This is my story, this is my song:

I love the LORD, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
"O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!"

Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.

Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death,

my eyes from tears,

my feet from stumbling;
I will walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.

What shall I render to the LORD

for all his benefits to me?

I will lift up the cup of salvation

and call on the name of the LORD,

I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.

O LORD I am your servant;

You have loosed my bonds.

I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving

and call on the name of the LORD.

Praise the LORD!

"Hast thou ever pictured thyself the one remaining creature in the earth, the one remaining creature in all the starry worlds?  In such a universe thine every thought would be 'God and I!  God and I!'  And yet He is as near to thee as that--as near as if in the boundless spaces there throbbed no heart but His and thine.  Practice that solitude, O my soul!  Practice the stillness of thine own heart!  Practice the solemn refrain 'God and I!  God and I!'" 

[George Matheson]

"We give back to you, O God, those whom you gave to us.  You did not lose them when you gave them to us, and we do not lose them by their return to you.  Your dear Son has taught us that life is eternal and love cannot die.  So death is only an horizon and an horizon is only the limit of our sight.  Open our eyes to see more clearly, and draw us closer to you that we may know that we are nearer to our loved ones who are with you.  You have told us that you are preparing a place for us, prepare us also for that happy place, that where you are we may also be always, O dear Lord of life and death."

[William Penn]

Alchemy

This morning I went for a jog under a dark sky textured like fleece, over trails mosaic with fallen leaves.  The pond to my right exhaled a mist that brooded upon reflected moonlight and translated it into a luminous weave.  Janie's paws clicked fast and light in comparison to my thudding footfalls, and I could feel her muscled neck straining against the leash and its imposition of my own lagging rhythm. 

Not so lagging as it might be, I want to admonish her: Be grateful.  And, remembering how, months ago, the slow journey from driveway to living room couch would utterly sap my strength--how my heart rate would grow frantic from the act of brushing my teeth--I find myself welling with a joy that, even more than my steady heartbeat and deep breathing, feels like life. 

I am learning that each moment is an opportunity for alchemy: taking the stuff of present sensations and blending in the bittersweet flavors of the past, adding the inexhaustable oil of God's annointing presence, and the  assurance of the good future before you.  Suddenly your heart is turning everything to gold.  Suddenly your life is worship.  The mustard seed in your soul is translated: it is an eternity of fruitful bounty planted by Love Himself. 

You realize, with Richard Wilbur, that this is no outer dark / but a small province haunted by the good, / where some things may be understood / and where, beneath the sun's coronal arc, / we keep our proper range, / aspiring, with this lesser globe of sight, / to gather tokens of the light / not in the bullion, but in the loose change. 

In Memoriam: TJ Baker

(Composed for TJ's Memorial Service this Saturday.)

When I think of TJ, it is her voice that I remember most vividly.  Her voice entirely suited her.  Even now, a year since I’ve heard it, I can summon the modulation of it, how it was a perfect embodiment of her Southern birthright and ladylike self-assurance with its elongated vowels and ringing clarity.  The way she’d lay a stress on certain words, like pointing a finger: “Dear”; “If you know what I mean…” 

And of course I remember her face.  Like her voice, like her personality, her face was a delightful balance of softness and precision: her bright eyes and sharp chin strikingly set against her smooth skin and soft hair.  She always carried herself with such dignity, chin lifted and shoulders straight, like a queen. 

In both health and sickness, TJ was frankly herself.  While confined to her walker, she taught me to make sweet tea.  She prayed that I would get a job even while she was in the midst of confronting her own suffering.  She and Mike always welcomed me into their home, and gave me the precious privilege of sharing in their season of pain and grief.  In so doing, they taught me more about faith than my upbringing in a Christian community managed to do.  When I was diagnosed with cancer later that year, it was TJ’s face that came first to my mind, and the memory of her resounding conviction in the face of death gave me deep consolation.  TJ taught me how to grieve with grace, how to suffer with steadfastness.  She taught me so beautifully about the Body of Christ, how worthy and vital and good it is to be a member of Christ, to share in the fellowship of His suffering. 

TJ was wonderful.  I only knew her for a brief span of time, and look how indelibly her presence has been carved in my memory!  By living out her faith, TJ revealed to me the incalculable treasure we both have been given by the grace of God.  She shouted to me, through her graceful submission to His will, that to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

I miss TJ, but I rejoice that she is perfectly happy and whole.  Her affliction prepared her for the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison that she now experiences.  And her example continues to instruct me as I stumble towards heaven myself, carrying the glorious treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the humble earthen vessel of my mortal body.  Like TJ, like the Apostle Paul, “I believe and therefore I speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise me with Jesus and bring me into His presence…that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.”

And I’m sure her encouragement to us today as we miss her precious presence on earth would echo Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

I pray that my life, like TJ’s, will be a rich affirmation of God’s goodness and grace. 

playing with woodchips

Were I playing this game with anyone else, nephew of mine, I would have begun rolling my eyes and fishing for reasons to leave long ago.  Instead, I find myself hoping that you will not tire. 

The yellow hood of your winter coat bobs charmingly as you dart between the grated drain and the nearby heap of barn red woodchips.  You stoop to grasp a handful of red.  The next moment you are purposefully marching to the grate, where you hunker over it and extend your clenched fist. 

The timing is always perfect: a moment's pause to savor the anticipation of what's to come, and then--ha!--the fingers burst apart.  Like the reckless young invincible that you are, you let those chips fall where they may.  Some catch on the bars of the grate, but most freefall and then splash satisfyingly in the inky water pooled below. 

I'm watching you watch them, although you are hard to keep track of from moment to moment.  As great as your pleasure is in watching what gravity and ground water do to woodchips, mine is infinitely greater in watching what imagination and curiosity do to you: seeing your eyes sparkle and hearing the glee in your voice and realizing that your mind is so absorbed in this that you've forgotten I'm even here. 

It's only after I've written this experience out, after I've taken these woodchips of experience and flung them into the drain of my own mind and reveled in the sensations of memory and love that they produced, that I find the detachment to wonder: who might have been watching me watch you all that precious while?