brings so much joy to me every time I visit with her family. No more sadness. None like before.
Most of us have functioning vision. But seeing, do we ever see? And seeing, what do we see?
I have an under-developed sense of concrete perception, because by temperament and by habit, I "focus" on abstracts versus concrete objects. This means I do not properly see my environment unless I am deliberately focusing on it, thinking about its details, such as, the serrated leaf on a beech nut tree, or the scurry of an ant across the dry mulch around the lilies just outside my window. I have to focus, or attend, to really perceive a thing. For example, my mind right now is focused on the abstraction of vision, not the physical components of the eye. I am focused on making words appear on a screen, but even that has little to do with the physical pecking at the alphabet in front of me. It's about the idea. So, I am attending my nouns, but not concretely. Until just this moment I was unaware of the firmness of the old oak teacher's chair upholding me, and the pressure of my right elbow on the edge of my desk, antique and finished in provincial-colonial stain. Or, perhaps, later if I am not attending, I will miss the breeze of this warm summer day moving deliciously across my face and arms. Yes, sensory vision. It richly feeds our souls.
A healthy eye. What does this mean? The answer is tucked in this clause, "your whole body will be full of light." And the assertion that follows, " ... but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."
What makes our body full of darkness (and decay)?
A bad eye.
The stuff we perceive sneaks past our retinas and leaps down into our souls, torquing our hearts if we are not careful. Or it fills us with strength in time of need. But, if it's torquing our souls, then where lies the trouble?
Or another way to ask it: What makes the eye bad? I suspect that it's something that a trip to your local optometrist can't do a thing about. It's not glaucoma, or allergies, or cataracts, or retinal detachment or macular pucker (whatever that is, it's not that.)
A bad eye (or a good eye) has EVERYTHING to do with the THING we behold, and not just our beholding a thing, but the manner in which we take it into our souls and particularly our perception of a thing and the naming of it. In fact, a bad eye vs. a healthy eye is fundamentally a linguistic problem, and more specifically, a Truth problem. That may sound crazy-odd, but without language, a truth cannot be fully apprehended. We cannot taste, feel, smell, listen, or see any thing with particular meaning unless we can name it, and in naming, we touch the smooth skin of the plum; we hear the pounding waves of a high tide; we smell the salty air; and watch the soaring eagle.
Of beholding, we can do something about it, at least, if the eye is working normally and the brain is processing information as it should. Beholding is all about the act. It IS the observing, the attending, the being still and taking time to really see a thing (like the hundreds of tiny petals on a Queen Anne's lace growing in a grassy field or along the untrimmed edge of a country lane. Or the contemplation that love is like a balmy kiss on a cool brow).
Beholding.
The other part of beholding uses the function of our PERCEPTION of the thing itself, and this is another matter entirely, differing from the manner (physiologically, speaking). Perception moves us beyond the act into the linguistic-moral mode, the mode that discerns fact from fiction; truth from error; forgiveness from vengeance; love from hate; justice from perversion; or, discerns whether it's the time to cast away stones or the time to gather stones; the time to embrace from the time to refrain; the time to laugh from the time to weep.
I can see the thing, but can I comprehend the beauty - or the truth? I can see the hole in the tale pipe, right? I can smell the smoke on the evening breeze. I can hear the crying of the child. I can feel the balmy kiss. But what do they mean? Is my body filled with confusion - or darkness? Or light? What have I beheld up to this point? (Do I have a choice?)
"If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness." (That's how Jesus said it).
I can feel the pain of a gash on my foot, or the fissure left in my soul, long and old. I can attend to the sounds of a whispering, echoing condemnation. Or I can behold the words of love from a friend, knowing it's okay for once to perceive rightly just how good they are and okay to drink in like honey from a comb, and, so, brightening the face, giving light to the eyes, dispelling darkness. You see, Jesus over time, in beautiful settings, heals perception. All those wrong-headed things we've beheld in sinful places, all those things that make dense and opaque our bodies with darkness, Jesus replaces with himself -- the Truth.
Have we beheld Him? The person as truth, the Truth - an abstract no more - deeply relational.
It reminds me of a blind man and something Jesus did for him one day.
The fellow, blind as a stone, yet perceiving through his other senses, sat in a public place. He heard the crowd gathering. He understood what his eyes could not. He cried loudly:
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Do you see him? Can you hear him? Lots of people pushing, tugging, elbowing, some telling him to shush. But, he just wouldn't. He rightly perceived his condition and the Master. He needed help. He cried out, unashamed. What did Jesus do? He responded. He called the man to himself and fixed his own holy eyes on the blind beggar, and he proclaimed:
"Go your way, your faith has made you well."
Do we see? Jesus saw. He saw the man's vision ~ his faith, the ability to see what others could not, and the man, exerting himself with all his strength toward another man, Jesus, who bid him come, the man went in faith and beheld Jesus.
It changed his life forever.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Important Things (or, of things holy)
It is important to skip small rocks across a pond, to climb a hill on all four, stand up tall and sing a song. It is important to plant hydrangeas and
pansies, and in a meadow pick daisies.
It is important to drink the sun in a raspberry patch, to
scoop into your mouth red or black. It
is important to barefoot tread in cool mud, along laughing, gurgling streams;
to climb a tree, rough skinned, it is important to scrape your knee. It is important to heal the skin, important
for the sin. It is important to take
some time, important to be well, important to hear it is okay, and important to believe. It is important
to gather a happy toddler into your arms, and important to hold a crying
daughter. It is important to rub the
back of a sleeping boy and hug him still when he’s a man. It is important to bake biscotti and serve iced
tea, to care for the elderly; to swab a brow with furrows tilled on aged face
and heart. It is important to gently touch her traveled feet, to massage with love,
with lightest balm and richest lavender, what toil calloused, to gaze into her
face, to watch silent words spill like flickering sunbeams from blue eyes, to
know a grandmother at the end. It is
important to dig a grave for your dog when he is done, and it is important to
snuggle a kitten who was born. It is important to bow in worship, important to
fall in adoration, prone upon the dirt. It is important to let yourself be
gathered up like a basket of blossoms and held near, treasured for being, for
simply being. It is important to feel
the brush of friendship upon your cheek, it is important to let it touch your
heart. It is important to sit with a
friend, for hours immeasurable and meandering talks, until long shadows from a
retiring sun gather like piles of quilts, reminding we are snug and warm, and
tomorrow’s hope will come again. It is important to write to live well; it is important to breathe to sing
the anthem well, to sing what is worth singing. It is important to dance with hair unfurled, to twirl amidst the holy. It is important to embrace the person embracing,
to know you touch the image of God, in part. So many things
important, so many things holy, so much to ponder, for which to give
thanks. Oh, come with me, we'll pull up a bit of
earth and lie down flat and worship a little while longer.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Reflections of Mercy: Psalm 23
"Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." (Ps. 23)
Goodness and Mercy are literal things, like sunshine falling unexpectedly across the living room floor. Like the brush of a kiss on a sleeping face. Like silk wrapped around a sorrowing wound. Goodness and Mercy, waters from God, rush in us, through us, around us. Gathering droplets, Mercyfalls down like rain. It covers the morning earth, and we step onto the grass, leaving barefooted prints. Fears, regrets and sorrows of sins grown old, wash from our skin. Their voices blend into a harmony, calling, softly, then loudly, like rolling foam beneath the falls, laughing, joyfully speaking, "Yes, my Dear, the water's clear and it's clean; take a plunge, and when you step away, let its Beauty flow from your soul."
Goodness and Mercy are literal things, like sunshine falling unexpectedly across the living room floor. Like the brush of a kiss on a sleeping face. Like silk wrapped around a sorrowing wound. Goodness and Mercy, waters from God, rush in us, through us, around us. Gathering droplets, Mercyfalls down like rain. It covers the morning earth, and we step onto the grass, leaving barefooted prints. Fears, regrets and sorrows of sins grown old, wash from our skin. Their voices blend into a harmony, calling, softly, then loudly, like rolling foam beneath the falls, laughing, joyfully speaking, "Yes, my Dear, the water's clear and it's clean; take a plunge, and when you step away, let its Beauty flow from your soul."
The Lady rose - a young maiden regaled in gowns that now lay aside upon the bank of dense laurel. She stood in silence. Her head bare and hair unfurled, with dark, bright eyes she looked deeply into an azure sky. Translucent silk falling, cascading around her shoulders, down to her knees, swayed softly against the water's surface. She stepped further, carefully into the fresh natural pool, until her waist grew dim. The pale gown rippled gently, swirling downward with the tension of a sequenced bodice, jewels glittering in the morning light. She stirred slightly and then dipped beneath the dark water's surface; upon her rising, the water broke apart, rushing-baptizing, and returning into the emerald calm. She stood calmly, watching once more. Turning a hidden face toward the earthen jar upon the bank, she waded back, and kneeling, she lifted and dipped it into the pool, raised it over her head and let fall the spring-tide stream upon her lightly clothed skin. Silence enshrouded her bathing ritual and hung upon the morning air like honeysuckle. She preferred the stillness of early morning, the mists rising from the hidden pools of the forest. The seclusion of the hemlocks and the wildness of delicate blossoms and tender ferns drew her there repeatedly.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Malformed?
"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?" (Romans 9:20)
I have been thinking this week about sin and its function in our lives; of how sin creates malformations within our souls. Yes, we know the scripture which aptly tells us what sin does to us - it slays us. So, I guess we could agree that Death is Sin's ultimate malformation?
If I have read the biblical narrative correctly, the spiritual death of humanity occurred summarily, instantly, leaving the body with no other recourse; the Tree of Life banned, and for good reason, for then we would have become the eternally-perpetually living dead.
Why is this so significant? Our spirits deadened to what once beat as a holy rhythm within our breasts long-long ago in Eden, are we shocked by the decay of our souls?
Is it not the great denial of the human condition? Are we not striving against it continually? As the wear and tear shows up visibly in our bodies, we join the great sea-wave of humanity's relentless push to have slimmer bodies, younger faces, and strive to arrange our worlds to achieve long, satisfied lives. (Whatever that means.) Some of us put off the inevitable as long as possible, though, sometimes, we give up and in resignation plod out the remainder of our days, wondering if we were ever meant to dream at all, or meant to feel beauty or if we are just plain silly. School girl stuff, really. Let it rest, after all, we're grown now.
And our souls pant in the desert. The river, dry in drought, the loveliness of a beautiful creation faded, choked by untimely death - leaves deep fissures in the landscape. And the sun sets while shadows fill up the emptiness.
I am wondering how such malformations induce us to behave toward one another.
I have lived and loved long enough to know what occurs when we fail to delight first in God (as did Eve), allowing His divine order to invade our disordered lives. And this is what I have beheld: As a matter of course, we hurt one another.
It makes me physically feel ill when contemplating it. It cuts so close to the core of sorrow of a disordered world - and life. But it's simply what occurs when we, a people whose very souls and beings were created for worship of a good and holy God walk in the death and decay of a fallen inheritance. When we fail to be the people we were created to be, in the first place.
He knows this about us - oh, how he knows and how he loves us. We were not meant to live disordered lives; the sort that ignores "no other Gods before me" and flaunts every blessing as if it were something it were not (i.e., the thing itself we most desire - who is God). And, so, we cause more harm still. In contrast, to it all, He - Jesus Christ, the eternal, magnificent One, redeems and he restores.
Have we beheld him closely? Can we?
A few years ago I read a wonderful book by Stasi Eldredge of Ransomed Heart Ministries in which she talks about beauty -- a beauty restored. I've discovered that in our heart of hearts, where silent desires dwell and thoughts and feelings go for refuge, there dwells a fountain. It's there where the Savior meets us - at the well. Have you gone there lately? If you have, then you will know that redemption and restoration (in our disordered souls and among our relationships) still flows through the wastelands, by grace, imbued deeply with the throbbing pulses of life.
A Beauty restored.
I have been thinking this week about sin and its function in our lives; of how sin creates malformations within our souls. Yes, we know the scripture which aptly tells us what sin does to us - it slays us. So, I guess we could agree that Death is Sin's ultimate malformation?
If I have read the biblical narrative correctly, the spiritual death of humanity occurred summarily, instantly, leaving the body with no other recourse; the Tree of Life banned, and for good reason, for then we would have become the eternally-perpetually living dead.
Why is this so significant? Our spirits deadened to what once beat as a holy rhythm within our breasts long-long ago in Eden, are we shocked by the decay of our souls?
Is it not the great denial of the human condition? Are we not striving against it continually? As the wear and tear shows up visibly in our bodies, we join the great sea-wave of humanity's relentless push to have slimmer bodies, younger faces, and strive to arrange our worlds to achieve long, satisfied lives. (Whatever that means.) Some of us put off the inevitable as long as possible, though, sometimes, we give up and in resignation plod out the remainder of our days, wondering if we were ever meant to dream at all, or meant to feel beauty or if we are just plain silly. School girl stuff, really. Let it rest, after all, we're grown now.
And our souls pant in the desert. The river, dry in drought, the loveliness of a beautiful creation faded, choked by untimely death - leaves deep fissures in the landscape. And the sun sets while shadows fill up the emptiness.
I am wondering how such malformations induce us to behave toward one another.
I have lived and loved long enough to know what occurs when we fail to delight first in God (as did Eve), allowing His divine order to invade our disordered lives. And this is what I have beheld: As a matter of course, we hurt one another.
It makes me physically feel ill when contemplating it. It cuts so close to the core of sorrow of a disordered world - and life. But it's simply what occurs when we, a people whose very souls and beings were created for worship of a good and holy God walk in the death and decay of a fallen inheritance. When we fail to be the people we were created to be, in the first place.
He knows this about us - oh, how he knows and how he loves us. We were not meant to live disordered lives; the sort that ignores "no other Gods before me" and flaunts every blessing as if it were something it were not (i.e., the thing itself we most desire - who is God). And, so, we cause more harm still. In contrast, to it all, He - Jesus Christ, the eternal, magnificent One, redeems and he restores.
Have we beheld him closely? Can we?
A few years ago I read a wonderful book by Stasi Eldredge of Ransomed Heart Ministries in which she talks about beauty -- a beauty restored. I've discovered that in our heart of hearts, where silent desires dwell and thoughts and feelings go for refuge, there dwells a fountain. It's there where the Savior meets us - at the well. Have you gone there lately? If you have, then you will know that redemption and restoration (in our disordered souls and among our relationships) still flows through the wastelands, by grace, imbued deeply with the throbbing pulses of life.
A Beauty restored.
I saw an old man the other day sitting upon a sagging porch, on his rocker, moving it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Barely audible, as I passed by intrigued by him, he murmured as if to himself this musing:
"I sho cain't remember regretting never sinnin', but Lawdy, yes, Lawdy, I sho do regret a'plenty o'time for doin' so. It be what I regret in de ol' age of my life - my sinnin' be a scribblin' over de Image, over de souls de good Lawd done give us. Uh huh, de good Lawd done give us. Mmhm."
And so, he said no more, only rocked in silence.
"I sho cain't remember regretting never sinnin', but Lawdy, yes, Lawdy, I sho do regret a'plenty o'time for doin' so. It be what I regret in de ol' age of my life - my sinnin' be a scribblin' over de Image, over de souls de good Lawd done give us. Uh huh, de good Lawd done give us. Mmhm."
And so, he said no more, only rocked in silence.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Lack, Want, or Fulfillment?
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."
I've been hanging here the past week.
Been coming here like a sheep, looking for something.
Guess, if I follow the analogy through, I must be looking for grass.
Actually, what really happened was I slowed down long enough to pray, "Lord, where should I be reading in the scriptures?"
Psalm 23:1 came immediately into my thoughts.
Okay. So, here I am.
The cool thing about meditating on a single verse, especially one that introduces an entire passage, is on one hand, it sets the scene or piques curiosity for what follows, but, better still, it positions our souls for contemplation - for attentively perceiving a thing - and for being altered, or changed, in some essential, truth-filled way. So, I'm hanging here with the idea of "Lord," "my," "shepherd," and "want" that's been met.
Here's what's been seeping into my thoughts this week:
The language itself, the imagery, its metaphor takes time to unfold, but I see that it was written purposefully in the present tense. "The Lord is ... "
We're talking real time, as in present reality.
And, then, pausing to contemplate "Lord," who he is, his nature - everything about him, and, in particular, that antecedent, shepherd.
Oh, Shepherd - carefully, faithfully tending, guarding, leading, rescuing - never abandoning his sheep. Me, little lamb. (baa)
Yes, Baaaaaa. ;)
It's the nature of sheep to bleat. Sometimes it's all too comical, sometimes it sounds all too tragic, but what amazing thing ought we really see? It is this: A unique relationship exists between shepherd (Lord) and sheep (his own children). It implies a particular rest, an attachment, a trust and an obedience. It implies a living, breathing exchange between the keeper and the kept.
And in the midst of that relationship, in the midst of the leading and the following, something astounding occurs: the lack of want.
You know, we could take a stoic view here, or a gnostic view, and determine that the wanting (or need) is no friendly aspect and should be barred entrance to the transcendent life - valued only when negated. But I dare say that sheep need literal green grass, and fresh waters and literal protection and guardianship, and, sometimes, even rescuing. And the shepherd comes through - every time.
It's in the relationship that he does this. It's in the interacting, and it's all about his faithful watch, his pursuit.
I've been a naughty sheep. But I've been rescued, once and for good, and, sometimes, time and time again.
My Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
God, keep me today - everyday, as your own. Amen.
I've been hanging here the past week.
Been coming here like a sheep, looking for something.
Guess, if I follow the analogy through, I must be looking for grass.
Actually, what really happened was I slowed down long enough to pray, "Lord, where should I be reading in the scriptures?"
Psalm 23:1 came immediately into my thoughts.
Okay. So, here I am.
The cool thing about meditating on a single verse, especially one that introduces an entire passage, is on one hand, it sets the scene or piques curiosity for what follows, but, better still, it positions our souls for contemplation - for attentively perceiving a thing - and for being altered, or changed, in some essential, truth-filled way. So, I'm hanging here with the idea of "Lord," "my," "shepherd," and "want" that's been met.
Here's what's been seeping into my thoughts this week:
The language itself, the imagery, its metaphor takes time to unfold, but I see that it was written purposefully in the present tense. "The Lord is ... "
We're talking real time, as in present reality.
And, then, pausing to contemplate "Lord," who he is, his nature - everything about him, and, in particular, that antecedent, shepherd.
Oh, Shepherd - carefully, faithfully tending, guarding, leading, rescuing - never abandoning his sheep. Me, little lamb. (baa)
Yes, Baaaaaa. ;)
It's the nature of sheep to bleat. Sometimes it's all too comical, sometimes it sounds all too tragic, but what amazing thing ought we really see? It is this: A unique relationship exists between shepherd (Lord) and sheep (his own children). It implies a particular rest, an attachment, a trust and an obedience. It implies a living, breathing exchange between the keeper and the kept.
And in the midst of that relationship, in the midst of the leading and the following, something astounding occurs: the lack of want.
You know, we could take a stoic view here, or a gnostic view, and determine that the wanting (or need) is no friendly aspect and should be barred entrance to the transcendent life - valued only when negated. But I dare say that sheep need literal green grass, and fresh waters and literal protection and guardianship, and, sometimes, even rescuing. And the shepherd comes through - every time.
It's in the relationship that he does this. It's in the interacting, and it's all about his faithful watch, his pursuit.
I've been a naughty sheep. But I've been rescued, once and for good, and, sometimes, time and time again.
My Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
God, keep me today - everyday, as your own. Amen.
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