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.