Sage of Ages

Sage of Ages

God of glory, Sage of ages,
Everlasting Son
Come to earth by holy birth
...To save us, every one.

God of glory, what a story,
Gracing us this day.
Born in a stable, this no fable,
God has come to stay.

Beating heart of Baby Jesus,
Miracle of grace!
God above, what glorious love,
To take a sinner's place.

We believing, now receiving,
Watch redemption's dawn.
Thank you for our Savior, Jesus,
Born on Christmas morn.


Copyright 2010, Jill Briscoe.

be beautiful.

And be Thyself our King of Peace.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

The Cave

It's empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind

The harvest left no food for you to eat
You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see
But I have seen the same
I know the shame in your defeat

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

Cause I have other things to fill my time
You take what is yours and I'll take mine
Now let me at the truth
Which will refresh my broken mind

So tie me to a post and block my ears
I can see widows and orphans through my tears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the maker's hand

So make your siren's call
And sing all you want
I will not hear what you have to say

Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be

And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

mumford and sons
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Come, people of the Risen King

Come, people of the Risen King,
Who delight to bring Him praise;
Come all and tune your hearts to sing
To the Morning Star of grace.
From the shifting shadows of the earth
We will lift our eyes to Him,
Where steady arms of mercy reach
To gather children in.

Rejoice, Rejoice! Let every tongue rejoice!
One heart, one voice; O Church of Christ, rejoice!

Come, those whose joy is morning sun,
And those weeping through the night;
Come, those who tell of battles won,
And those struggling in the fight.
For His perfect love will never change,
And His mercies never cease,
But follow us through all our days
With the certain hope of peace.

Rejoice, Rejoice! Let every tongue rejoice!
One heart, one voice; O Church of Christ, rejoice!

Come, young and old from every land -
Men and women of the faith;
Come, those with full or empty hands -
Find the riches of His grace.
Over all the world, His people sing -
Shore to shore we hear them call
The Truth that cries through every age:
“Our God is all in all”!

Rejoice, Rejoice! Let every tongue rejoice!
One heart, one voice; O Church of Christ, rejoice!


Words and Music by Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2008 Thankyou Music/ Copyright Control
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beautiful scandalous night

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

Follow Christ to the holy mountain
Sinner sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flowed
For you and for me and for all

At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful, scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night

On the hillside, you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross justified
And your spirit restored
By the river that poured
From our blessed Savior's side

At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful, scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree
On that beautiful, scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful, scandalous night

Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong 1992
The Choir
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God of Justice

God of Justice, Saviour to all
Came to rescue the weak and the poor
Chose to serve and not be served

Jesus, You have called us
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give

We must go
live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward
keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go

To act justly everyday
Loving mercy in everyway
Walking humbly before You God

You have shown us, what You require
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give

We must go
live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward
keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go

Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out Lord

We must go
live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward
keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go

© 2004

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Rev 7

9After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands;
10and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
11And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
12saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever Amen."

LWW

My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be .... your affectionate Godfather.

C.S. Lewis

adopted

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

Ephesians 1

I Will Rise

There's a peace i've come to know
though my heart and flesh may fail
There's an echo in my soul
I can sing, It is well

Jesus, has overcome
and the grave is overwelmed
The victory is won
he is risen from the dead

And I Will Rise when he calls my name
No more sorrow,No more pain
I Will Rise,on Eagle's wings
Before my God fall on my kness,and rise
I Will Rise

There's a day that's drawing near
when the darkness breaks to light
and the shadow's disappear
and my faith shall be my eye's

Jesus, has overcome
and the grave is overwelmed
The victory is won
he is risen from the dead

And I Will Rise when he calls my name
No more sorrow,No more pain
I Will Rise,on Eagle's wings
Before my God fall on my kness,and rise
I Will Rise

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Lilly

Lilly comes when you stop to call her
Lilly runs when you look away
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!

Lilly comes when you stop to call her
Lilly runs when you look away
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!

One day she passed him by
A twinkle in her eye
He said " she was meant for me!"
But when he turned around
He lost what he had found
Oh where can his Lilly be?

Lilly comes when you stop to call her
Lilly runs when you look away
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!

He searched the city streets
He tempted her with treats
But nobody stopped to taste them
Some are in his pocket
Some are in a locket
He couldn't bring himself to waste them

Ever since she's gone
Some days he can't go on
She ruined for another
Pressed up against the glass
He prays that she will pass
Now he's living with his mother

Lilly comes when you stop to call her
Lilly runs when you look away
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!

Lilly comes when you stop to call her
Lilly runs when you look away
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!

Stay, stay, stay, stay

the story ends

Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered weak and weary,
suddenly there came a tapping,
as of someone gently rapping.
Long ago I heard that sound,
often lost,but seldom found,
a haunting voice from minutes past,
Julie had returned at last.

And I was like, "What's up dude?"
And she was like, "Uhhh, I found your comb."
And then I was like, "Shut-Up!"
And then she was like, "Yeah, and stuff."
And then I was like, "Rock on!"

And that's how the story ends,
now you'll hear the score my friends.
We're finding answers, we're setting trends.
I guess that's how the story ends.

How distinctly I remember,
it was in the bleak December,
and each dying ember, wrought its ghost upon the floor.
I heard a voice that chilled my spine,
I saw what I could not define,
a sight I never could contrive,
there she stood at last, alive.
"Where have you been these endless years?"
I asked her, sobbing through my tears.
"I did not die by plague or prison,
what really died is cynicism."

And then I said, "Awesome."
And she was like, "Yeah, I guess.
And by the way, those pants, they belong to my dad.
And they're not really pants,
they're Lederhosen." Hooray!

And that's how the story ends,
now you'll hear the score my friends.
We're finding answers, we're setting trends.
I guess that's how the story ends.

And Combat Chuck has passed away,
his dying wish was "Never play - that song again".
And Kitty-Doggy's put to sleep,
the dinosaurs lay in a heap,
as they slowly go extinct, like me.

And that's how the story ends,
now you know the score my friends.
We found the answers, we set the trends.
I guess this is how the story ends.

Raise a glass for ignorance, drink a toast to fear
The beginning of the end has come that's why we all are here

Frail.

Convinced of my deception
I've always been a fool
I fear this love reaction
Just like you said I would

A rose could never lie
About the love it brings
And I could never promise
To be any of those things


If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be...
I would be...
I would be...


Blessed are the shallow
Depth they'll never find
Seemed to be some comfort
In rooms I try to hide

Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace


If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be...
I would be...
I would be...


...frail.

David didn't show up to fight Goliath. He brought lunch.

destitute

8 "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.

9 Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy."

Dosvedanya, mio bombino

The samovar is full of tea
You stare unblinkingly at me
While your car waits in the freezing rain
I know your soul calls Moscow home
But your heart belongs to Rome
So for years I've followed you in vain
But oh... will you ever know... what you are!

Dosvedanya, mio bombino
Dosvedanya, mio bombino
There is a place where only you alone go
There is a world that only you alone know

Along an endless balcony
Above the Adriatic Sea
I tried to storm the Kremlin of your heart
In Florence we were on the mend
But that mazurka had to end
You missed the naked trees of Gorky Park
But oh... will you ever know... what you've lost!

Dosvedanya, mio bombino
Dosvedanya, mio bombino
There is a place where only you alone go
There is a world that only you alone know

But oh... will you ever know... what you have!
Dosvedanya, mio bombino
Dosvedanya, mio bombino
There is a place where only you alone go
There is a world that only you alone know

I heard you finally settled down
In a warm Italian town
So I took the train to see you there
Your life is sweet and you're well-fed
Your daughter tucked away in bed
Still, you looked at me with great despair
"I hear snow is falling on Red Square!"

val-de-ree, val-de-rah, val-de-ree, val-de-rah,
val-de-ree, val-de-rah, my knapsack on my back!

The Weight of Glory

The Weight of Glory
C.S. Lewis
Preached originally as a sermon in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on June 8, 1942: published in THEOLOGY, November, 1941, and by the S.P.C.K, 1942

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There is the reward which has no natural connexion with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. There is also a third case, which is more complicated. An enjoyment of Greek poetry is certainly a proper, and not a mercenary, reward for learning Greek; but only those who have reached the stage of enjoying Greek poetry can tell from their own experience that this is so. The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a
certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just in so far as he approaches the reward that be becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward.

The Christian, in relation to heaven, is in much the same position as this schoolboy. Those who have attained everlasting life in the vision of God doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship; but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it at all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognized as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship.

But there is one other important similarity between the schoolboy and ourselves. If he is an imaginative boy he will, quite probably, be revelling in the English poets and romancers suitable to his age some time before he begins to suspect that Greek grammar is going to lead him to more and more enjoyments of this same sort. He may even be neglecting his Greek to read Shelley and Swinburne in secret. In other words, the desire which Greek is really going to gratify already exists in him and is attached to objects which seem to him quite unconnected with Xenophon and the verbs in [Greek]. Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object. And this, I think, is just what we find. No doubt there is one point in which my analogy of the schoolboy breaks down. The English poetry which he reads when he ought to be doing Greek exercises may be just as good as the Greek poetry to which the exercises are leading him, so that in fixing on Milton instead of journeying on to Aeschylus his desire is not embracing a false object. But our case is very different. If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy.

In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was
not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such philosophies of Progress or Creative Evolution themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that earth can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in earth as it is. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a good way off in the future, thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever. Hence all the nonsense that Mr. Shaw puts into the final speech of Lilith, and Bergson’s remark that the élan vital is capable of surmounting all obstacles, perhaps even death—as if we could believe that any social or biological development on this planet will delay the senility of the sun or reverse the second law of thermodynamics.

Do what they will, then, we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? “Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.” But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world.

Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies. Our sacred books give us some account of the object. It is, of course, a symbolical account. Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience. The scriptural picture of heaven is therefore just as symbolical as the picture which our desire, unaided, invents for itself; heaven is not really full of jewelry any more than it is really the beauty of Nature, or a fine piece of music. The difference is that the scriptural imagery has authority. It comes to us from writers who were closer to God than we, and it has stood the test of Christian experience down the centuries. The natural appeal of this authoritative imagery is to me, at first, very small. At first sight it chills, rather than awakes, my desire. And that is just what I ought to expect. If Christianity could tell me no more of the far-off land than my own temperament led me to surmise already, then Christianity would be no higher than myself. If it has more to give me, I must expect it to be less immediately attractive than “my own stuff.” Sophocles at first seems dull and cold to the boy who has only reached Shelley. If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.

The promises of Scripture may very roughly be reduced to five heads. It is promised, firstly, that we shall be with Christ; secondly, that we shall be like Him; thirdly, with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have “glory”; fourthly, that we shall, in some sense, be fed or feasted or entertained; and, finally, that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe—ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God’s temple. The first question I ask about these promises is: “Why any of them except the first?” Can anything be added to the conception of being with Christ? For it must be true, as an old writer says, that he who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only. I think the answer turns again on the nature of symbols. For though it may escape our notice at first glance, yet it is true that any conception of being with Christ which most of us can now form will be not very much less symbolical than the other promises; for it will smuggle in ideas of proximity in space and loving conversation as we now understand conversation, and it will probably concentrate on the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of His deity. And, in fact, we find that those Christians who attend solely to this first promise always do fill it up with very earthly imagery indeed—in fact, with hymeneal or erotic imagery. I am not for a moment condemning such imagery. I heartily wish I could enter into it more deeply than I do, and pray that I yet shall. But my point is that this also is only a symbol, like the reality in some respects, but unlike it in others, and therefore needs correction from the different symbols in the other promises. The variation of the promises does not mean that anything other than God will be our ultimate bliss; but because God is more than a Person, and lest we should imagine the joy of His presence too exclusively in terms of our present poor experience of personal love, with all its narrowness and strain and monotony, a dozen changing images, correcting and relieving each other, are supplied.

I turn next to the idea of glory. There is no getting away from the fact that this idea is very prominent in the New Testament and in early Christian writings. Salvation is constantly associated with palms, crowns, white robes, thrones, and splendour like the sun and stars. All this makes no immediate appeal to me at all, and in that respect I fancy I am a typical modern. Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. As for the first, since to be famous means to be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become a kind of living electric light bulb?

When I began to look into this matter I was stocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation’ by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse.
Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years. prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of leasures—nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment—a very, very short moment—before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero’s book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; “it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.” I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

And now notice what is happening. If I had rejected the authoritative and scriptural image of glory and stuck obstinately to the vague desire which was, at the outset, my only pointer to heaven, I could have seen no connexion at all between that desire and the Christian promise. But now, having followed up what seemed puzzling and repellent in the sacred books, I find, to my great surprise, looking back, that the connexion is perfectly clear. Glory, as Christianity teaches me to hope for it, turns out to satisfy my original desire and indeed to reveal an element in that desire which I had not noticed. By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants I have begun to learn better what I really wanted. When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.

Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being “noticed” by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament. St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him (I Cor. viii. 3). It is a strange promise. Does not God know all things at all times? But it is dreadfully reechoed in another passage of the New Testament. There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: “I never knew you. Depart from Me.” In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities. Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.

And this brings me to the other sense of glory—glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves—that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch. For you must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.

And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life. At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes—through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God’s creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will “flow over” into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading—thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body was made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

One minute

Ned: But, you know - butterfly wings and such.

Chuck: What about them?

Ned: They, cause hurricanes.

Chuck: oh right. Am I a hurricane?

Ned: A little bit, but I uh - I like the weather.

#803

From Jon today...

“You don’t need novocaine. I’m just going to use this drill to shape your tooth a little.”

My dentist told me that yesterday. If I didn’t have a complicated contraption in my mouth at the time, I would have replied, “You’re using a high powered drill to shape my tooth and you don’t feel like that requires novocaine? Seriously? Novocaine was meant for moments like this like the Kardashians were meant to date professional athletes.”

I didn’t say that though and he proceeded to drill. Instead of drugs I just went to my “happy place,” which is currently the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.

I went to the dentist in an emergency because my teeth have been killing me for a few days. One in particular feels like it sustained a shock greater than the Bachelor and his “love” interest “breaking up.”

My dentist took one look at my mouth and saw the problem. Stress. I’ve been grinding my teeth at night while I sleep. Wrestling and clenching my jaw in anxiety. And I know why.

These have been some crazy days.

My oldest daughter is entering the first grade. I’m writing a second book. CNN is letting me share the gospel on their site. Some fun opportunities and ugly challenges that make my head spin have popped up. And to be honest with you, I kind of want God to use some sort of voodoo on the whole situation.

I want to click ruby red slippers and wake up with everything figured out. I want the wisdom of the journey without the walking. But life doesn’t work that way and neither does God. This is something I reminded of every time I read the story of Joseph.

We know his story. He was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was wrongly thrown into prison. He interpreted Pharaoh’s dream with God’s guidance and became the second most powerful man in Egypt. We know that, but a counselor once forced me to look at that story with different eyes.

He said part of what’s amazing about Joseph is not just where he ended up but where he came from. If you look at his family tree, it is littered with funk. It is a recipe for generational sin.

Abraham lied and prostituted his wife. Not once, but twice. He doubted God’s ability to provide a child so severely that he started another family with his maidservant. Isaac repeated the same mistake by whoring out his wife too. He also created a household where he had a favorite son and his wife had a different one. Jacob and Esau were a mess, with Jacob stealing Esau’s birthright. Jacob then proceeds to repeat his father’s mistake by creating a favorite son, Joseph.

One can only wonder what would have happened to Joseph if he had stayed in that environment. Credited with perhaps being the cockiest Israelite ever, chances are he would have been a mess if he stayed at home parading about in an “I’m better than you v-neck rainbow robe.” But he didn’t stay home and he didn’t wreck his life by repeating the same mistakes as his family. He turned things around. So how did Joseph transform into an awe-inspiring man of God in charge of Egypt?

It’s simple, he suffered. He was sold into slavery. He spent years in a dungeon. He hit his bottom and found God waiting to lift him up. He was refined by the trials and tribulations of his life.

I do not like suffering. I do not like hard times or wish them upon anyone. I think God works through blessings too and that going through suffering is not the answer to all of life’s challenges. But in my 34 years, I cannot dismiss the clarity of God’s voice when all other distractions are removed from my life in the middle of a crisis.

And when I think about suffering, I am required by Christian blogger law to write about someone I’ve written about before, Job. I want to look at my own periods of confusion like Job did in chapter 23:9-10:

When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;

when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

But he knows the way that I take;

when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

How did Joseph break the dysfunction that had hurt his family for generations?

He came forth as gold.

Being shaped is never easy. Becoming gold is never as easy or as quick as I would like it to be. Have you ever felt that way? Whether it’s a job that is slowly wearing you down or a relationship that feels tangled or a dream that is dying on the vine as you work somewhere to pay the bills, life is not always easy. And to be honest, there are days when I want to yell, “Where are you God? I catch no glimpse of you!”

But the truth for me and the truth for you, is that he is at work.

Even if we do not see him. Even if we catch no glimpse of him. Even if the testing weighs heavy, he is in motion. He is unchanging. He is relentless with his grace and mercy and love.

He knows the way we take.

And he will bring us forth as gold.

StuffChristiansLike

today

I've meant to do this for some time
I've gotta get it right this time
This time my God I will be Yours,
All my heart, my soul, and mind

Been so long since I truly smiled
But You touched my heart today
Reached through my mind of mud and mire
Consumed the idols in Your way

So I am brand new
Today, I make my resolution

Been down so long that is seems like up,
I took it now I've had enough
Of the life that I've been livin'
It feels so cold this far away

So Today I will make a change
I will make a change today
Purge my mind of mud and mire
Cast all my gods away

I am brand new
today, I make my resolution

Looking back the way I used to be
It was just me and God
Can I be there again?
Today I make my resolution.

youtube

Sing

Sing
Sing a song
Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad

Sing
Sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing
Sing a song

Canta
Canta tu cancion
Canta en voz alta
Canta fuerte
Canta de cosas buenas, no malas
Canta alegre, no triste

Sing
Sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing
Sing a song

youtube

Day 5

Guatemala City Garbage Dump – Journal – Day 5

Vultures. They are what’s eating at me most about this trip and the Guatemala City dump. Human Beings. They are in competition with these vultures for the precious scraps of garbage. Is there a more obvious picture of death anywhere in this world? Vultures – a bird that represents death. Human Beings – made in God’s image and meant for life … Standing/Flying side-by-side wading through garbage.

Seriously?

Jesus spoke about a place where two valleys met at the site of a garbage dump. He spoke of a kind of unquenchable fire that existed there. It was a literal place. It was sub-human. No one was meant to exist there. Not even vultures. He called it Gehenna.

We call it hell.

I rode into hell today in the back of a pickup truck. Unlike Lazarus, I was able to bring water. But what does water do for those working next to vultures? What do vitamins do when your very existence is less than human? What does medicine do when the worms living in your stomach are guaranteed to return?

I’m not sure what they do.

But I do know that hell exists. And I do know that hell isn’t meant to exist in a world meant for heaven.

So we brought water.

We brought vitamins.

We brought medicine.

We brought ourselves.

Because hell exists (and it shouldn’t).

I know. I went there today.

evergreen

Me and the trees, losing our leaves
Falling like blood on the ground
I want to be evergreen

Everything dies, I know last night
Part of me wasn't around
I want to be evergreen

Waiting, and listening
Hoping and missing - all of our time left alone
I'm the one cutting the rope
Frostbite in winter, cause like a splinter
You come and follow me down
I'm the one cutting the rope

Holiday end,
I'm here once again,
and I'm left alone on the bus to my
Head on the ground,
In hopes that I'm found by you
This time around

The sun will rise soon and tackle the moon
Chasing it still in the sky
All that I've got is tonight
Excuses and reasons, and now it is the season
For all that I never got right
All that I've got is tonight

Holiday end,
I'm here once again,
and I'm left alone on the bus to my
Head on the ground,
In hopes that I'm found by you
This time around

The night is a crow, saying come hold me
All that I know is that I've been so lonely for thee
All that I knew, all that I know, found myself under your rain
I want to be evergreen
I want to be evergreen!

Holiday end,
I'm here once again,
and I'm left alone on the bus to my
Head on the ground,
In hopes that I'm found by you
This time around...
I want to be evergreen, I want to live all year round



~switchfoot

Burn out Bright

Does it have to start with a broken heart
Broken dreams and bleeding parts
We were young and world was clear
But young ambition disappears
I swore it would never come to this
The average, the obvious

I’m still discontented down here
I’m still discontented

If we’ve only got one try
If we’ve only got one life
If time was never on our side
Then before I die
I want to burn out bright

A spark ignites
In time and space
Limping through this human race
You bite and claw your way back home
But you’re running the wrong way

The future was a question mark
Of kerosene and electric sparks
There’s still fire in you yet
Yeah there’s still fire in you!

YouTubeMe
Switchfoot

Is there anybody out there?

Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody out there
Does anybody care
Are the people really there
Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody seeking
Does anybody see
Or are they deaf and dumb like me

Sometimes when I'm drivin'
Lookin' for my song
Lookin' for the answers
And where I do belong
and Finally the children are
Bringin' me back home

Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody out there
Does anybody care
Are the people really there
Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody seekin'
Does anybody see
Or are they deaf and dumb like me

Sometimes when I'm drivin'
Still lookin' for my song
Lookin' for the answers
And where I do belong
Yes, and Finally sweet Jesus is
Bringin' me back home

Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody out there
Does anybody care
Are the people really there
Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody seekin'
Does anybody see
Or are they deaf and dumb like me

Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody out there
Does anybody care
Are the people really there
Ooooooooh Ooooooooh Ooooooooh
Is there anybody seekin'
Does anybody see
That he died upon a tree


Burlap

you troubler of Israel

So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?"

"I have not made trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "But you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the LORD's commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."

So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him."
But the people said nothing.

Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the LORD's prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God."
Then all the people said, "What you say is good."

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire." So they took the bull given them and prepared it.
Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which was in ruins. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel." With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs [a] of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood."

"Do it again," he said, and they did it again.
"Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."

Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The LORD -he is God! The LORD -he is God!"


1 kings 18.16-39

W of G snipit

To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by
God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father
in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can
hardly sustain. But so it is.

weary

They resumed their journey, John lagging a bit. I dreamed that the witch came to him walking softly in the marshy ground by the roadside and holding out the cup to him also: when he went faster she kept pace with him.

‘I will not deceive you,’ she said. ‘You see there is no pretence. I am not trying to make you believe that this cup will take you to your Island. I am not saying it will quench your thirst for long. But taste it, none the less, for you are very thirsty.’

But John walked forward in silence.

‘It is true,’ said the witch, ‘that you never can tell when you have reached the point beyond which there is no return. But that cuts both ways. If you can never be certain that one more taste is safe, neither can you be certain that one more taste is fatal. But you can be certain that you are terribly thirsty.’

But John continued as before.

‘At least,’ said the witch, ‘have one more taste of it, before you abandon it forever. This is a bad moment to choose for resistance, when you are tired and miserable and have already listened to me too long. Taste this once, and I will leave you. I do not promise never to come back: but perhaps when I come again you will be strong and happy and well able to resist me – not as you are now.’

And John continued as before.

‘Come,’ said the witch. ‘You are only wasting time. You know you will give in, in the end. Look ahead at the hard road and the grey sky. What other pleasure is there in sight?’

So she accompanied him for a long way, till the weariness of her importunity tempted him far more than any positive desire. But he forced his mind to other things and kept himself occupied for a mile or so by singing verses.

And by the time he had reached the last verse the witch was gone. But he had never in his life felt more weary, and for a while the purpose of his pilgrimage awoke no desire in him.

Over the Valley

Over the valley
I saw a silver cloud
With a pink lining
I said it right out loud
There's no denying
You are my one and only love
And we'll see over the valley
The moon rise above

Over the valley
This house among the trees
Where we've been hiding
Making our memories
And I'm deciding
You are my one and only love
And we'll be over the valley
As the moon shines above

The autumn breezes carry all the bluebirds
Down to where the sun still shines
If we could hold this day
In our hearts some way
We would never roam
Ever far from home

Over the valley
Just above the fray
The sun is setting
And when we're old and grey
I'll still be betting
You are my one and only love
And over the valley
The moon shines above

The autumn breezes carry all the bluebirds
Down to where the sun still shines
If we could hold this day
In our hearts some way
We would never roam
Ever far from home

Over the valley
Just above the fray
The sun is setting
And when we're old and grey
I'll still be betting
You are my one and only love
And we'll live over the valley
You'll always be with me
As the moon shines above

Pink Martini

waiting

Waiting for the dawn to dawn when night is long and black,
Waiting for a heart to heal or a kid to get on track.
Waiting for delay to end and wishes to come true,
Waiting for a sight or sense of You.

Waiting for the one who left to find the way back home,
Waiting for this sense of loss to leave my heart alone,
Waiting, wondering, hurting, in a hole of pain so deep,
Waiting for just one good night sleep.

Waiting for an answer, for evidence that You care,
Waiting for employment, for just one answered prayer.
One small affirmation for freedom from self doubt
Waiting for a way to work it out.

Waiting for the Bible to start and make some sense
I'm sick of my ambivalence, and sitting on the fence.
Waiting for a promise that truth will have its way
For justice to win out one grace filled day.

Waiting for world that's deaf, to hear You and repent.
Waiting for the human race to believe the One you sent
To save forgive equip to live in holiness and power
Waiting for salvation in this hour

Waiting for the violence and the conflict that abounds
The wrong You seem to tolerate, the injustice that's around
To stop, because You intervene and answer desperate prayer:
Waiting just to know You're waiting there.

But Lord the waiting's killing me, I cry to You for peace,
To still the storm inside me and make my turmoil cease.
Help me to remember as i try to do my part,
How patiently You waited for my heart.

You waited for repentance that was Your perfect due,
You waited out resentment and my anger aimed at You.
You waited in the shadows and You offered me Your hand,
To strengthen me to wait it out and stand.

So however long the waiting lasts: as long as You decide,
I'll stand upon my watchtower and I'll climb my mountainside,
And I'll ask you Lord for 'hind's feet' and my soul will render praise,
As You and I will wait for better days.

Though fig tree does not bud and though no cattle in the stall,
Though donkeys and the sheepfold have no company at all
Yet see my heart oh Sovereign God, rejoicing in your grace:
Content to wait it out and see your face.


~Jill Briscoe (April 2010)

It isn’t.

William Morris wrote a poem called “Love Is Enough” and someone is said to have reviewed it briefly in the words, “It isn’t.”… The natural loves are not self-sufficient. Something else, at first vaguely described as “decency and common sense,” but later revealed as goodness, and finally as the whole Christian life in one particular relation, must come to the help of the mere feeling if the feeling is to be kept sweet.
To say this is not to belittle the natural loves but to indicate where their real glory lies. It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns. A garden is a good thing but that is not the sort of goodness it has. It will remain a garden, as distinct from a wilderness, only if someone does all these things to it. Its real glory is of quite a different kind. They very fact that it needs constant weeding and pruning bears witness to that glory. It teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined. If you want to see the difference between its contribution and the gardener’s, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes, rakes, shears, and packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy, and fecundity beside dead, sterile things. Just so, our “decency and common sense” show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love. And when the garden is in its full glory the gardener’s contributions to that glory will still have been in a sense paltry compared with those of nature. Without life springing from earth, without rain, light and heat descending from the sky, he could do nothing. When he has done all, he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there, powers and beauties that have a different source. But his share, though small, is indispensable and laborious. When God planted a garden He set a man over it and set the man under Himself. When He planted the garden of our nature and caused the flowering, fruiting loves to grow there, He set our will to “dress” them. Compared with them it is dry and cold. And unless His grace comes down, like the rain and sunshine, we shall use this tool to little purpose. But its laborious – and largely negative – services are indispensable. If they were needed when the garden was still Paradisal, how much more now when the soil has gone sour and the worst weeds seem to thrive on it best? But heaven forbid we should work in the spirit of prigs and Stoics. While we hack and prune we know very well that what we are hacking and pruning is big with a splendour and vitality which our rational will could never of itself have supplied. To liberate that splendour, to let it become fully what it is trying to be, to have tall trees instead of scrubby tangles, and sweet apples instead of crabs, is part of our purpose.

ps 30

10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me;
O LORD, be my help."

11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

reason

cc

Splendor in the Grass

I can see you're thinking baby
I've been thinking too
about the way we used to be
and how to star a new

Maybe I'm a hopeless dreamer
maybe I've got it wrong
but i'm going where the grass is green
if you like to come along

Back when i was starting out
I always wanted more
but every time I got it
I still felt just like before

Fortune is a fickle friend
I'm tired of chasing fate
and when I look into your eyes
I know you feel the same

All these years of living large
are starting to do a sin
I wont say it wasn't fun
but now it has to end

Life is moving oh so fast
I think we should take it slow
rest our heads upon the grass
and listen to it grow

Going where the hills are green
and the cars are few and far
days are full of splendor
and at night you can see the stars

Life's been moving oh so fast
I think we should take it slow
rest our heads upon the grass
and listen to it grow


Pink Martini

Book Iv, Chap 9

That is why He warned people to "count the cost" before becoming Christians. "Make no mistake," He says, "if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect-until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less."

He has found me

All my life long, I had thirsted
For a drink from some cool spring,
That I hoped would quench the burning
Of the thirst I felt within.

Feeding on the filth around me,
Till my strength was almost gone,
Longed my soul for something better,
Only still to hunger on.

Hallelujah! He has found me
The One my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies all my long - ings
Through His blood I now am saved.

Poor I was, and sought for riches,
Something that would satisfy,
But the dust I gathered round me
Only mocked my soul's sad cry.

Hallelujah! He has found me
The One my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies all my long - ings
Through His blood I now am saved.

Well of water, ever springing,
Bread of life so rich and free,
Untold wealth that never faileth,
My Redeemer is to me.

Hallelujah! He has found me
The One my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies all my long - ings
Through His blood I now am saved.


Original words by Cla­ra T. Will­iams
Music by Ralph E. Hud­son 1875
(i can't find who did the recent version change)
YouTube

See what a morning

See what a morning gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem
Folded the grave-clothes tomb filled with light
As the angels announce Christ is risen

See God's salvation plan
Wrought in love borne in pain
paid in sacrifice
Fullfilled in Christ the Man
For He lives Christ is risen from the dead

See Mary weeping "Where is He laid?"
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb
Hears a voice speaking calling her name
It's the Master the Lord raised to life again
The voice that spans the years
Speaking life stirring hope bringing peace to us
Will sound till He appears
For He lives Christ is risen from the dead

See God's salvation plan
Wrought in love borne in pain
paid in sacrifice
Fullfilled in Christ the Man
For He lives Christ is risen from the dead

One with the Father Ancient of Days
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty
Honour and blessing glory and praise
To the King crowned with power and authority
And we are raised with Him
Death is dead love has won Christ has conquered
And we shall reign with Him
For He lives Christ is risen from the dead

Stuart Townend

God has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.

Dandelions

In a field of yellow flowers,
underneath the sun,
bluest eyes that spark with lightning,
boy with shoes undone.
He is young, so full of hope,
reveling in tiny dreams,
filling up, his arms with flowers,
right for giving any queen.

Running to her beaming bright,
while cradling his prize.
A flickering of yellow light,
within his mother's eyes.
She holds them to her heart,
keeping them where they'll be safe,
clasped within her very marrow,
dandelions in a vase.

She sees love, where anyone else would see weeds.
all hope is found.
Here is everything he needs.

Fathomless your endless mercy,
weight I could not lift.
Where do I fit in this puzzle,
what good are these gifts?
Not a martyr, or a saint,
scarcely can I struggle through.
All that I have ever wanted,
was to give my best to you.

Lord, search my heart,
create in me something clean.
Dandelions
you see flowers in these weeds.

Gently lifting hands to heaven,
softened by the sweetest hush,
a Father sings over his children,
loving them so very much.
More than words could warrant,
deeper than the darkest blue,
more than sacrifice could merit,
Lord, I give my heart to you.

Lord, search my heart,
create in me something clean.
Dandelions
you see flowers in these weeds.

Hold Me Now

On that day when I see
All that You have for me
When I see You face to face
There surrounded by Your grace

All my fear is swept away
In the light of your embrace
When Your love is all I need
And forever I am free

Where the streets are made of gold
In Your presence healed and whole
Let the songs of heaven rise to you alone

No weeping, no hurt or pain
No suffering You hold me now
You hold me now
No darkness no sick or lame
No hiding You hold me now,
You hold me now

In this life I will stand
Through my joy and my pain
Knowing there's a greater day
There's a hope that never fails

When Your name is lifted high
And forever praises rise
For the glory of Your Name
I'm believing for the day

When the wars and violence cease
All creation lives in peace
Let the songs of heaven rise to you alone

No weeping, no hurt or pain
No suffering You hold me now
You hold me now
No darkness, no sick or lame
No hiding You hold me now,
You hold me now

For eternity
All my heart will give
All the glory to Your name

For eternity
All my heart will give
All the glory to Your name

For eternity
All my heart will give
All the glory to Your name

For eternity
All my heart will give
All the glory to Your name

No weeping, no hurt or pain
No suffering You hold me now
You hold me now
No darkness no sick or lame
No hiding You hold me now,
You hold me now

No weeping, no hurt or pain
No suffering You hold me now
You hold me now
No darkness no sick or lame
No hiding You hold me now,
You hold me now

No weeping, no hurt or pain
No suffering You hold me now
You hold me now
No darkness no sick or lame
No hiding You hold me now,
You hold me now

Hillsong
Youtube me

Close to your Heart

Youtube

You look down from heaven
And melt me with your gaze
Then you come down from heaven
And wrap me in your wings

And it makes me feel loved again
So close in your arms
And it makes me feel home again
So close to your heart

ooh Lord,so close to your heart God

So close to your heart God
So close to your heart
I'm so close to your heart God
Come draw me into you
I'm so close to your heart God
Here I am God
Draw me into you


~The Glorious Unseen

The Call of the Kingdom

Hear the call of the kingdom
Lift your eyes to the King
Let His song rise within you
As a fragrant offering
Of how God rich in mercy
Came in Christ to redeem
All who trust in His unfailing grace

Hear the call of the Kingdom
To be children of light
With the mercy of heaven
The humility of Christ
Walking justly before Him
Loving all that is right
That the life of Christ may shine through us

King of Heaven we will answer the call
We will follow bringing hope to the world
Filled with passion, filled with power to proclaim
Salvation in Jesus' name

Hear the call of the Kingdom
To reach out to the lost
With the Father's compassion
In the wonder of the cross
Bringing peace and forgiveness
And a hope yet to come
Let the nations put their trust in Him

Keith and Kristyn Getty
youtube

more

favourite

Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

lewis

Yertle the Turtle

On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The turtles had everything turtles might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.

They were... untill Yertle, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
"I'm ruler", said Yertle, "of all that I see.
But I don't see enough. That's the trouble with me.
With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!" he said with a frown.
"If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!
What a king! I'd be ruler of all that I see!"

So Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one's back
And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.
And then Yertle climbed up. He sat down on the pile.
What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!
"All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule!
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that
I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"

And all through the morning, he sat up there high
Saying over and over, "A great king am I!"
Until 'long about noon. Then he heard a faint sigh.
"What's that?" snapped the king
And he looked down the stack.
And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
Just a part of his throne. And this plain little turtle
Looked up and he said, "Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
I've pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?"
"SILENCE!" the King of the Turtles barked back.
"I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack."
"You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
But that isn't all. I'll do better than that!

My throne shall be higher!" his royal voice thundered,
"So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!"
"Turtles! More turtles!" he bellowed and brayed.
And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
One after another, they climbed up the stack.
Then Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
He could see fourty miles from his throne in the sky!
"Hooray!" shouted Yertle. "I'm the king of the trees!
I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!
I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"

Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
"Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can't stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides, we need food. We are starving!" groaned Mack.

"You hush up your mouth!" howled the mighty King Yertle.
"You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There's nothing, no, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"

But, while he was shouting, he saw with suprise
That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
Up over his head in the darkening skies.
"What's THAT?" snorted Yertle. "Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
I shall not allow it! I'll go higher still!
I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
I'll call some more turtles. I'll stack 'em to heaven!
I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!"

But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And started to order and give the command,
That plain little turtle below in the stack,
That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
Decided he'd taken enough. And he had.
And that plain little lad got a bit mad.
And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
He burped!
And his burp shook the throne of the king!

And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule...
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

And to say the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

~dr. seuss

Second Season

I wonder if these minutes were my last,
If I should start to feast or start to fast.
Would I pray or would I curse,
Hope for good or something worse?
What emotion would I feel?
Would I run or would I kneel?

Time is winding down but only for this life.
I want to be found enjoying the next life.
I see leaves and they are starting to turn brown.
They'll be green and growing when the second season comes around.

The strongest will expire just the same,
The quick will fall exactly like the lame.
I'll do nothing at the most
To keep from giving up the ghost,
Try to make my shoulders broad,
But I am helpless without God.

Time is winding down but only for this life.
I want to be found enjoying the next life.
I see leaves and they are starting to turn brown.
They'll be green and growing when the second season comes around.

I may try to grip control,
But when for me shall this bell toll?
If the answer is to bow,
To him that makes how soon is now?

Time is winding down but only for this life.
I want to be found enjoying the next life.
I see leaves and they are starting to turn brown.
They'll be green and growing when the second season comes around.

~five iron

Matter of Time

The rain fell down in my life today
and I almost drowned
Sometimes the happiness just all fades away
And it can't be found, no

But I won't give up, no I won't give in
cause after the night, a new day will begin

Oh the sun will come up gonna shine again
See the clouds roll away and the rain end
I know after it all I will live again
It's only a matter of time

The waters rise above my head
It's a churning flood
Make me feel like givin' in
or even wish that I was dead
But then You pull me out

And You lift me up to a higher place
to a refuge of hope, sheltered in Your embrace

But I won't give up, no I won't give in
cause after the night, a new day will begin

Oh the sun will come up gonna shine again
See the clouds roll away and the rain end
I know after it all I will live again
It's only a matter of time -
Till I'm back on my feet and I'm standing tall
No it won't bring me down, I will not fall
I know You're by my side, You help me through it all
You're with me all the way

When storms arrive and vile tempests blow
There's only one safe harbor that I know
You calm the storm, You calm the raging sea
And You will never turn Your love from me

Oh the sun will come up gonna shine again...
It's only a matter of time -
Till I'm back on my feet and I'm standing tall
No it won't bring me down, I will not fall
I know You're by my side, You help me through it all
You're with me all the way

Oh the sun...

~Church of Rhythm
youtube

Seek ye first

Seek ye first the kingdom of God
And His righteousness,
And all these things shall be added unto you,
Allelu, alleluia.

Man shall not live by bread alone,
But by every word
That proceeds from the mouth of God,
Allelu, alleluia.

Ask, and it shall be given unto you.
Seek, and ye shall find.
Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.
Allelu, alleluia.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God
And His righteousness,
And all these things shall be added unto you,
Allelu, alleluia.

© 1972 Maranatha! Music
Words and Music by Karen Lafferty

find me

Finding You finding me
What a holy mystery
Someone prayed, one day i'll know
Who it was that loved me so.
Lord you answered: Lord you came
Lord you called me by my name
Melted fast my frozen spirit
Showed me Jesus who by merit
Died to put my sin away
How could i forget that day?
Such a precious memory,
Finding You finding me!



~Jill Briscoe

the slave

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His Name all oppression shall cease.
(see Philemon)

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy Name!
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!

jonny

Sometimes the people who know who you are, are the ones who have the hardest time seeing who you could be.

Jon Acuff

2 Samuel 22:20

He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Digigee Dime

(an oldie, but a goodie)

There's a place where I come from
It's the place where I belong
Where you will never die
Wipe the tears off from your eyes
Sun and moon and stars above
Never match this perfect love
Just look to the painter's hands
Like an ocean meets its sand.

Digigee Digigee Dime Dime Digigee Digigee Dime

Twisted castles in her hair
Building mountains in the air
Making profits, lending loans,
Ancient TV's, golden telephones
But within this misty cave,
Lies a painter, blind but brave
Paints the story of where we've been
Where we are, where we could be.

Digigee Digigee Dime Dime Digigee Digigee Dime

So Kiss the light, seize the day
Shine your shoes, come to play
Sun is shining, sky is clear
Leave your worries with your fears
Light eternal, sleep inside
To my heart and through my eyes
Bringing in sweetness to my soul
Close your eyes, be made whole

~burlap to cashmere

--Reflections on the Psalms

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."

csl

Needle And Haystack Life

The road begins with new born skin
We are right now
Needle girl, in a haystack world
We are right now

You're breathing in
The highs and lows
We call it living

In this needle and haystack life
I found miracles there in your eyes
It's no accident we're here tonight
We are once in a lifetime

Don't let go
Don't give up hope
All is forgiven

Breathing in
You're breathing in
We call it living

In this needle and haystack life
I found miracles there in your eyes
It's no accident we're here tonight
We are once in a lifetime

All is not lost
All is not lost
Become who you are
It happens once in a lifetime

In this needle and haystack life
I found miracles there in your eyes
It's no accident we're here tonight
We are once in a lifetime

Alive
We are once in lifetime
In this needle and haystack
(We are once in a lifetime)

~switchfoot
youtube

mistake of my life

I’m in love, never been so sure of anything
Then again, could be a tumor in my brain
Tricking me into thinking that we were meant to be
Either way I’m about to shock my family
And my hometown again
‘Cause this time I’m leaving

Once I’m gone I cannot look back
I’ve got to trust this is right
‘Cause maybe I’m on my way to find you
But maybe I’m gonna make the mistake of my life

Since we met my life’s been so up in the air
Here today but by next week I could be there
On the street struggling to support my newest vice
with a sign, says ‘I will work for love advice’
‘Cause I will mow your lawn
if you tell me what I'm doing wrong

Once I’m gone I cannot look back
I’ve got to trust this is right
‘Cause maybe I’m on my way to find you
But maybe I’m gonna make the mistake of my life

But I'll leave the car running’
And I'll leave half the boxes packed
For the slim chance I’ll go right back

Once I’m gone I cannot look back
I’ve got to trust this is right
‘Cause maybe I’m on my way to find you
But maybe I’m gonna make the mistake of my life


Derek Webb, Caedmon's

Sing it out

I'm on the run
I'm on the ropes this time
Where is my song?
I've lost the song of my soul tonight

Sing it out
Sing it out
Take what is left of me
And make it a melody

Sing it out
Sing out loud
I can't the words to sing
You'd be my remedy

My song
My song
I'll sing with what's left of me

Where is the sun?
Feel like a ghost this time
Where have you gone?
I need your breath in my lungs tonight

Sing it out
Sing it out
Take what is left of me
And make it a melody

Sing it out
Sing out loud
I can't the words to sing
You'd be my remedy

My song
My song
I'll sing with what's left of me

I'm holding on
I'm holding on to you
My world is wrong
My world is a lie that's come true

And I fall in love
With the ones that run me through
When all along all I need is you

Sing it out


~jon foreman, Switchfoot
youtube

long-expected

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us; let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou art;
dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver, born a child, and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever, now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit rule in all our hearts alone;
by Thine own sufficient merit, raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Charles Wesley