The Mercy of the Miraculous

For Bobby
The sword-like sound
of the voice un-easily heard
snaps the sinews of our souls
which bind them to earth.
As unbidden fire
would consume a life with a crack,
so the voice may well unmake
the plans well laid,

And you know it…

Which is why mercy
makes it hard to hear.
So that the curse of our deafness
would drive us to desperate knees,
and when the word at last is heard,
and our aural sense unstopped,
we might not mistake
the kindness of our life’s consumption
for cruelty.

Favorite Wendell Berry Poems...

Of late, I have been doing far more reading than writing. Although I confess, that I've written more than I've shared and perhaps you will read it soon. But until then, I thought I'd share a few of Wendell Berry's poems that have moved me lately...

Drouth

All day the crops burn in cloudless air,
Drouth lengthening against belief. At night
The husbands and the wives lie side by side,
Awake, the ache of panic in their bones,
Their purposes betrayed by purposes
Unknown, whose mystery is the dark in which
They wait and grieve. All may be lost, and then
What will they do? When money is required
Of them, and they have none, where will they go?

Many will go in blame against the world,
Hating it for their pain, and they will go
Alone across the dry, bright, lifeless days,
And thus alone into the dark. Others
In grief and loss will see more certainly
What they have loved, and will belong to it
And to each other as in happiness
They never did-- hearing, though the whole world
Go dry, the hidden raincrow of their hope.


For an Absence

When I cannot be with you
I will send my love (so much
is allowed to human lovers)
to watch over you in the dark--
a winged small presence
who never sleeps, however long
the night. Perhaps it cannot
protect or help, I do not know,
but it watches always, and so
you will sleep within my love
within the room within the dark.
And when, restless, you wake
and see the room palely lit
by that watching, you will think,
"It is only dawn," and go
quiet to sleep again.


The Blue Robe

(note: This is how I (Will) would one day like to to look upon my beloved)

How joyful to be together, alone
as when we first were joined
in our little house by the river
long ago, except that now we know

each other, as we did not then;
and now instead of two stories fumbling
to meet, we belong to one story
that the two, joining, made. And now

we touch each other with the tenderness
of mortals, who know themselves:
how joyful to feel the heart quake

at the sight of a grandmother,
old friend in the morning light,
beautiful in her blue robe!


That's all for now. I hope these move you to read Wendell Berry in any context. I cannot promise that he will move you, but he has moved me, and helped my soul understand how to heal.

Let the journey continue...

Approximately twenty five years and three days ago, I began a journey in life that has (with hind sight's wisdom) always been headed towards the kingdom of Jesus Christ and total redemption that he's bringing. I cannot count or thank the sum of all the people who have helped me on this journey and been a part of what God has been doing in my life. About a year ago the idea began to solidify that I will never be able to give anyone as much as I have been given. I will never be able to forgive what I have been forgiven. I will never be able to suffer for others the extent that others have suffered for my sake. To clarify, I'm not speaking in metaphorical or an abstract sense, but a physical reality. Whether you take my statements to mean other people in my life or God himself the physical reality remains that I have been blessed beyond paying back. And for all of this I give glory, praise, and thanks to God.

I came across this meditation in my Celtic Daily Prayer book that talks about the reality of our relationship to God.

The Cry to God as 'Father'
in the New Testament
is not a calm acknowledgement
of a universal truth about
God's abstract Fatherhood.
It is the Child's cry
out of a nightmare.

It is the cry of outrage,
fear, shrinking away,
when faced with the horror
of the 'world'
- yet not simply or exclusively
protest, but trust as well.

'Abba Father'
all things are possible
to thee...

-- Rowan Williams

I guess the point of me writing all these things is that far too often I start to disbelieve that God is for me. He seems far removed from my physical daily experience. I wonder if he's real, and even more so if he really wants what's good for me. My own experience as I cry out to God as Father is the same desperation of Williams. I don't want any abstract cheap, merely emotional satisfaction. I desire real interaction with a person who offers and follows through on salvation. I rejoice to say that this has been my experience, my reality. I mourn, however the reality of my forgetfulness, the reality of my disbelief in my experience and in the Word he's spoken into my life. My response to these dual realities to write this note for the sake of remembrance.

Yesterday morning I met with a woman in a coffee shop and shared about the ministry that God has moved me towards reaching out to college students. I invited her to be a part of what God is doing and she joyfully made a decision to pray for me and to give $30 a month towards reaching college students in Albuquerque, NM. Her decision marked a significant moment in my life. This finishes of my initial support goal and begin my transition to Albuquerque. The journey is far from over. I will if I continue with the organization that I'm with, hopefully raise thousands more dollars in new monthly support if I ever get married, have children, and replace donors led to give elsewhere. This is a significant time of transition however as I remember the thousands of dollars God has already raised to bring me to this point. I have remarked several times recently about "the difficulty of support raising," that there have indeed been times that it has been the hardest thing I've ever done. That I rejoice to say is no longer true. I look forward to doing harder things that require more faith eagerly. God is soo good. He's not just part good, or someone with good intentions he can't follow through on. He's the best, he wants the best for us, and will give us the best if we will get over ourselves and believe him.

In summary God has provided for my physical needs and he wants to provide for yours too. He's good. Give him glory and honor him. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will lead you and make straight your paths. This is what I've experienced, I just thought I'd let you know.

Broken

Broken we watch the things which are breaking
as the innocent break from our innocence taking
we watch the helpless abused for their guileless smiles
while our own hearts are hardened by our pitiful trials
we watch the useful get used till their empty and wasted
their fruit left unripened, their best juices untasted

We fall to the ground overwhelmed by our sight
for it feels like the sky all our lives has been night
and the darkness within us has matched the darkness without
and so thoughts of the morning fill our soul with grave doubt
we’ve watched so much darkness flow out from our souls
would the bringing of light in not only bring holes?
would we not be fractured beyond all repair
if that which flows from us was no longer there?
Watch thus yourself closely that you may not fall prey
to that which we doubt most, the dread breaking of day.

And broken we’ll weep for the things we’ve been breaking
but not comprehend grief from our innocence taking
for the helpless need helped from their pitiful smiles
and their hearts they need hardening for all life’s harsh trials.
the useful need using before too old and wasted
their fruit after all is no good left untasted.

We fall and rest on the ground, well pleased by our sight.
And why not? For the sky all our lives has been night.

For Ryan

As the light sifts softly
through the dust which hangs still softer
in the morning air
a memory of the bout before the dawn
the grappling of the good and true with you
from here we’ll limp
with holy unhinged hips
to remind us of the one who’s whole
the one who is our home
the one to whom we go
as we journey through the trees.

An impassioned plea for pens, paper, and the printed word.

[note: I should mention that I wrote this when I really wanted to write a friend a note and a poem for his birthday but had no pen, just a computer. The words felt empty and so I wrote this instead. It's based on a quote another friend told me that was ironically in a book that said, "books are where words go to die."]

Books are where words go to die,
but here they’ve never lived.
They’ve never felt your eyes
except through the veil,
never felt your touch or been a part of a page
which, leafing softly, fluttered in your ears
casting scents of new or aging paper
upon your hungry nose.
Here they are sexless fantasies which
emptied of their power need
complex circuitry to bring them to light.
No warm soft light illuminates them,
only cold backlit translucence.
Words here are like cut flowers
which, while in more amiable and accessible surroundings,
are far from the home where they became beautiful.
Like animals in a zoo, there is a sense of settling.
A sense that though complacent in their cages
their eyes were meant for the hunt.
Like your elders in a “home,”
their wit and wisdom dulled
through lack of needful relationship.

Yet here we mistakenly hope,

trading beauty and sense
for a chance that somehow without them
we will communicate truth
more efficiently.

Meditation on Isaiah 53

All
pornograhpers, slavers, and ethnic cleansers
molesters, racists, and liars
cheaters, addicts, and whores
all drunks, sluts
and abusers of the physical, sexual, emotional
all oath-breakers, haters, and homos
bitches and witches
bastard children and adulterating parents
all terrorists, extortionists, and gossips
slanderers, blasphemers, idolaters,
all the arrogant, unrepentant, and reprobate
heretics, cannibals, and violent

have hope.

paradoxical,
beaming hope.

shining brightly
in the downcast eyes
of him who carries

the iniquity of us all.