Theology

Theology

Three apostolic holy men, evangels all, once walked along a road.

They’d traveled far to foreign lands, and now they neared their home.

The one whose name was Law first spoke, to his companions true:

“I’ve often brought men to their knees, I’ve humbled kings and kin;

 I help them find their way along, I show them their great sin”.

The second man whose name was Works, then said to his dear friends:

“I visit men in prisons trapped, I’ve fed the truly poor;

 I shelter sick and needy folks, and fight against death’s door.”

The third great man, whose name was Faith, he was the thoughtful type. He softly said to his dear brothers then, with kind sincerity:

“My friends I am a means, a hope, an usher to a gate: with just a little bit of me, all men may find their way- but yonder stands our Master still, who set us on our way. He came to us before we went, and still pours out today. Look straight upon his radiant face, and know that we are home, for written in his eyes of love, you’ll find the name of ‘Grace’.”

The Adorner

She never waits to give; her energy pours out.

She makes new things of beauty from old things that were without.

She suffers fools not lightly; she touches broken hearts.

She delights in little children; she sees their hidden smarts.

She transforms the dreary dullness to light, in such a happy way.

She gives herself so freely; she rarely turns away.

This girl that I did marry: she does adorn my life.

I give to God all glory, for making her my wife.

Manna of God

Steady dew of heaven, coriander seeds shower lavish love;

new mercies, fresh blessings, daily bread is the manna of God.

Lord, shall I tire of the diet of your grace?

Lord, do not let this abundance be taken without cherish or taste.

Let me not be blind to your gifts to me, and lost to my sins.

Lord give us this bread always, let me not become ingrate and full,

swollen in my pride, keep me unleavened, let me savor each taste.

Lord, I wander. Lord, I become lost, and lose my way in the wild of sin, but

your arm is never too short, it holds daily bread, and it reaches in love.

A Prayer and reflection on Numbers 11

Of Gamecocks and Men

Just as the thought of paranoia is a low state of delusion that all men are bad;

the high and noble thought that all men are good, and that the enemy is abolished, is the mark of the highest delusion. Gethsemane teaches the irony that there can be hate in a kiss, and love in a sword.

There are friends and there are enemies, and any man who would come out to love must be also ready to come out to fight, if only to fight for love. 

A reflection on Luke 14 v. 25-34

Luke 11 v. 14-28

The Living Prayer

The Living Prayer, he is a man, of grace and joy and peace, but not a man of solitude, nor yet a man of ease: a thankful soul, in patience wise, a watchman in the night.

The Living Prayer, he is a sign, a witness to the last. In slumbers still, his courage comes; his smile, with kindness, lights.

The Living Prayer, his heart, it brims, his tongue is held in love. His ears, they know, the Shepherd’s voice; his eyes, they see, His face.

The Living Prayer, he joins the hosts, the Shepherd knows His lambs.  He reaches out: the hands are scarred, but marked with holy grace.

The Living Prayer, he prays out still, His love, it knows no end.

He sings with laud, to Christ’s great joy, the Shepherd holds His lambs.  

In tribute to my friend, Dubose.

Empty Boats

The sad eyes, they are weeping, as days and nights fly by.

The sad heart, it is beating, as strangers walk on by.

The empty boats they are awaiting, from far Tiberias’s shore.

As people thirst and hunger, for bread, but nothing more.

“Give us some bread”, they taunt Him, and many turn to leave.

He says: “Your work is simple; I call you to believe”.

Yet still they turn to leave Him, to walk from shore to shore.

To teach in lost Capernaum, and feed the truly poor.

With bread of life from heaven, and blood of life poured out,

Passover spilled in glory, on doors of conquered doubt.

-A reflection on John 6

Breaking Sky

            Our little precious and precocious two and three-quarter year old granddaughter said something very profound and delightful on the Fourth of July. As night and darkness enveloped us, we were all sitting up on a grassy hill overlooking a small lake, staring across it expectantly at the dam on the far side, waiting for the fireworks to begin. Little Poppy was waiting with us, and this event, while not technically her first celebration of the Fourth of July, was certainly her first articulate celebration, and she wondered, with eminently good reason, just what all the fuss was about, and why everyone was staring across the glassy water to the far bank. Then it happened, the sky erupted with explosions and colors and sparks of multi-colored fire. It was a grand display, and the crowd awed.

            Little Poppy was petrified and indeed horrified by the spectacle. She said simply in a quaking, wavering, nearly tearful little voice: “Coach, the sky is breaking!”. She knew things were amiss, and that of all things, the continual presence of the sky was a source of stability. The permanence of the heavens was at least something upon which a two year old mind could really depend. It was not the noise which frightened her, it was not the gaudy colors or the designs which so startled her, it was rather the more unfathomable prospect of the sky and heavens really and actually breaking apart and passing away, the realization that permanence may not be permanent. It was this realization which absolutely spooked the sweet little child in such a fantastic, cataclysmic, and remarkably profound way. For in one instant, Poppy had grasped her own smallness, the smallness of all of us, and the fact that we have nowhere to hide in the face of a great power beyond ourselves: and the implicit affirmation of the dependency on God’s daily mercies, all in one simple, short phrase: “Coach, the sky is breaking!”.

            For Poppy knew, as all little children know, that when something such as the sky “breaks”, there is something coming which is more profound, real, and a matter of such significance as the world coming apart at the seams. Mommies and Daddies might well reassure their children that it is fine for the sky to “break” on the traditional day of fireworks, but only children can imagine the terror of such a notion without holiday, and it is the terror of the end. It is the terror of stopping. It is the terror of conclusion. When something funny happens it is Poppy’s habit and joyous response to command: “do again!”.  As obedient grandparents, we stage a repetitive performance of the humorous event, and on these occasions the old always grow weary of the joke before the young ever tire of it. But in the world of the broken skies, it is possible that we may not be able to “do again!”, because we have run out of do-overs and second chances, and it is finished. This is, of all things, something to fear. It is a child’s appreciation of the gravity of the forecast of the apostle Peter in his second letter: “But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. The heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything in it will be found to deserve judgment.” Such a caution should be equally fearsome to adults as it is to children, yet it is not.

            Most mature people in our world do not believe in something so fantastical and “mythic” as the end of time unless, of course, they are speaking of something so popular as global warming, but almost all children easily and readily grasp it, because they can grasp their own shortness, both in their stature and in their history. They grasp the miracle of waking up each day to discover something fresh and new. They grasp the wonder and joy of saying: “do again!” and then seeing it done again. They grasp their own silliness of laughing over and over again at the same little joke. They grasp the wonder of daily creation. They grasp their very smallness and their dependency on Mommies and Daddies, and hopefully, through the example of the family, their utter dependency on Christ’s creation.  They grasp that bedtime is only a temporary ending, and waking again each day to a dependable sky and heaven which was there before they came is a recurring, repetitive and delicious miracle and gift. They remain, in part, humble in the humblest sense: they are aware of their smallness and the bigness of the heavens. With full appreciation of this small humility, their fear of the end and conclusion is not the irrational fear of the mad cults making preposterous forecasts of the precise time and date of end of the world, but it is rather the quite rational fear, in the sense of profound respect, of something larger, more real and much, much more powerful than they, and they “get it”, even when the unenlightened and over-educated adults around them do not. They understand the lie of their permanence, and the absolute truth and expectation of the future unseen permanent. They understand the joys of the new beginning and the trepidation of the absolute end just as do the very old and very wise before their very end. They grasp the profound reality that God may not choose one day to “do again”; they understand what might happen when the sky “breaks” on some day other than the Fourth of July-

 

Holy Tears

 

Born of joy, conceived in love, the holy tears stream down His face.

Abandoned son, of tortured man, a broken heart cries tears of pain.

Of sins wept clean, of shame washed dry, the tears they work, unfathomable grace.

The tears they fall, they wash the feet, they speak to men, these Holy Tears:

First  Martyr’s death, is it in vain, or are you touched, by God’s own pain?

The tears of blood, yet made in love, are these your tears, in measured years?

In anguished pain, He stretches arms; He reaches out, high on His Holy Pole with two thieves. 

Do you see, His healing balm, will you look upon this forgiven serpent’s sting, lifted up, for all to see?

Look closer still, into His eyes, drink in those tears of glorious love, and see, blind man, see.

Amen.  

Taste and see that the Lord is good….

Ps. 34 v. 8