Ryan's Ramblings

a wonder

A Warning to My Readers

by Wendell Berry

Do not think me gentle

because I speak in praise

of gentleness, or elegant

because I honor the grace

that keeps this world.  I am

a man crude as any,

gross of speech, intolerant,

stubborn, angry, full

of fits and furies.  That I

may have spoken well

at times is not natural.

A wonder is what it is.

(from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry)

*****

I like this poem.  It speaks of something that I find true in my own life. 

Gentle, elegant, well spoken words . . . from me? That is a wonder of wonders!  But, I am learning that it is so much more than that—it is God's grace. 

I know me and I know, along with Berry, that any good that resonates out of my words, work, art or effort is not the norm and definitely not natural.  Left to myself, I am a mess.  We all are.    

The only time wonder, goodness and grace are realized in my life is when God is in control.  And God, the one who is love, doesn’t take control of my life—I give God control.  The choice is mine.

God is ever loving, wooing and calling me to live a life that is a wonder and it is up to me to respond—to acknowledge, welcome, and obey God’s ways and presence in my life.  How can and does that happen in you and me?  

I think that Ephesians 4:30 (MSG) is a good start:

"Don't grieve God. Don't break his heart. His Holy Spirit moving and breathing in you is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself."

I was made by God and in Him alone do I find my stride.  Any other path will leave me searching and out of sync.  God is not a condiment to be added to my bland, or at times, foul tasting life. Rather, God wants to be my all in all—as important and life giving as each and every breath I take.

As we, the created ones, allow the creator to move, live and have His being in our lives, we are used for good in the most unexpected ways.  When God is involved—our words, work, art and effort are transformed by grace, and then they make a difference in the lives of those around us.  

A life changed for good by me?  That is a wonder.

some poetry

Time is a coin   to have but not to hold

a silver moon sailing a cloudy sky

I was always too young

too young & then too old

as that moon sailed away

   - D.S. Martin, "Adrift" Poiema

***

I just finished reading the book, Poiema: Poems by D.S. Martin.  I usually devour the books I am reading, but not this one.  I savored it; page by page, poem by poem.  The above stanza is taken from one of Martin's poems about the subtle and relentless passing of time in our lives.  My journey through this book was time well spent.

His infinite purpose of love

If we look at the Gospel story of the Passion as a whole and do not isolate the Cross from its context, one of the most impressive and revealing things in it is the air of strong deliberation and mastery which characterizes Jesus throughout those last days.  He is so manifestly not in the least a straw on the stream of events.  His enemies are not manipulating Him so much as He is manipulating them, not in any wrong way, but in the way in which God does lay hold of the wrath and sin of man and make them sub-serve His infinite purpose of love.  To the end He could have escaped the Cross by the simple expedient of going somewhere else; but He did not do so.  He deliberately directs His steps to it.  There is an atmosphere of mastery all about Him as He steadfastly sets His face towards Jerusalem.  Standing before the council, or before Pilate, there is no suggestion of fumbling or hesitancy.  Nor on the other hand is there any suggestion of a merely excited and fanatical confidence.  It is the other people who are excited, not He.  And it is always the excited people who are the weak people.  He says almost regally, “No man taketh my life from me; I lay it down of myself.”  He says—very plainly, quietly, with the direct steadiness of clear-sighted conviction—“Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power.”  The hereafter refers to their seeing.  He Himself sees now.  He is conscious of being in a very real sense at the right hand of power now.  He is with God now; the victory is His now.   –H. H. Farmer

The cross of Christ didn’t just happen.  It wasn’t a tragic and unexpected ending to a good story.  It wasn’t a case of evil triumphing over good. 

It was God working out His infinite purpose of love.

Through the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross—our sins are completely forgiven, we are able to relate with a Holy God, we are cleansed of all of our sins, and we no longer need to live as slaves (in bondage) to sin.

Easter Sunday is just two weeks away.  As we walk the path to the empty tomb to joyfully announce, “He is not here, He is risen!” let us remember that out of love Jesus walked through it all on purpose—the garden, the denial, the trial, the beating, the flogging, the mocking, the shame, the sorrow, the abandonment and the cross—for you and for me.

a battle to be won

“. . . these days, resistance looks more like Apollyon standing arrogantly astride Christian’s path; like the combined forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, pitted against my efforts to follow a call I’ve heard, a summons as wild and strange and full of longing as the cry of wild geese over a winter landscape. Resistance means there is probably something on the other side worth fighting for. Making art is waging war on all the inner demons and the outer distractions that would keep us silent and compliant in this world.”  ~Lanier Ivester

The battle rages.  The inner critics are caustic and the distractions alluring.  The embers of creativity recede under the strong draught of resistance. 

But silence, darkness and defeat are not imminent.

I have seen the fires of creativity burning brightly in a children’s home in India.  The children are without parents in a home lacking running water, electricity, computers, the Internet, bicycles, cell phones and TV, and yet beauty and art prevail.  In the midst of faith, hope and love—drawings, paintings, gardens, dancing, weavings, poems and songs radiate forth in illumination and victory. 

There is a war to be fought—within and without.  The resistance is great, but the calling to make art is greater.  We must fan into the flame the fires of creativity.  There is something on the other side worth fighting for. 

It is a battle to be won.

17,000

“Time always moves in one direction.  It’s a rare opportunity that passes us twice, and we only pass the road not taken once.  We must decide and grab on to our best future, and if we miss it, we may live a long life, but we will never live a consequential life.  The carousel passes the golden ring but once.  Grab it, and the horses leave their circular death and become steeds of purpose that you may ride where you will.” –Calvin Miller

I just flipped the page on my calendar.

-March 2013-

It is still early in the calendar year, but I think in terms of the school year.  The arrival of March warns me that the school year will be over in a blink.

All the challenges, frustrations, excitement, worry and work of moving our entire school site to a new campus is but a memory.

Most of the year's big events that filled the pages of my datebook with ink and my mind with anticipation, planning and preparation are behind me.

My oldest child’s first year of college is nearly done and my youngest child’s last year of high school is about to begin. 

Wow . . .

Last night my wife and I went out on a date.

Today is my 17,000th day of life.

I just flipped the page on my calendar.

being remembered

In my morning reading time I came across the poem, "Death the Leveller" by James Shirley. (see below)  Shirley was a playwright who lived in the 1600s.  He is known to have had a flair for the "dramatic," but in this poem his prose communicates a very real and sobering truth.

All of us--the great, the mighty, the rich, the poor, the just and the unjust--will someday die.

The Internet tells me that 56 "famous people" died in this past year of 2012.  I will miss Andy Griffith, Dick Clark and Ray Bradbury, to name a few, but there are others, that didn't make the list of 56, that I will miss much more.  They live on in the memories of my mind and heart.

The poet reminds us that in the end we will all inhabit the grave.  But this morning I am not thinking about dying, I am thinking about living.  My name will never be found via a Google search of "famous people who died," but it just might be remembered by my family, my friends, my coworkers and my neighbors.

Death the Leveller

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crookèd scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

James Shirley

a big choice

"You do not choose to be born.  You do not choose your parents.  You do not choose the time period in which you live.  You do not choose the country of your birth.  You do not choose the circumstances of your upbringing.  In most cases, you do not choose to die.  You do not choose the time or conditions of your death. 

Despite all the realms of this choicelessness, we do choose how we will live."

                —Robert  D. Smith, 20,000 Days and Counting

the very narrow way

I cannot begin to understand (nor do I want to) the circumstances in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer penned these words, but I find them worthy of contemplation as I embark on and "live" this New Year. 

"We used to think that one of the inalienable rights of man was that he should be able to plan both his professional and his private life.  That is a thing of the past.  The force of circumstances has brought us into a situation where we have to give up being "anxious about tomorrow" (Matt. 6:34).  But it makes all the difference whether we accept this willingly and in faith (as the Sermon on the Mount intends), or under continual constraint.  For most people, the compulsory abandonment of planning for the future means that they are forced back into living just for the moment, irresponsibly, frivolously, or resignedly; some few dream longingly of better times to come, and try to forget the present.  We find both these courses equally impossible, and there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future:  "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land" proclaims Jeremiah (32:15), in paradoxical contrast to his prophecies of woe, just before the destruction of the holy city.  It is a sign from God and a pledge of a fresh start and a great future, just when all seems black.  Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety--that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live.  It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative."

the voice in the middle

 

“Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”  --Jesus (Mark 8:15)

It is the little extremes that will mess us up and render us powerless. 

We are all a bit legalistic on some things—we need security and a sense of control.

At other times we are surprisingly liberal—we want freedom! 

The issues of our day are heavy and polarizing. The myriad of voices—to our right and to our left—beckons us to “solid ground.”  We need a firm foothold.  Where should we set up camp, pitch our tent, make our stand?  Where is the safe place?

Prevailing over the dogma and the relativism rings out a voice of joy, purpose, dignity and stability.  It is a voice of self-giving, humility, peace and love.  It is a voice of hope in the midst of the tumult and perplexity.  It is the voice of Jesus.

“A Christian is a person who confesses that, amidst the manifold and confusing voices heard in the world, there is one voice which supremely wins his full assent, uniting all his powers, intellectual and emotional, into a single pattern of self-giving.  That voice is Jesus Christ.  A Christian not only believes that he was; he believes in him with all his heart and strength and mind.  Christ appears to the Christian as the one stable point of fulcrum in all the relativities of history.  Once the Christian has made this primary commitment he still has perplexities, but he begins to know the joy of being used for a mighty purpose, by which his little life is dignified.”

       --D. Elton Trueblood, The Company of the Committed

unexpected hope

The long nights of winter have arrived.  My dark morning commute is bookended with the evening dusk that shrouds my drive home from work.  The shadows are ubiquitous—from post-election ranting among “friends” on Facebook, to the unrelenting news reports of wars, economic uncertainty and climate disequilibrium.  Is there a glimmer of hope to be found amidst the gloom?

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”  John 1:5 (KJV)

The glimmer is Jesus.

‘Tis the season to remember.  The season of Advent—the time to prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ—doesn’t officially begin for a couple of weeks, but I have decided that I am starting now.  If I am going to speak hope into the darkness, I must consider and proclaim the good news of Jesus.  Hope is not a language that the darkness understands.  Hope is looking into the gloom and expecting the unexpected.

I like what the Belgian Cardinal Suenens says in his statement titled: “Why Am I a Man of Hope in These Days?”

“Why are you a man of hope in these days?  Because I believe God is new every morning, I believe God is creating the world today, at this very moment.  He did not just create it in the long ago and then forget about it.  That means that we have to expect the unexpected as the normal way God’s providence is at work.

The unexpected of God is exactly what saves and liberates us from determinism and the sociologism of gloomy statistics about the state of human affairs in the present.  The unexpected, since it comes from God, is something coming out of his love for us, for the betterment of his children.  I am hopeful, not for human reasons or because I am optimistic by nature, but because I believe that the Holy Spirit is present in his Church and in the world even if people don’t know his name.  I am hopeful because I believe that the Holy Spirit is still the creating Spirit, and that he will give us every morning fresh freedom, joy, and a new provision of hope, if we open our soul to him.”

Jesus is the reason I am a man of hope—during this, and every season.