For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. — Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”
There ought not to be anything but that my mind has ordered it so —
So I had been taught — for the mind is designer
Reality but the by-blow, bastard child that diminishes as I diminish
But that the Emperor of Ice-Cream has clay feet
Which stand on eternity’s threshold eyeing a feast.
Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked? — Ecclesiastes 7:13
what God has done a crook in your lot can’t be set right by human device bent to a degree sorely injudicious by reason’s measure imperfect yardsticks we hold up to judge what God has done
what God has done humility to bear a stony field unleveled path that curved back that strained heart the roof that caved vanquished plans deathless grief if we dare decry what folly to fight when we can’t change what God has done
what God has done he sent his Son to bear our sins to pay the price to win our peace to lead the crooked down a narrow way to carry the weak to strengthen the tired to lead them home on eagle’s wings of faith and love of hope and joy to open blind eyes to see, my soul, what God has done
Job 12: 13-16 [Job speaks] “With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding. If he tears down, none can rebuild; if he shuts a man in, none can open. If he withholds the waters, they dry up; if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land. With him are strength and sound wisdom; the deceived and the deceiver are his.”
Jude 24-25 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Romans 11: 33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
a rose to you and you and you dear readers that stumbled onto this page and familiar friends who’ve long remained through drought or storm as balmy days faithful ones who exchange the fruits gleaned from weedy words and pruned vines some tangy to the taste or sweetly spiced all enlivened with the sunlit labor of moments transcribed to screens of dispersed bytes to be received like petals furled and unfurled as if a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose when given in love
I saw a guillemot fall today off the nesting cliffs before it caught the wind; I saw it snatched by a seagull’s bill fast-disappearing in its maw. Lazarus-like it emerged again and I caught my breath for joy, when swept down another gull to swallow the fledgling whole.
Nature’s mien is none too keen on compassion for the young. The weak it passes over lightly as fodder for the strong. The world smiles at peace entraps hopeful souls then dogs of war do feed while songbirds chirp and children sing of innocence and joy.
What means this? cries the philosopher writing down his ethics. Why it’s nature versus nurture, exclaims the educationist. Oh, hollow man, feed on love, the poet strums a tune. The guillemot parents of a fledgling bird hear not the empty words. They see beyond a skeptic’s sight to an ordaining hand, and flying easy from an empty nest, they’ll return again in spring.
Oh God, who takes away and gives, our wounded hearts you see! O give us strength to bear the pain and rest in faith again. Our grief we give to you once more and pray our sight you’ll clear to see the hope of eternal days when tears no more we’ll fear.
Job 12: 7-10 [Job speaks] “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”
I stand at the well at the desert’s end the camels noisy at the trough there’s the star blazing above me the night sky distraught with light. I, looking down as into a mirror, drawn to the abyss below.
The star grows preternaturally, soundless my cries echo it close, spilling embittered tears, so might the well’s bounds overflow, now the journey has been for nothing my hopes and fears for naught.
This cankered sore that my heart is this cauled face, disfigured husk, what the worldly-wise has given birth to, I sag to my knees and howl: there is no sorrow as impenetrable as knowing the road you’ve followed in the end was all a mirage.
Even as death hangs o’er me an eternal vision belies it; alone I stand under starlight alone I gaze at the night this wanderer as foolish as a beast wondering that the yawning darkness had not overtaken the light.
If birth is but a prelude to death what if death is the prelude to life? Here, across trackless sands following a star as bright as the morning shines to watch over me in the night; bemused I lift my eyes up to see a distant rise, there to see a babe born who set the star in the skies.
Slim, liminal, posterns of light these words given and received outskirting impossibilities and health-riven cheek-jowling pain absenting gormless vacuity, Jude not Judas, thirty pieces of silver husbandry of waterless clouds but faith’s Canaan vine-laden Jerusalem’s milk unfathomable peace Cross-borne recrudescence and a Kingdom come.
Eden’s light long since faded we no longer look to know or see as we once saw but question the light we possess, frugal, appalled at universal decay: but now You have come.
Contained within the palms of Your hands, not a leaf, not a flower, not a rock, not the universe in a grain of sand, but nails driven into You in whom we have our being.
You did not suffer apart from me as a celestial leaf in glory fallen shorn from root, tree, limb, but You in me, now dead, buried, risen to new life.
In this crucible of exile do not deny me now the fire of your Spirit along darkened veins, a reckoning, their pride of life burnt dry into joyous rivers of light.
Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Once, a child alone when October came I hear his footsteps just in the next room and when I rush to see him there he wasn’t there. He was everywhere.
Much later I cross a river, climb the embankment of trees, upwards to the plains, dry and dusty their breath, until I choke, my breath raw diseased, my bones on fire, the pain rasping pits of agony, feet twisted into unnatural screws. He stands clothed like a burning bush in wilderness autumn’s cloak across the mountaintop a fire unnatural, burning yet not burning for blind eyes to see, deaf ears to hear, “I AM.”
Now as another October comes I feel him near, the warmth of his presence a river running through the weatherized windows and doors, invisibly clear.
I know this darkness before light I know this voice before sound I know this death in life where bush burns but is not consumed.
I wait.
Mish's Open Link Night #275
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It’s a paper moon in a darling’s tomb On the wallpaper in the green-lit gloom There a swallow-tail with a robin’s breast Speaks an omen of a tailor dressed In a silk-hat heavy on his balding pate A dark coat collared, the pants of slate Graveyard shoes that steal starlight An iron key balanced and held upright. Off he flew from the paper moon Left a keyhole remark like an empty tune Sung by a voice in the gloaming mist Heard by a tailor holding in one fist Secrets stitched by a loveless hand On a flightless bird o’er a clouded land.
Floral display in front of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, August 2020; Copyright Debbie Smyth; Used by permission
Unspoken Stretches
The newly sprung Black-Eyed Susans, the weighty towers of St. Paul’s, Touch the sky equally, centuried grandiose the one, the other idly, Like the newborn in her pram reaching talcumed arms to a light blue Or the redoubtable keen-eyed woman, confined within, searching clouds, Hope-stretched each, bodies strung diversely, each her own, Stalwart with suffering and age, supple green in yearning: My God, not to touch the sky, but that You would touch our faces And by that material touch, transfigure space and time to glory, joy unspeakable.
2 Corinthians 3:18And 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.
Revelation 22:20He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Father of the trumpeting air and the setting sun the purple skies and rainbow grasses flapping ears and ardent eyes grasshoppers dancing with the breezes thunder of my feet singing of the stars beating of my heart, I thank You whose hands have made whose breath gives life to me.
God of the aurora glorious invisible Light of lights towering, blazing across glacial mountains and hearts over blue ice, silver melts, resounding majesty of fiery life bursting, joyous song of sky and sea in solitary havens of the northern vasts, I thank You whose hands have made whose breath gives life to me.
Ah, God of the waters, You who laughs into the inky darkness of the sea across floors of the cavernous deep to arms that embrace liquid melodies as anemones sway and the fishes race currents that play as tentacles trace buried landscapes, coral castles rising to unbroken nights where moonlight shimmers across my eyes, I thank You whose hands have made whose breath gives life to me.
Master of the universal grains of sand, where wrinkled feet that plod in burning heat find cactus bread and succulent juice treasures raining immeasurable mottled lee of rock and flowers that fade then rise like fallen sun and distant moon reappearing wondrous from spacious shell, I thank You whose hands have made whose breath gives life to me.
Great Lord and King, hidden Wanderer painting forests of pale brook-riven beech shades that ripple in gray-patched play on bark and grass, lantern-lit, daylight falling through canopied sky of quick-silver leaves whisper, break and bend the golden light to clothe supple burnt-orange strides of an elemental frame, I thank You whose hands have made whose breath gives life to me.
Psalm 98: 4-6Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!
Genesis 2: 4-7 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up–for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground– then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Lyrics: Salvator mundi, salva nos, qui per crucem et sanguinem redemisti nos. Auxiliare nobis, te deprecamur, Deus noster. (Translation: Saviour of the world, save us, thou who by thy cross and blood hast redeemed us. Come to our rescue, we beseech thee, our God.)
This ground underfoot, this riddling ground Would you say you know it down to Adam and Eve, Where lie its precipices, its canyons, Where breathe the dragons that prey On travelers at dusk and lost children?
I have walked on it with trepidation, Fainting not, East of Eden, west of the moon, Where the dead among the living Like infernal winds sweep over the earth Furies spitting on the destinies of men.
All around the wasteland where visions die Banshees howl and half-formed men bay Around fires of Cain’s wandering offspring. Nevertheless, the eternal revelation, tri-folded, Goes forth to the hungry and the poor in spirit.
The riddled ground beneath our feet, Treacherous though it be, is as the dust of history And we quickened ones like lilies of the field, Dandelions harboring the unsearchable riches of Christ To show forth the unassailable purpose of God.
Dumb to the world’s riddles, trusting, we carry on, Until spinning out of bereft arms into shrouds Or across canyons of a diseased mind We lose each other to time’s grasp, till time stops, And we, with joy unspeakable, everlasting, walk on new ground.
Ephesians 3: 8-12, Tyndale Bible (1522) Vnto me the lest of all sayntes is this grace geven that I shuld preache amonge the gentyls the unsearchable ryches of Christ and to make all men se what the felyshippe of the mistery is which from the begynnynge of the worlde hath bene hid in God which made all thynges thorow Iesus Christ to the intent that now vnto the rulars and powers in heven myght be knowe by the congregacion the many folde wisdome of god accordinge to the eternall purpose which he purposed in Christ Iesu oure lorde by whom we are bolde to drawe nye in ye trust which we have by faith on him.
Isaiah 46:8-10 NASB “Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; [I am] God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'”
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
Gormley Statue in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral
It’s not time that drips so slow
through the coffee grinds of the past
that percolates in the heat of memory
now distilling the sweet and bitter
into a narcotic pool of the half-remembered.
It’s not space that encroaches
into visions that come in the night
to shake the weary from slumber
and snap the mind to stark awakening
in the light of the inexorable coming.
It’s eternity placed in the center of being
robbing the world of its threatening specters
carcasses of vanity parading through cheap confetti
chained to open graves of corruption and pride
rotting corpses in that day’s foretold light.
Oh You who call me from realms free of time
where space recedes to glorious expanse of a new dawn
who cautions me in apostolic prophecy,
who stations in my heart the outpost of your dominion,
Oh, now greet me, now descend anew with thy holy kiss!
There’s no news but breeds new fears
In the flickering light as dusk falls
In the last cry of a distant bird
In the misshapen shadows of the unseen
Within cloistered walls.
Bated breath and heaving sighs
The chill alarm of a sickness bred
In a distant lab, a plague let loose
Not of locusts or frogs but airborne
Contagion, the ghost of times gone.
In the night an insistent distress
A job lost, and mouths to feed,
A waiting game for a government check
One nightmare subsides only to waken
Another in the fell dark.
A manic wind pulls the screen door free
What have we let in, what have we to do;
Across the street, above the lampposts
A twinkling starry host and the watchful moon
Shine their peace.
“Miranda and the Tempest,” John William Waterhouse, 1916
“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’” (Mark 2:17)
Lord Jesus,
Speak life to my bones
Command health to my soul
Restore loving compassion
Instill sweet amazing grace
Send forth Your Spirit
Throw open the gates
Cast light in the darkness
Lead me to Your Word
Speak of Your blood
Shed from the cross
Grant healing forgiveness
Set free my guilty soul.
Amen.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” … For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10: 9-13, ESV)
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, ESV)
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Cor. 7-11, ESV)
Father, before you I kneel in dismay
Ashamed I’ve grieved you again today
Aware that this handful of dust and clay
Rescued from darkness to eternal day
Betrayed your love, from You turned away:
O forgive me, I pray!
Driven by discontent and greed
All I could see was my own selfish need
Taking me swiftly where You do not lead
Enticing in thought, and word, and deed
Faithless to endure and your word to heed:
O Spirit of God, help me!
Nothing I do will right my wrong
Against You I have sinned and oh how I long
To be set free from guilt so strong
Blinding me to whom in love I belong
Who over death my victory won:
My hope rests in Jesus alone!
For His is the blood that washed me clean
His death on the cross covered all my sin
His is the power that sets me free to begin
Humbly to walk with You again
Trusting the word of my sovereign King
For life abundant united to Him!
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Ash Wednesday was originally the day in the church year when people who were ordered to show public penitence for their sins began forty days of penance—outward displays of inward repentance. Sometime around the end of the first millennium the practice became more general. The symbol of this was marking the forehead with ashes. It was the sign that a person had begun a multi-week fast, with forty weekdays included. They were now setting out on an internal journey of the spirit that would end only with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter. The message was visible on their faces” (Sinclair Ferguson, To Seek and To Save).
