What is Real Work?

This week will prove to be a busy one. For that, I am glad. God does not promise us much physical rest while we are here on earth, so to be ever caught up in the daily routine of living--paying bills, switching phone companies, cleaning up the living room, getting groceries, studying, working...--creates a stronger longing for the next world most definitely.

2 Corinthians 9:6-11:
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:
"He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever."
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

I pray that my "work" each day is given cheerfully; God knows I certainly need His grace minute by minute! How...well...FUN it is to be able to give to others out of God's abundance to us! The hardest thing for me to give is my time. We Americans can be so selfish with our time...let us remember that we are to serve God by serving each other above all else.

2 Cor. 9:12-15:
This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Down with AOL (Bwa-ha-ha-ha!)

Okay, so it's been a long time since I've blogged anything. We finally got cable internet set up last week, and the cable guy installed AOL on my computer, which crashed it a billion times. I hate AOL! Besides all the CD-shaped spam they clutter up our mailboxes with, they are a liberal corporation and simply take up too much space on our hard drives to be useful for anything. So I uninstalled the 5 or 6 programs AOL came with (grr), and my internet is zipping along perfectly. Hoo-RAH!

"A Case of the Mondays"...on a Thursday

So I'm sitting here wondering how to accomplish the many things I need to finish this week when I'm feeling so blah. Again, I've been alone for most of the day, and again I'm feeling the effects of it...if I take a nap like I want to, then chances are that I won't get to bed on time again tonight, and my sleep schedule will continue to kick my butt. If I go shopping like the other part of me wants to, then my sensible part will kick its butt for spending money better saved at the moment.
What a meaningless existence this would be without the motivation of God's grace! I'm trying to get going on a research paper that's due Saturday, and that is seriously my only motivation to even finish it. Praise God that His grace does not depend on MY feelings because blah is a feeling I've had all too much lately. Some encouragement from the excellent band Stavesacre:

Wither / Ascend

the pain will come
with the morning sun
will the night betray the day
blistered skin
withered from within
scratch to shed this shell away

will you know my name
or will i hang my head in shame
will someone take this tired skin
that i've been dying in
will someone hold me to the light
and if I die tonight
then take this broken man
and wrap me tight within
this brand new skin

watch me fly
freedom like wings and i will use them
freedom like wings and i will spread them wide

watch me fly...
freedom my wings...
freedom my wings...

and rise

one day my ashes will return to earthly slumber
spread far and wide across the desert and the sea
until then i will live each day in awe and wonder
look forward to each sunrise

Showers

I miss rain. Southern California is a beautiful part of the country, but it's days like these that I miss the sound of precipitation pounding on the roof--a sudden summer storm followed by a sun that steams the streets.
I went home last month to Arkansas, and it did in fact rain, but not a daytime, humidity-raising rain; it was a midnight blast of thunder, lightning, and fat drops that roll awkwardly down your face on impact. I was glad to be in it. I had almost forgotten what real rain feels like...without a mudslide rolling down after it, that is.

Showers

I crouch down low and shut my eyes,
Listening to liquid gravity;
Water diving, sliding, hitting the ground
With a plink. It is delicious.

I inspect my arms and am pleased
To feel like a child again,
Pretending the droplets there are
Warts instead, or beads
Of Elmer’s ready for peeling.

I stand again and think of how I’m
Ruining a winter’s worth of moisturizing.
I do not care; I tilt my head
And watch the water flow down
The strings of my hair: they swell
At the ends like a belly breathing.

And the liquid pins prick at my back,
Prodding me to envy:
I should have been a pail of water
Thrown emphatically onto the floors of silent seas.

Sighing, I answer, finally, that voice
Nagging of sky-high water bills and droughts:
I turn it off and reach for a towel,
Resolving in my heart to remember
To forget my umbrella,
On our next trip home.

©June 2003

Fruit of the Spirit (2 Peter 1:3-11)

3[The Lord's] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive (NAS version: "useless and unfruitful") in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Still Moving

Again to the venerable T.S. Eliot: "We must be still and still moving/ Into another intensity/ For a further union, a deeper communion..."

I have found that the clearest pictures of God are best drawn from paradoxes. (Thank you Soren Kierkegaard.) For example, God hates our sin so much that He loves us enough to send Christ to remove our guilt. Another example is Christ Himself--100% God (infinite, supreme) and 100% man (finite, common). Such paradoxes are everywhere and can only point to the God who transcends any notion or belief we have of what is real, for only God is real, only God is truth.*

I say that to merely say that I feel I've logged more miles in the past few weeks than I have over the entire span of my small life, and all without leaving my home. (God is beyond good: praise Him!) To be still¹ is to be thrown toward Him, to commune with His Spirit--an intensity otherwise unknown in this natural world. He is a deep, deep well of living water² and cannot run dry, and here we are presented with another paradox: Vessels such as we are--dirty, broken, tainted--we yet are used to hold this most precious liquid--a king's wine in a beggar's wineskin. Yet we do not boast³ in this treasure but instead are gravely humbled by it, for we did not ask for the wine but had it freely given us!** Should we keep it for ourselves? NO, for it is a treasure that multiplies as it is given--another blessed absurdity. Glory to the King of the absurd, AMEN.

*-John 14:6-7
1-Psalm 46:10
2-John 4:1-26
3-Jeremiah 9:23-24, 2 Cor. 10:18
**-Romans 6:23

Praise to Our Father

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"

For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Romans 11:33-36

Kinship

A kindred spirit whom I've not had the pleasure of chatting with for almost a year asked me today if I have been writing much of late. Sadly, my answer was "not really." Poetry was something I never thought I could do without, which leads me to believe that in its absence my Soul has been withering from the inside out, unbeknowst to my rather regimented Mind. ...They've not been such good friends over the past year, being separated by a teacher's chores and a wife's duties; nothing but work to dwell on, it seems. But, ah, summer vacation...a time to rejoin the old comrades and celebrate with a tip of the inkwell. Their kinship has already done me much good as I've lately discovered a rebirth of joy in reading the Holy Scriptures--the poetry of Truth! How awful and beautiful at the same time: Words that are living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword...dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow...judging the thoughts and attitudes of my heart! I shudder at the holy power of the Lord who speaks these words to me and am compelled to honor Him by seeking holiness myself. It is my prayer that He will be honored by my words--as I am humbled by His.

A Lesson in Solitude

From August 2002 to August 2003, I learned that a lover of solitude can only take so much of it. I spent many days within the confines of my studio apartment periodically peeping out the blinds at strange noises or pacing the 5-foot space allowed by our furnishings. I was in a foreign world but wasn't in it at all. This is what I wrote:

View From A First-Floor Balcony

These are my Emily Dickinson months—
Sitting alone and writing from an upstairs
Window—peering out onto a scene
That never changes.
I’m feeling crazy—
A bit depressed—and perhaps, somewhat
Smug: for I am Ruler of this
View from a first-floor balcony—
A hermit opera-queen that frowns
Upon the world below. And in
My solo—I wonder where the notes
Will go—for if I keep on singing
songs inside these walls alone—
I’ll only hear the echoes—which is when—
I think—my head explodes.
Then I’ll be dead. —And all my songs
Discovered, sung—and what good then?
I should be forced to say, "That is
Not it at all, That is not what I meant,
At all." But better late than never—
As they say—and better known
As crazy dead than never known
At all.
So I sit—imagining I’m Emily
And inventing fates better and worse.
I’m part Mr. Arthur, part Elizabeth the First.
So through these months, I’ll sing my songs—
Wondering where the notes will go.
© 2003

Since that time, I have moved from the sometimes-cozy-sometimes-suffocating studio to a spacious-enough 907 square-foot condo. And I've realized something. Though I've longed for more space to move about in, to think freely in, to sit quietly in--and have gotten it--I am still locked up inside my head, "wondering where the notes will go." I've never been one starved for human contact, but whuddaya know...I am now. So here are my thoughts, people. Let me know where they're going.