My Father,

This coming week is the one where all of a sudden pretty much all of the work I had to do this semester disappears, and nothing but finals loom ahead. I find that a vaguely threatening-yet-relieving notion.

I shall probably blog little, run much, and pray more. The infernal tendency of these sorts of weeks is to find myself completely wrapped up in getting things done, which is never the sum of a person. Straining at gnats and tromping obliviously past camels. Or something very like.

You'll forgive my scattered thoughts. I'm still recovering from a variety of adjustments to life's turns-of-events. There's not much more to be said beyond that. I have four or five letters to reply to and a few family members and honorary-family-members to call. Once I've caught them up to date, I expect I shall be more so myself, and perhaps my blog can return to some semblance of ... more directed randomness.

In other news, I had the pleasure of watching Cranford this weekend. Elizabeth Gaskell's complex plots and turns of events (she understood the notion of a hard Providence!), coupled with her delightful arrays of characters, are always a pleasure. I was especially drawn to the characters of Harry Gregson and Edward Carter - the way their unlikely father-son relationship juxtaposed with the tragic frailty of Lady Ludlow's motherly attentions to her absent son was beautifully striking. I shan't go on a massive spoiler-spree; only, if you are fond of British period pieces and the humorous-tragic character sketches of Gaskell and Austen (that run far, far deeper than chick-lit; be ye not disparaging), I think you will enjoy it. (And lest any protest that any selection of films was too narrow, we also (in the last week, not week's end) managed to fit in Silverado and Night at the Museum 2. Let none say we are not diverse.)

Thus ends my post of flighted chatter. But what are you still doing here? Tenth Avenue North has a free song out. Go download it.

photograph by Danielle

Today was brushed with spring and summer both - the best parts of each. The lilacs are beginning to lose their bloom, but not before I captured a sprig. It dried on my desk more by accident than anything else: I couldn't bear to throw it away even when it began to droop, and now it smells too divine for me to contemplate parting with it. I suppose it will crumble away soon enough, but for the moment I'm determinedly cherishing my little gossamer-fancy. I've tucked it into the parcel-string of the sweet almond soap that Jenny sent me. They are both mercy-filled trifles, and while perhaps not life-full things themselves, they promise sweet ever-newness for tomorrow.

My only regret is that I didn't have time to dally in the sunshine today. I mean to do so tomorrow, in between errands and lectures and studying. I am tired of being such a mole, burrowing and blinking about. (Many go down but few return...) I shall drink deeply of its Vitamin-D-bearing rays... on the morrow.

I am learning to love obedience - and so, in a not very startling fashion, I am learning to love prayer. I wonder if submission is the coupling of obedience with prayer, or something very like. At any rate, I am beginning to realize it is something worth running after. You're a slave 'til you submit. True submission to God is freedom. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

I'm looking forward to Summer. I shall love toddling over to the hospital in scrubs 'most every day and working myself silly (there's so much good to be had in keeping one's hands busy! and I love my job - I don't care how people complain about how bad it is being an aide; it isn't so) ... and of course there will be cotton-dress Sundays with hot breezes, and sweaty-baby-snuggles, and (for every season) basking in the glory of a torn curtain and His resurrected Body. Perhaps I shall take a little trip, too, if I can figure out when to make it. My mind is too tumultuous in the present to be effective about the future. But it will come.

In the meantime, may lilac-dreams be yours. Don't miss the beauty for the fragileness.

...or should I say, 'Beauty of the Puritans in Christ'? Both would be true; all their beauty is from their citizenship in Christ and His Kingdom, and yet I know of few places better to go to behold Christ's beauty than their writings. It's a two-way street, I suppose. At any rate, tucked away at the end of this gem by Hugh Binning, I found another gem of equal worth: a series of sermons on Romans 8:1-15. This last one focuses on the last verse - "Whereby we cry, Abba, Father." I was struck so much by so much of this, that I felt a celebratory post of immense quotage was called for. I hope it is not too obnoxious. 

      "There is much expressed here in few words, 'Whereby we cry, Abba, Father'. The divine constitution and qualifications of this divine work is here made up of a temper of fervency, reverence, and confidence. The first I spoke of before; but I fear our hearts were not well heated then, or may be cooled since. It is not the loud noise of words that is best heard in heaven, or that is regarded as crying to God. No, this is transacted in the heart, more silently to men's ears, but it strikes up into the ears of God. His ear is sharp, and the voice of the soul's desires shrill, and though it were out of the depths, they will meet together. It is true, the vehemency of affection will sometimes cause the extension of the voice; but yet it may cry as loud to heaven when it is kept within."

On reverence... 

     "Oh, the wanderings of the hearts of men in divine worship, while we are in communication with our Father and Lord in prayer! Whose heart is fixed to a constant attendance and presence by the impression of his glorious holiness? Whose spirit does not continually gad abroad, and take note of every thing that occurs, and so mars the soul correspondence? Oh that this word were written with great letters on our hearts, 'God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him' (Psa. 89:7)!
     That one word, GOD, speaks all. Either we must convert him into an idol, which is nothing, or, if we apprehend him to be God, we must apprehend our infinite distance from him, and his unspeakable, inaccessible glory above us. He is greatly feared and reverenced in the assemblies that are above, in the upper courts of angels, those glorious spirits who must cover their feet from us, because we cannot see their glory. They must cover their faces from him, because they cannot behold his glory (Isa. 6). What a glorious train he has; and yet how reverent they are! They wait round about the throne, above and about it, as courtiers upon their king, for they are all ministering spirits, and they rest not day and night to adore and admire that holy One, crying, 'Holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of his glory.'
     Now, how much more, then, should he be greatly feared and had in reverence in the assembly of his saints, of poor mortal men, whose foundation is in the dust and in the clay; and, besides, drink in iniquity like water! He is nearer angels, for angels are pure spirits; but we have flesh, which is furthest removed from his nature. And then angels are holy and clean; yet that is but spotted to his unspotted holiness. But we are defiled with sin, which puts us furthest off from him, and which his holiness has greatest antipathy to. Let us consider this, my beloved, that we may carry the impression of the glorious holiness and majesty of God on our hearts whenever we appear before him, that so we may serve and 'rejoice with trembling,' and pray with 'reverence and godly fear.'"

On confidence... 

     "But also, I must add this, that, because he is your Father, you may intermingle confidence. Nay, you are commanded so to do, and this honours him as much as reverence; for confidence in God as our Father is the best acknowledgment of the greatness and goodness of God. It declares how able he is to save us, and how willing, and so ratifies all the promises of God made to us, and sets a seal to his faithfulness."

     "A childlike disposition is composed thus, as also the temper and carriage of a courtier has these ingredients in it. The love of his Father, and the favour of his Prince, makes him take liberty, and assume boldness; and yet he is not unmindful of his own distance from his Father or Master. 'Let us draw near with... full assurance of faith' (Heb. 10:22). There is much in the Scripture - exhorted, commanded and commended - of that πληροφόρια, that liberty and boldness of pouring out our requests to God, as one that will certainly hear us and grant that which is good."

     "I know not any thing that will either fix your hearts from wandering in prayer, or establish your hearts from trouble and disquiet after it, nothing that will so unburden and ease your spirits of care as this - to lay hold on God as all-sufficient, and lay this constraint on your hearts, to wait on him and his pleasure, to cast your souls on his promises that are so full and so free, and abide there, as at your anchorage point, in all the vicissitudes and changes of outward or inward things."

     "The word is doubled here, Abba, Father, the Syriac and Greek words signifying one thing, expressing the tender affection and love of God towards them that come to him: 'He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him'; so he that comes to God must believe that he has the bowels and compassion of a Father and will be more easily inclined with our importunate cries than the fathers of our flesh. He may suffer his children to cry long, but it is not because he will not hear, but because he would hear them longer, and delights to hear their cry oftener. If he delays it is his wisdom to raise the value of his mercies and endear them to us, and to teach us to press our petitions, and plead for an answer.
     Besides, this is much for our comfort that, from whomsoever, and whatsoever corner in the world, prayers come up to him, they cannot lack acceptance. All languages, all countries, all places are sanctified by Jesus Christ, that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord, even from the ends of the earth, shall be saved. And truly it is a sweet meditation, to think that from the ends of the earth the cries of the soul are heard, and that the end is as near heaven as the middle; and a wilderness as near as a paradise; that though we do not understand one another, yet we have one loving and living Father that understands all our meanings. And so the different languages and dialects of the members of this body make no confusion in heaven but meet together in his heart and affection, and are one perfume, one incense, sent up from the whole catholic church, which here is scattered on the earth. Oh, that the Lord would persuade us to cry in this way to our Father, in all our necessities!"



From the back of the book: Hugh Binning, the son of a wealthy Ayrshire landowner, was the minister of Govan near Glasgow. He impressed Oliver Cromwell with the force of his reasoning and was a moving and popular preacher. His contemporary, James Durham said, 'There is no speaking after Mr. Binning.' He died at the early age of 26.

 March flew by Postless. It was a better month than February in terms of General Developments, which is probably why it was so silent. Also, I'm writing a novel and holding down a job and going to nursing school. I think that calls for a little lenience. (Besides, I can't really talk much about work or school, and I feel a little awkward continually coughing up facts about Novelyness. Perhaps that's silly and self-conscious of me, but there you go.)

Apparently today is Poetry Day. Well, not officially so, but Abigail posted one of her favorite poems today, so if I throw my oar in the trend seems to be looking that way. It's a good way for me to make a much-needed post without having to sit down and decide what to write, anyway. Behold my mad cop-out skills. 

By way of explanation, I am not really a poetry-person myself - that is to say, I don't usually sit down of my own volition and devour works of poetry. But there are always exceptions - the Greeks, T.S. Eliot, Donne, Beowulf... It was a toss-up between these and something from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. These are just a few of John Donne's Holy Sonnets, which I was brought to love by the collective efforts of Elevyn and my mother. The quote in the title is Emily Dickinson.

I.

THOU hast made me, and shall Thy work decay ?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste ;
I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way ;
Despair behind, and Death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again ;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

V.

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite ;
But black sin hath betray'd to endless night
My world's both parts, and, O, both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new land can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drown'd no more.
But O, it must be burnt ; alas ! the fire
Of lust and envy burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler ; let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee and Thy house, which doth in eating heal.

X.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ;  why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more;  Death, thou shalt die.

XIV.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.