3/1/05 Whenever doubts invade my mind— That all faith is a lie and falsehood, And terror burns within me, I have only to remember that night you spoke to me— Shouted at me, really— And I know for a certainty that you are. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. [John 20:29] 3/2/05--A Terzanelle I work and toil under the sun All my wearisome days. My race is won Each night, and yet each morning it dismays Me. I must start over again All my wearisome days. And in the end, what do I gain? I will die, and no one will remember Me. I must start over again Each pointless day, blow the ember Into flame and never cease. I will die and no one will remember How I longed for release! And now I die Into flame, and never cease Blazing in the shifting sky! I work and toil under the sun— And now I die. My race is won! [Book of Ecclesiastes, "Not Marble Nor the Gilded Monuments" by Archibald MacLeash] 3/3/05—Ecc 6:4,5 I came without meaning, And I departed in darkness. The veils of blindness never fell from my eyes. I departed in darkness, And in darkness my name is shrouded. I never saw the sun. I never saw the light of the sun, And I never knew anything, Yet I have more rest than many. I have never toiled beneath the sun Nor lain awake in sorrow and worry Beneath the moon. I lay instead in an unknown land In a realm of rest and sunlessness, The place all will be gathered to. I have never seen evil, Have never done it, Have never known it. Though I have no name, I shine in the darkness Like a white light. Do not pity me, for I am blessed. I am the stillborn child. [Note: I am emphatically not condoning abortion.] 3/4/05 When it comes down to it, We’re all just born to die— Fellow passengers to the grave. That is the end which our lives are a means to. A preparation and a test, A school of all things good and evil A trial by time, to see If we will keep the commands of our master Life is but the introduction to death. Therefore, let your heart be light. Though troubles seem endless, They will all come to an end. So let us enjoy all our days under the sun And take pleasure in the work of our minds and our hands, For this is our lot, This is what has been given to us. We are all going to die; So rejoice! [Ecclesiastes]
A servant girl worked for a great lord. She had come into his house because her parents served him, and when she beheld his picture, and heard them tell all the stories of the good and great things he had done, she desired to work for so great a master.
As she heard such great stories about him, she came to love him, though she had never seen his face.
One day, a fellow servant told her that the Master had seen her face from afar and had loved her, even long before she came to work or him. The girl was astonished. Was it possible that so great a lord could love her, poor (and occasionally disobedient) as she was?
One day a carriage pulled up at the door of the mansion, and the driver told the servant girl to climb up, that her Master had called her home. The girl did so. After a short ride, the driver opened the door onto the most magnificent palace the servant girl had ever seen. Stairs of white marble! Railings of good! Roses in abundance all through the garden! Surely there must be some mistake.
But then, a glorious youth came and stood before her. Ad she knew with the first sight of his face that he was the Master she had worked so long for, the one she had loved from afar.
“I have loved you from the first day your eyes ever beheld the sun,” he said. “And as long as you have been toiling faithfully in my other house, I too have been working—building this house, with you in mind. It is yours.”
And the servant girl was united with her master, who loved her more than life itself. And they truly lived happily ever after.
3/5/05 I miss close friends. I miss being able to just glance in my friend’s direction And have her understand what I’m laughing at. I miss having common experiences to discuss And common childhoods to compare. I miss the kind of closeness that comes Of seeing them every day. I miss that fellow-feeling, That true sympathy of mind, And all our inside jokes. I miss having people that will laugh at you And call you names And never mean a word of it. I miss people that didn’t think I was weird when I acted like myself. When I talk to my old friends, I’m so happy I would cry If they weren’t making me laugh so hard! 3/6/05 You are saved: now smile! You know the direction to head in: So live your life! You know what you are to do: Love God with all, Love your neighbor as yourself, And God will guide you when he wants you to turn off the road. So just walk! Don’t stand there and say, ‘I don’t know where to go’! The path is straight before you; It is already under your feet. You will hear a voice saying, ‘Here is the path; walk in it!’ “Love, and do as you please.” [Isaiah 30:21. The last quote is from Augustine.] 3/7/05 Everything is meaningless. We all die in the end, So all this world is meaningless. So enjoy it! It doesn’t matter if catastrophe will fall on you tomorrow, Because earthly catastrophe is meaningless. So do not worry, Trust God, Love him, And enjoy all these lovely, meaningless days that have been given you. [Ecclesiastes again! :)] 3/8/05 As we stand, The note of a trumpet— Moving as a great horn And pure and clear as a cornet— Will sound in the sunlit heavens. In the smallest twinkling of an eye, In a blink, The dead of the world will be raised to life And we ourselves, still living, Will suddenly have new bodies. Bodies that do not tire, Bodies that are strong, not weak, That do not wear out like old clothes But stay fresh and new as the glint of morning sunlight on the dew—spangled garden and grove. Bodies that reflect Christ, The true light! Then we will truly be ourselves, For Christ will shine through us And light us up like stained glass windows And reveal the colors that were just waiting for the light to come and release them. And then— Oh, then!— We will fly. No plane around us, No hang-glider to hold us up, Just we ourselves Caught up in the air! Absolute freedom from these symbols of ourselves Into our true selves! The symbols will be no more. And we will no longer separate our souls from our bodies, For we will be fitted with new bodies that are our souls. Oh, the dead will come back to life, And we will come to life as well! And then we will stand and sing in victory As the new light, better than any sunrise, Dawns on the great mountain of the Lord And his shining city. 3/9/05—Is 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, Who put darkness for light and light for darkness, Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. You who muddied the waters— You will be made to drink them. You who switched the sign posts— You yourselves will become lost. You who replaced real gems with fake, You will forget which is which. You who unscrewed the lights, You will fall in the dark. You who filled the sugar bowl with salt and the saltshaker with sugar, You will garnish your food with disgust. You misled us. You mislead us every day, Confusing the very bases of human culture, Turning every topic on its head and misreading every text, Shutting your eyes to what you do not want to see and focusing on flimsy excuses, Spinning, twisting, manufacturing lies— Even those with God’s light in them are confused in your shadow. You have misled the children of God, And traduced your creator. The pot has called the potter a lie. So the pot will not continue to do so for very long. I look forward with longing to the day When I will know for sure which is sugar and which is salt, When the lights will be more perennial than even sunlight, When the true gems stud the very ground beneath my feet, When all roads lead to the holy city, When the water of the river of life is so clear, I can see right to the bottom— When I can see you. [That "you" in the last line is God, not the people apostrophized to in the first section.] 3/10/05 The word “escape” holds unutterable charm for me. I have longed to escape for many years— It means adventure and knowledge, New places and thrilling vistas— It means things I cannot put in words. It means something I sometimes fear I will never reach. But then, I feel that longing for it, That peculiar joy, And I know it’s you I’m longing for, And I know that when, in new bodily vesture, I will fly to meet you in the sky— That will be escape. Escape is you. ["I never hear the word escape" by Emily Dickinson]Back~Next
