Sometimes, that which is beyond us is right in front of us.

...God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are…

Let me be always a fool. Let me always be weak. Let me always be base. Let me always be despised. For thus, I always am — however wise I seem, however strong I can show myself, however lofty my aspirations, however loved I think of myself. Let me never think I have raised myself in any way toward the glory of God, for if it is that we are ever eye to eye, it is that He has stooped mightily low to let me see…. And if we ever are, let it be that He gives me a wink, to remind me that He’s looking over me, to remind me that knows why, without me having to ask — and that He is my friend.

Sometimes the lie overtakes the truth, I think, but I shall not lose heart. There is much that is not right in the world, meat glazed over with a thin presentation coating, while inside there are maggots; and sometimes we cannot tell what is the good, and what is the evil. (Some people have an aversion to that word, evil, but in my view of what exists, I believe there surely is such a thing — not just “bad”, not just “troubled”. But I digress.) It is for this reason that when we can tell, that we not keep quiet: for the lie can only go on, has only gone on when there is only silence in its path. Assail the lie enough, and it will fall, sometimes the goliath ones with one small stone. Yes, all that is needed for evil to win is for the good to do nothing (paraphrasing Edmund Burke), but one may find there are such good people, willing to do something after all. You could be one of them.

A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason… while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

I got lost today in the pages of my memory.
I was trying to make sense of the story, to connect the dots,
but I think the only lesson I learned was to keep looking….

In an instant, a win can become a loss, a world come undone.

In an instant, fire can catch across entire cities, unquenchable.

In an instant, a heart can break, but never in one can it mend.

In an instant, a life can end, and one can begin, but which instant?

In an instant, a thought may die, a thousand years in the making.

In an instant, a dream may come true, but dreams do not end so.

In an instant, something happens, and you never find out why.

A Christmas Prayer
When I go to Thee, Lord God, for thanks, let me see for all that there is wrong in the world, that there is so much more that is right, and I should be grateful to the point of tears. But when You come to me, Lord, for something to be done in this here and now, let me see for every one thing that is right, there are two things that are wrong, and so much to be done to make this place fit to be called God’s green earth. There is no contradiction: I cannot, as You can, see all things at one time, and both perceptions may be correct when I have them, and not cancel one the other out. Let this fallible vision be of some use to that which is above. You gave Your only begotten Son so that we may be saved, so at the very least, let me give you my eyes, that they may see that which is around me in the way vision should perceive: that there is always bounty to be thanked for, and always work to be done.

Amen.

My Desktop
Taking it easy today.

Click on the pic for a larger version.

Whispers

I listen to whispers
left over from the beginning
of the world, so
full of hope, when nothing
that could be dreamed
had yet proved
beyond our reach, when
our innocence
was the only experience.
They have not died,
these ideas they still speak,
some only having
grown wiser by knowing
the world that is.
Put your ear to the wind,
and shut out all
that says “No,” and you may
comprehend of what
I say: time cannot silence
that which is shared by us,
and we may prove
to be conduits of a dream.

As we grow up, the little man behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz comes better in focus. How huge and infallible our parents seemed when we were all of three or so, back when we believed in magic. I look at them now, and how frail they seem as they are getting on in years, and I know them to be just human, as fallible as anyone else. But I know that they did their best. That’s the thing, I think: we see the little man behind the grand visage, and we discover when we talk to him not something quite so awesome, but perhaps something a little richer. Our idea of magic does not necessarily have to vanish with adulthood’s coming, for I myself believe in magic, still — it is just not in the tricks of the magician, but rather in the miracles that happen every day, if we would just care to look and see them. I have had long conversations with the little man behind the curtain, something I could never do with the great and powerful Oz. Imagine: we can show that little man that he had more magic in him than he ever believed, for the grand illusion never could be touched, and so, could never touch us back.

There is wisdom in some comedy, and comedy in some wisdom.

I have dreamed of starlit skies where you could look all the way back to the fires of creation. I have dreamed of seas stretching infinitely out, whose shores entertained endless summer days. I have dreamed of mountains whose peaks rose through the floor of Heaven, that take an entire lifetime to climb. I have dreamed of forests darker than night, holding secrets that slip from the memory once one emerges out the borders of its sacred trees. I have dreamed of a single candle lit in the vastest night, a finger of hope that stubbornly held its ground, a solemn promise that dawn would come. And dreaming, dreaming, I, in the sleep that remembers how it came to be, wondering at immortality.

Remember, a small light will do a great deal when it is in a very dark place. Put one little tallow candle in the middle of a large hall, and it will give a good deal of light.

Fire awoke me, the sudden smoke of my old self burning:
new desire, passion ignited by sleepless dreaming, and driven:
I have stood at the boundary of vision, and lit the dark.

When a moment is worth examining, I have fallen into a sort of habit. I suppose for argument’s sake that I am meant to be right where I am, right then, and then I try to discover why. And I usually can — though that doesn’t mean I am necessarily right about every, or even any, of those times the reasons I find. It also does not mean I can excuse myself: if I did something wrong to get there, whatever meant to be may mean, what I did was still wrong. But when I do see why, it is for an instant to get a glimpse of that which transcends and is immanent in this world, in plain view and yet still a mystery (as I have written of before), a murky view of one of the perhaps more insignificant corners of the Plan. It is to feel the merest iota of the infinite Purpose, that which fills God, and shares with any of us who cares to look. So I look.

There was once while I was walking in a forest in Korea, early in the morning, when I heard a snap in a tree above. I looked up into that tree and beheld a bird, saw it on a branch which at that exact moment had cracked right off and arced down with him captured on it — the frozen second as he began his backwards dive — his fall as wings pieced together a catching air and then full flaps into ascent and away. It was stunning. It was magic.

Thus is trust: the bird had had something of a trust that the branch would hold, but it did not — with the skill of his wings, he was called instead to fly — and another trust, perhaps little tested so off-guard, then fired that he would not fall, and sure enough he did not. That latter trust is to me is what true faith is: and something to look for when we land on some branch we think is secure, only for it to crack off, right out from under us: our wings.

Broken Angel

I once met a broken angel.
His soul was like
infinitely intricate glass
fractured in one
brute stroke to the right
of his wing. It was a wound
he could have only
inflicted on himself, for
God makes all such
celestial beings invulnerable
from without. When I
spoke to him, I was strangely
not afraid — quite
comfortable, in fact.
When I remarked upon
something I noticed, he
took offense, which only
made it hit home the more:
he was just like a human being.
And I thought, that
must be right: we the
earthly bound are like
broken angels, broken at the wings,
a soul of infinitely
intricate glass, fractured
by our desire to want more
than it can handle.
The angel was not fallen,
just somewhat wayward,
but being from above,
his wounds had struck him harder,
not being used to such gravity
like we. There was still
beauty there, and the scar
I could easily see past:
like us, the sadness in the eyes
of regrets, of chances
slipped away, now only memory.

Dreaming is easy, if you believe; impossible, if you don’t.