But what is it then that sits in my heart,
that breathes so quietly, and without lungs--
that is here, here in this world, and yet not here?

------------------------------------

If you are in the garden, I will dress myself in leaves.
If you are in the sea I will slide into that
smooth blue nest, I will talk fish, I will adore salt.
But if you are sad, I will not dress myself in desolation.
I will present myself with all the laughters I can muster.
And if you are angry I will come, calm and steady, with
some small and easy story.

Promises, promises, promises! The tongue jabbers, the heart
strives, fails, strives again. The world is perfect.
Love, however, is an opera, a history, a long walk, that
includes falling and rising, falling and rising, while
the heart stays as sweet as a peach, as radiant and
grateful as the deep-leaved hills.

[Mary Oliver: "Rhapsody": The Leaf and the Cloud]

penitence

5:42 am-

The coffee is chuckling to fragrant life on my countertop, and I have just removed my seething bowl of oatmeal from the microwave. A few lights are on, but the living room is dim and chilly.

I am thinking about how frighteningly easy it is to be false. How I speak the language of faith constantly, and yet my inner woman paints her face and wears scarlet. How even my purest thoughts and gestures bear the stain of hypocrisy and guilt.

I am thinking about the blood of Jesus, and how I manipulate and abuse it.

I'm thinking about how I need to be cleansed at every moment, and how exhausting it is to be holy from the inside out, and how impossible.

But my feet are planted on a Rock, and my heart is filled with the renewing Spirit. I know that I cannot slip back into the crevice of complacency while I walk this straight and narrow path: my eyes must watch my feet and ponder their Word-lit way. Courage and fortitude and patience are not only called for but also supplied when I request them. His yoke is easy; His burden is light.

"He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as He hears it He will answer you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ...You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel." Isaiah 30:19-20, 29

good thoughts

"The invisible manifests itself in the visible. I think of the alphabet, of letters literally--A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all twenty-six of them. I think of how poetry, history, the wisdom of the sages and the holiness of the saints, all of this invisible comes down to us dressed out in their visible, alphabetic drab. H and I and J, and K, L, M, N are the mold that our innermost thoughts must be pressed into finally if we are to share them; O, P, Q, R, S, T, U is the wooden tongue that we must speak if we are ever to make ourselves known, that must be spoken to us if we are ever to know. V, W, X, Y, Z. ... I am thinking of incarnation, breath becoming speech through teeth and tongue, spirit becoming word, silence becoming prayer, the holy dream becoming the holy face. I am speaking of the humdrum events of our lives as an alphabet. I am thinking of grace. I am thinking of the power beyond all power, the power that holds all things in manifestation, and I am thinking of this power as ultimately a Christ-making power, which is to say a power that makes Christs, which is to say a power that works through the drab and hubbub of our lives to make Christs of us before we're done or else, for our sakes, graciously to destroy us. In neither case, needless to say, is the process to be thought of as painless. I am thinking of salvation."

-The Alphabet of Grace: "Gutturals"--Frederich Buechner

I am grieving. My friends are grieving. A dear man has exchanged the corruptible for the incorruptible, and left us reeling.

Positive though we may be that he now dwells in that "species beyond", nevertheless our finite minds stubbornly refuse to adapt. We constantly slip into believing that he is here...and constantly feel that sick jolt of re-knowing his absence.

There's no describing the weight of feelings, except to note that they are mostly poignant gladnesses for his sake. And burdened fears for the sakes of those who relied on him.

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isaiah 35:10

21

A Traveler

If it's chariots or sandals,
I'll take sandals.
I like the high prow of the chariot,
the daredevil speed, the wind
a quick tune you can't
quite catch
but I want to go
a long way
and I want to follow
paths where wheels deadlock.
And I don't want always
to be among gear and horses,
blood, foam, dust. I'd like
to wean myself from their strange allure.
I'll chance
the pilgrim sandals.

-Denise Levertov-

spoiled

Last year at this time, I would never have predicted the blessings that would come my way and culminate in a snug, sprawly house buried in a woodsy area of Lookout Mountain. After a summer in which my soul gained a precious sense of firm footing, and my mind burned through book after inspiring book, and my heart revelled in the embrace of home and family...after that foundation was restablized, I landed here: on this couch in a spotless living room, listening to Roxette and the bustle of my beautiful housemates, sipping coffee, my mind still returning every now and then to the words of life that thrilled my spirit this morning.

I feel so sure, so blazingly certain, that all my roads are leading to God these days--my physical, intellectual, emotional, relational roads all, each day, draw me nearer and deeper into the Truth. The Spirit dwells within me, despite my weakness, despite my many failures, and He is purifying me. The promises of the Bible dizzy me. I love my Savior more than I ever have.

"If He is the truth and the life, we will find it out soon enough for ourselves, you can be sure of that. If we want to find it out, if we are willing to draw near in whatever idiotic way we can, all our reservations and doubts notwithstanding, because little by little we find out then that to be where HE is, to go where HE goes, to see through eyes and work with hands like HIS is to feel ourselves at last, is to become fully ourselves at last and fully each other's at last, and to become finally more even than that: to become fully HIS at last." (!) -Buechner, "The Sign by the Highway"