After prayers, lie cold -- C S Lewis

The previous post reminded me of this poem by C S Lewis, where coldness becomes the symbol and experience of repentance.

After Prayers, Lie Cold


Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
-A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,
Faded in colour, thinned almost to raggedness
By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.
Be not too quickly warm again. Lie cold; consent
To weariness' and pardon's watery element.
Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;
Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath.

C S Lewis

The Chasing song ..

.. by Andrew Peterson.
Isn't this the truth?

Another quote -- crucifixion of images

I just came across this -- much food for thought.
What other images is it true of?

Austin Farrer, in commenting on the debate between Rudolf Bultmann and several German colleagues on the question of "demythologizing" the New Testament, suggested as an alternative that in the New Testament itself we are presented, not with the demythologizing, but with the crucifixion of images. He had in mind specifically the crucifixion, in Jesus's death, of the image of Messiah as God's means of deliverance.

Creativity -- Michael Card

A great quotation from Michael Card (yes, that one, the singer)expressing something I really believe:

Creativity is worship because, at its essence, it is a response. I hear the Word and I respond with music, with silence, in adoration, in appreciation by picking up the basin and the towel. It is a romantic response to this Person whom I adore. He is beautiful! I want nothing more than to be in his presence. I love him! And so I sing and I write. If I could paint or dance I would do that as well. I forgive someone who couldn’t care less about being forgiven. I try to reach out across the vast distance between me and my brother or sister.

Because creativity is a response, it does not originate with me. God speaks. He moves. He is beautiful. We respond. We create. We worship.

The Passion in the Apocrypha?

Last week I was preparing a bible study on the crucifixion narrative in Matthew's gospel. Searching for some fresh insights, I came across this:

There are also striking parallels between the narrative in Matthew 27 and Wisdom of Solomon 2:10-20. This writing in the Apocrypha was probably composed a few decades before the birth of Jesus. The passage in Wisdom is as follows:

10 Let us oppress the righteous poor man; Let us not spare the widow, or regard the gray hairs of the aged. 11 But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless. 12 Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. 13 He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. 14 He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.

16 We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. 17 Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; 18 for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. 19 Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. 20 Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."
(http://www.cresourcei.org/lectionary/YearA/Alent6nt.html )

Presumably many of the Jewish readers of Matthewe's gospel would be familiar with this. Something to ponder.

Other Authors -- These Strange Ashes

This poem, by the famous 19th century missionary, Amy Carmichael, is in some ways one of the scariest I have ever read. it demands everything. And yet, when we come to the place where nothing makes sense, and we feel like God has taken a U-turn in our lives, away from His promises, this is comfort.God never took His eye off Job, and His purposes for us are sometimes so different from our purposes for ourselves (and I mean our "good" purposes, not just self-indulgence) .. On Monday night in our small group we were looking at John 11 and I suggested that often we come asking God for a renewal, a refreshing, a bit of water for our drought, when what He wants to give us is death and resurrection ..

"'But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness,
This baffling sense of loss?'
Son, was the anguish of my stripping less
Upon the torturing cross?
Was I not brought into the dust of death,
A worm, and no man, I;
Yea, turned to ashes by the vehement breath
Of fire, on Calvary?
O son beloved, this is thy heart's desire:
This, and no other thing'
Follows the fall of the Consuming Fire
On the burnt offering.
Go on and taste the joy set high, afar,--
No joy like that to thee;
See how it lights the way like some great star.
Come now, and follow me."

--Amy Carmichael

Other Authors -- The Apologiist's Evening Prayer

A conversation yesterday about the dangers of making our own theology into an idol, reminded me of this poem. I think Lewis nails it: after all the danger of idolatry is not so much that our image of God is wrong in itself (it may be quite biblical as far as it goes) but that we think that this particular aspect is all there is to Him. Now, though we see truly when we see God revealed in Jesus, yet we see in part, through a glass darkly, for we do not yet fully know...

THE APOLOGIST'S EVENING PRAYER
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seem to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity
Thou, who wouldst give no other sign, deliver me

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all me thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee
O thou Fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take me from all my trumpery lest I die.

-- C S Lewis

Other authors -- In No Strange Land

Not sure how well known this poem is, certainly a couple of lines are! And of course to keep the meaning, I have to change the English references to an Australian locale (Ironically, I actually live closer to the Holy land than to England, but both are a VERY long way away.) But the principle is universal: God, Who is so evidenced and delineated in the historical story, is not confined by it. He is here, in our midst, in our lives, intimate beyond the formal constructs of our imaginations. And we, who are His, are truly His, even here, even now ..


In No Strange Land


The kingdom of God is within you

O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places--
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry--clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

Francis Thompson

My School Hymn

Feeling pretty jaded at the moment, my computer's gone dead on me, the repairman says it's probably the motherboard. I'm waiting for him to give me a call and tell me what's going on. So I'm using my husband's computer, which is frustrating, because I have no access to my normal email, or my bookmarks (poor google is really getting a workout at the moment). But through my head is going my high school school hymn. OK< I finished school in 1972, but that hymn became part of me, and, because it made so much sense to me, parts of it have become woven into the essential fabric of my thinking. This is it(and we 900 girls singing it together in school assembly)

GO FORTH WITH GOD

Go forth with God! The day is now
That thou must meet the test of youth:
Salvation's helm upon thy brow,
Go, girded with the living truth.
In ways thine elder brethren trod
Thy feet are set. Go forth with God!

Think fair of all, and all men love,
And with the builder bear thy part:
Let every day and duty prove
The humble witness of thy heart.
Go forth! Tis God bids thee increase
The bounds of love and joy and peace.

Behold with thine uplifted eyes
Beauty through all that sorrow seems,
And make of earth a paradise,
The substance of thy dearest dreams,
Bring laughter to thy great employ:
Go forth with God and find his joy.

Go forth with God! The world awaits
The coming of the pure and strong;
Strike for the faith and storm the gates
That keep the citadel of wrong.
Glory shall shine about thy road,
Great heart, if thou go forth with God!

Other Authors -- George Herbert

This is another old favourite, would you believe I first met it in a school textbook? Which of us has never asked, "what is God doing?" when we go through seasons of extreme emotions, not just in our lives in general, but particularly in our relationship with Him? Sometimes there is just no discernible human reason why His comforting presence is so close to us some days, and, to our human perception, completely absent on others. Herbert's answer is the only one I have ever found that satisfies my soul on this; his final two verses have for many years been my prayer in the overwhelming moments.

THE TEMPER. (I)


HOW should I praise thee, Lord ! how should my rymes
Gladly engrave thy love in steel,
If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel !

Although there were some fourtie heav’ns, or more,
Sometimes I peere above them all ;
Sometimes I hardly reach a score,
Sometimes to hell I fall.

O rack me not to such a vast extent ;
Those distances belong to thee :
The world’s too little for thy tent,
A grave too big for me.

Wilt thou meet arms with man, that thou dost stretch
A crumme of dust from heav’n to hell ?
Will great God measure with a wretch ?
Shall he thy stature spell ?

O let me, when thy roof my soul hath hid,
O let me roost and nestle there :
Then of a sinner thou art rid,
And I of hope and fear.

Yet take thy way ; for sure thy way is best :
Stretch or contract me thy poore debter :
This is but tuning of my breast,
To make the musick better.

Whether I flie with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there.
Thy power and love, my love and trust,
Make one place ev’ry where.

Other Authors -- The Nativity of Christ

I suppose I should have posted this for the Christmas season, but hey, the Incarnation is relevant all year round! This is an old favourite, Southwell was a Jesuit priest in Elizabethan England, who ended up being caught, imprisoned, tortured and put to death for his catholicism. But this poem proclaims, in the "clever", wordplaying language which was the fashion of the time, truths about Jesus which belong to all Christians.God's highest gift to us truly is Himself, there is nothing more that could be better ..

THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.
By Robert Southwell


Behold the father is his daughter's son,
The bird that built the nest is hatch'd therein,
The old of years an hour hath not outrun,
Eternal life to live doth now begin,
The word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep,
Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep.

O dying souls! behold your living spring!
O dazzled eyes! behold your sun of grace!
Dull ears attend what word this word doth bring!
Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace!
From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs,
This life, this light, this word, this joy repairs.

Gift better than Himself God doth not know,
Gift better than his God no man can see;
This gift doth here the giver given bestow,
Gift to this gift let each receiver be:
God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me.

Man alter'd was by sin from man to beast;
Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh;
Now God is flesh, and lies in manger press'd,
As hay the brutest sinner to refresh:
Oh happy field wherein this fodder grew,
Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew!

You do all things well

These lyrics are on my mind tonight, they express something very dear to me. I have always found the beauty of creation a very direct path to worship, to me, ever since I was a small child, the loveliness of clouds and stars and flowers and waters shouts aloud the glory of its maker. I remember as a young teenager struggling to write a poem of which I can now remember only a fragment: 'I believe there is a God / Because the grass looks greener in the rain.' OK, it made sense to me (and still does!) So these chris Tomlin lyrics are speaking my language:



You do All Things Well - by Chris Tomlin
Mountain maker
Ocean tamer
Glimpses of You
Burn in my eyes
The worship of heaven
Fills up the skies

You made it all
Said, "let there be"
And there was
All that we see
The sound of Your voice
The works of Your hands
You do all things well
You do all things well
You do all things well

Star creator
Wind breather
The strokes of Your beauty
Brushed through the clouds
Light from the heavens
Touching the ground

Imagination runs wild
And breathes the breath of life
Across the fields
Across the miles

Came across this prayer by Thomas merton. it seems a good fit with where I'm at right now.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton

Another favourite -- the Dove descending

This one is a short extract (one section) from T S Eliot's longer poem "Little Gidding" (One of his "Four Quartets"). Who else but a poet of Eliot's skill would have both the audacity and sublimity to combine the pentecostal descent of the Holy Spirit with the firebombing of London in WWII?
read and be stunned ..

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

A Favourite -- The Sparrow's Skull

From time to time, as well as my own writing, I want to include some bits of other people's work which is especially dear to me.Today, a poem I love, by Ruth Pitter, who was a friend of C S Lewis, and a poet who deserves much more recognition than she has. The final stanza is one I return to again and again as a source of courage and faith.

THE SPARROW'S SKULL

Memento Mori Written at the Fall of France

The kingdoms fall in sequence, like the waves on the shore.
All save divine and desperate hopes go down, they are no more.
Solitary is our place, the castle in the sea,
And I muse on those I have loved, and on those who have loved me.

I gather up my loves, and keep them all warm,
While above our heads blows the bitter storm:
The blessed natural loves, of life-supporting flame,
And those whose name is Wonder, which have no other name.

The skull is in my hand, the minute cup of bone,
And I remember her, the tame, the loving one,
Who came in at the window, and seemed to have a mind
More towards sorrowful man than to those of her own kind.

She came for a long time, but at length she grew old;
And on her death-day she came, so feeble and so bold;
And all day, as if knowing what the day would bring,
She waited by the window, with her head beneath her wing.

And I will keep the skull, for in the hollow here
Lodged the minute brain that had outgrown a fear;
Transcended an old terror, and found a new love,
and entered a strange life, a world it was not of.

Even so, dread God! even so my Lord!
The fire is at my feet, and at my breast the sword:
and I must gather up my soul, and clap my wings, and flee
Into the heart of terror, to find myself in thee.

--Ruth Pitter