"Caged Bird" redux

I read Luci Shaw’s poem “Caged Bird” in a talk I gave on suffering recently. Unable to spread his wings to the sky, forced to “sort millet” instead of seeking and delighting in “the sun-filled / film and fire / of insect wings, / [or] worm's wry / juice,” his “trinity of claws” gripping the cage’s steel perch instead of tree’s rough bark, the bird still sings. In fact, he discovers how to

poem

his stunted

narrowness

in one long,

strong,

ascending,

airborne, sun-

colored wing

of song.

He creates beauty from his suffering – perhaps because of his suffering.

Someone asked if the poem wasn’t rather existential in nature, the song surely meaningless because it doesn’t liberate the bird from his cage – therefore it must be an exercise in futility, no matter how beautiful. I responded as best I could on the spot: the point isn’t to escape from suffering; we can’t escape suffering in this life. The point is what we do with the suffering: do we give in to it in bitterness or do we create beauty – allow God to create beauty in us – from it? Do we draw closer to Him and thus love others better; do we offer beauty to the world that invites them to look to our God in their own suffering?

A suitable response in the moment, and true. But as I reflected on the question later, I realized a more profound answer: the creation of beauty in suffering does indeed liberate us – it liberates us from the prison of self-pity and self-absorption. It cannot, however, liberate us from the cage of circumstances – of the suffering itself. Of course, particular occasions of suffering end; but they don’t end because we create beauty from them. After all, many occasions of suffering never end in this world; they only end when we come into Christ’s presence in the next. And suffering ends as often for those who hate God as for those who love Him. Yet extraordinary beauty is created by many who suffer continually until the freedom of their death. They create beauty not because they have been freed from suffering, but because they have been freed from self.

I keep thinking of my mother-in-law. The painting I chose to hang in my office tells her story: gloriously flaming canna lilies burst from swirled purple-black soil, as the painting itself was born from the twin sufferings of cancer and heartache. She suffered to the moment of her liberation in death. Yet she created profound beauty, in her art and in the art of her life, because of that suffering – not in spite of, but because of. Oh, it’s true she had always loved well, but in those last years her love became focused, poignant, every detail sharpened in a joy that attended to the littlest things – a loaf of just-baked bread, a glass of freshly squeezed juice – as cause for delight and care, that drew us to her as moths to the flame to be warmed and then invited, in our turn, to offer warmth to those around us.

Sonny, in James Baldwin’s story “Sonny’s Blues,” says of a street singer in Harlem, “It struck me all of a sudden how much suffering she must have had to go through – to sing like that. It's repulsive to think you have to suffer that much.” Yet he finds eventually that this is the calling of the artist – and, ultimately, of all of as we create, by the grace of God, the art of our lives. Suffering can’t be avoided, and it is indeed repulsive – it is a result of the Fall – but it won’t drown us if we step into it in faith and make something of it, something of beauty that touches the lives of all who experience it and reminds them that joy and triumph are realities, too, even within the suffering itself.

The cage of circumstance cannot be torn away; we cannot liberate ourselves from suffering. But we can – by God’s grace – be liberated from the prison of the self when we decide to create a psalm of praise.

Intellect and the Love of God

Dr. Anthony (Tony) Esolen visited the college for three days this week, speaking in chapel and classes, giving a poetry reading, and talking to many of us one on one. We have seen in him and his work the beauty of the intellect informed by devotion to Christ, and some of us will never be the same.

Tony’s first chapel talk challenged us to consider the loss of a true “popular culture” – one which emerges from the people themselves based on a common identity and values. Because entertainment today is done for and to us, we no longer know how to create such a culture, nor do most of us even believe that we should – like so many other things, entertainment – culture – should be left to the experts. Tony got at this concept through a discussion of the morality plays popular across Europe and Great Britain for three centuries – plays produced by the people of their own towns for the Christian festivals such as Corpus Christi. He narrated the “Second Shepherd’s Play” to show the depth of the people’s knowledge of human nature, its depravity and its possibility for redemption. He kept us laughing and in the midst of the laughter reminded us of the need for grace and compassion, forgiveness and love. It was challenging, compelling, true excellence in which love for the Lord and the people He has created shone.

The second chapel talk was brilliant. Tony drew us through The Tempest, Shakespeare’s lovely tale of betrayal, correction, redemption, and reconciliation, showing us how obedience and love are intertwined. I can’t summarize it at this point; so many images swirl in my mind: Caliban, who – though half-witch and hateful – can feel wonder and so has hope for redemption; Ferdinand and Miranda, whose love shows the spirit of self-abnegation and purity; Prospero in his God-like role of judge and profferer of the means of grace and forgiveness: repentance and obedience. All bound up in the capacity for wonder, for seeing that which is beyond and above ourselves – for without wonder there can be no acknowledgement of God, of love.

In the Renaissance Lit class, Tony discussed with the students the courtly love tradition through the story of Virgil’s proper response of instant obedience to the heavenly lady Beatrice, to carry out her wish that he guide a lost soul in the first stages of his journey back to truth – as contrasted to the improper story of the adulterous couple Paulo and Francesca, who fall in love at first sight and pursue their own desires. The second day, he took us through contrasts in the image of the journey: Dante sets off on a journey to find God; within the rings of hell are many who, because they refused to journey anywhere but for and to the self, are condemned to be always moving while going nowhere. Throughout the discussion both days, the contrast between love of God and love of self – the need to abandon ourselves completely to God in childlike trust, to practice the divine madness of love.

Tuesday night, Tony read poetry to us: Milton, Browning, Hopkins, Herbert. He blindfolded himself to play the part of the blind poet, and in some cases blind Satan, and quoted passage after passage from Paradise Lost. He recited Browning’s monologue “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s” and Hopkins’ sonnets, and Herbert’s passionate poems about his journey with the Lord of life. After an hour and a half, which amazingly seemed like fifteen minutes to a group of college students in mid-term week, we knew that we had heard the gospel from someone who lived it, through the poets he loves. And we walked away desiring a better love for God and man alike.

I have known one other true genius in my life. He is a good man who practices the Christian virtues without knowing the One by whom they exist; he has that capacity rare among the truly intellectually brilliant of being able to articulate ideas at any level. This week I saw what that man would be if he turned to his Creator and embraced the One who makes his life, his love, his goodness possible. I saw the deepest devotion to Christ, flowing from a man who has given heart, mind, soul, and strength to love Him, and I was challenged as perhaps never before to make that kind of life mine.

And that is the most important thing that happened at our college this week. We saw that brilliant intellect can exist integrated with unabashed, flooding love for God. Praise Him for His work in Tony’s life so that ours might be challenged and changed to more and deeper love.

Signs of Spring

When I got out of the car in the parking lot this morning, the air was a bit warmer and birds sang hopefully of spring. In the heavens, an almost-full moon shone, fragmented clouds floating through her brilliance but not over her face. Another reminder of beauty always ascending.

Lenten Reading

I have decided to read Richard John Neuhaus's Death on a Friday Afternoon again for Lent. So far I've got blue ink underlining and marginalia from a couple of years of readings and green highlighting from last year; I'm highlighting with pink this year. Pretty soon it will be easier to read what's not marked than what is . . . . I'll be posting quotes and occasionally thoughts during my reading. Most likely there will be plenty of repetition from my other postings on the book, but wisdom always bears repeating and rethinking and reliving.

The book is a series of meditations on the "seven last words" of the Savior on the Cross, an invitation to "stay awhile" with Good Friday before "rushing on" to Easter Sunday -- for without the death there is no resurrection. The first "word" is "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and so is a meditation on the nature of forgiveness. Neuhaus gives an excellent rendition of the story of the prodigal son which points up the father's longing for the son's return and the son's return to his senses in the far country.

But what's caught my attention more this time, so far, is what Neuhaus says about identity. The entire book focuses a great deal on the question of who we are and who gets to answer that question. Here in the first chapter he writes of the crucifixion, "Every human life, conceived from eternity and destined for eternity, here finds its story truly told. In this killing that some call senseless we are brought to our senses. Here we find out who we most truly are, because here is the One who is what we are called to be." We recoil from following Him to the Cross, Neuhaus notes, but "we will not know what to do with Easter's light if we shun the friendship of the darkness that is wisdom's way to light." Later he adds, "We know ourselves most truly in knowing Christ, for in Him is our truest self."

We dare not name ourselves. The only way to sanity, to peace, to Love, is to accept His name for us, to know ourselves in Him and not in our own self-centered desires -- to die to self and live in Him. I hope for that to become still more of a reality this Lenten season.

Prayer Musings

Now that I am back in the land of the living and have graded enough homework to justify procrastinating again for a few minutes, I see that I have written nothing here in quite some time. Many thanks to all who have prayed for and encouraged and helped me out these past three weeks; you have reminded me of the unmeasurable value of this family God has given us.

A friend gave me a couple of books by Lauren Winner recently, and I've read through Mudhouse Sabbath over the course of the weekend, between grading bouts. Winner converted to Christianity from Judaism, and this book explores Jewish traditions that she has found to usefully inform her Christian walk. Each chapter is titled with a Hebrew or Yiddish word, and she addresses the following: the Sabbath, food, mourning, hospitality, prayer, the body, fasting, aging, candle-lighting, weddings, and the marking of doorposts. She carefully recognizes essential differences between the two traditions because of Christ's sacrifice to save us by faith, but thoughtfully and beautifully shows the essential likenesses and how we can be strengthened by recognition of the tradition that, after all, gave birth to our Savior.

This morning an acquaintance posted a link concerning the Rosary, and shortly after reading that article, I read Winner's chapter on prayer. These reminded me of a tension and frustration I have experienced with prayer for many, many years.

I am not well disciplined to pray. I'm attracted to thoughts like Coleridge's in "The Pains of Sleep":

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,

It hath not been my use to pray

With moving lips or bended knees ;

But silently, by slow degrees,

My spirit I to Love compose,

In humble trust mine eye-lids close,

With reverential resignation,

No wish conceived, no thought exprest,

Only a sense of supplication ;

A sense o'er all my soul imprest

That I am weak, yet not unblest,

Since in me, round me, every where

Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

Of course, the attraction lies in the ease of it -- no need to think, to actually articulate confession or supplication or praise -- just feel the love of God and be at peace. Fine as far as it goes, I suppose, but it can't be the end-all and be-all of prayer, not if we are to be in thoughtful relationship with God.

But little that I do seems to help me with formal, disciplined prayer. I take a walk determined to pray but my surroundings or my thoughts take over within minutes (or, more likely, seconds). I write lists of things to pray about but think about them instead. I try to visualize but my brain refuses. And on and on.

The article and the chapter I read this morning pointed up something that I've thought about often and seemed to confirm -- that I've been cheated out of a liturgical foundation of common, memorized and repeated prayer that could help me with this sad lack of discipline.

I was raised in a mainstream Protestant denomination and have attended evangelical churches all my life. There seems to be almost a horror of any but absolutely spontaneous prayer. A written prayer lacks true feeling or sincerity, it is feared. A repeated prayer is mere rote repetition of no value -- because repetition can be vain, it must therefore always be vain, seems to be the thinking. So we endure spontaneous, sincere prayer everywhere: "um God, we'd just like to, um, you know . . . just ask You, um . . ."

I remember being startled at a challenge I read somewhere to actually ask God our questions -- pose them in the form of questions. We always say, "We'd just like to ask you to . . ." But what if we said it as a question: "God, will you . . .?" It changed my understanding of supplication and made me realize just what it means to ask God for something. It's a great deal more awesome and frightening to be direct, and it's helped me to begin avoiding a bit of my silly and selfish "asking."

But what about repeated prayer? I went to a funeral for one of my professors when I was in grad school. He had been Episcopalian, and I fell in love with the prayers we read from the prayer books stocked in the pews. They were profound, they were eloquent, they spoke truth. Where have these prayers been all my life, I thought. But a friend tried to set me straight -- oh, they don't really mean anything, they're just rote because people say them all the time -- vain repetition, you know.

I wondered why such repetition had to be vain. Couldn't someone repeat these prayers day after day and mean them? Repeat them and be comforted by them, challenged by them?

Winner addresses what she calls liturgical prayer in the Jewish tradition, explaining the many memorized and constantly repeated prayers throughout the day, the week, the year. Of course the prayers can become rote, she admits, but if this "is a danger," she goes on, "it is also the way liturgy works. When you don't have to think all the time about what words you are going to say next, you are free to fully enter into the act of praying; you are free to participate in the life of God." She adds that when she has set aside her prayer book (a Christian prayer book now, of course) for weeks or months, she finds that she slides into narcissism, and a return to the set prayers "places [her]" in "words that ask [her] to confess [her] sins [. . .], to pray for [others . . .], that praise God even on the mornings when [she] wonder[s] if God exists at all."

I long for this experience. I try -- I own the Book of Common Prayer and the Divine Hours books, but I lack the discipline to stay with them. Mostly this is my laziness. But I blame it in part on never encountering liturgical prayer, never memorizing anything but the Our Father, and now it's harder and harder, on my own as a good Protestant is expected to be in his quiet time, to know how to do this and to do it well. But I need it. I need to praise God whether I feel like it or not, bring my loved ones to Him whether I really believe He will act in their lives or not, confess my sins when I'm arrogant enough to think they haven't been all that bad. And I need prayers that I can rely on when my own words fail me . . .

There's no special point to this rambling, I suppose. Just thoughts that dog me and a desire to say them and hope that in the saying maybe I will find more courage and more discipline to act as I believe would help me. I wish to observe Lent in some meaningful way this year. Perhaps I can somehow make the discipline of prayer a part of that.

Just Musing

A friend of mine, a high school teacher, wrote about a student needing to look up a word. She sent him to the library's print dictionary. When he opened it, she said that he stood staring, almost reverently, for a few seconds and then, in hushed tones, said, "There are so many of them!"

I laughed heartily, but it gave me pause. I grew up using print dictionaries, of course, and always found them fascinating, word lover that I am. Every time I needed a definition or a spelling, I was reminded of the huge numbers of words I didn't know, the amazing potential of the English language.

But today -- you just get on the web, look up the word in question at dictionary.com, and see . . . that word only, at most a couple more forms or similar spellings. No mysterious unknown words surround it to entice the eye and mind; no sense of how many words there are. We have reduced our sense of wonder and the potential to stretch our horizons.

The online thesaurus is as bad, really. You find a few more words there, a little more potential to become intrigued and follow the trail of this word, and then that one, and then another -- but still the actual number of words seen at any one moment is extremely limited. And the one niggling my mind, refusing to come forward, never does seem to be in the limited list, though I find it so often in the print thesaurus, over there on the facing page at the top, in a slightly different category . . .

Yes, yes, yes, benefits come from technology. I weary of saying this; anyone who knows me in the least knows that I joyfully benefit from many forms of technology every day. But there are losses with every new technology that comes our way, and someone ought to point this out -- and I do not think these losses are always merely acceptable trade-offs. We have more speed and convenience -- and so often lose wonder and mystery and a sense of awe.

And we lose even a clear sense of how the world works, sometimes, without any actual gains that I can see. Take digital clocks. All you see on a digital clock is this one exact moment, then another single exact moment, then another. There is no sense of the cycle of time with a digital clock. Sure, it's a mite easier to read a series of numbers than a dial face -- but does the series of numbers give a sense of the reality of time, that it circles from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day?

Where I teach there are digital clocks on the classroom walls. I hate them. I have to have my traditional dial-face watch to get through the hour. With a dial face, I have only to glance at it to see the hands and know how much time I have left. I don't need to know the time; I only need to see the minute hand just past the seven to know that I have a bit less than fifteen minutes left before class ends. I see the whole hour at once and know where within that hour I am; past and present and future all reveal themselves to me in that one quick glance.

But that digital clock tells me nothing of the time passed or the time left. It only tells me what this present exact moment is, forcing me to consciously process the time left. It says 9:36:41 (42,43,44,45 . . .), and how many minutes is that, what portion of an hour, until 9:50? Have I grown a bit more used to them over time? Of course -- but what is the cost to those who have known only the digital clock? Isn't it a reflection of our modern cultural insistence that the only thing that matters is the present moment? The past is gone and is therefore of no use to us; the future hasn't come and is therefore unimportant. Live for the moment without thought to what brought you to that moment or its influence on future moments.

Thoughtfulness -- that's all I really want. Just because something exists, just because something can be done, doesn't mean it's an unmitigated good. If we were thoughtful, we'd still use most modern technology, but maybe we'd use it better, with attention paid to possible losses, and maybe we'd attempt to mitigate those losses. And maybe there would even be times when we'd say "no, thanks; we don't need that." And that would be a marvel of wisdom.

For the New Year

Mary Oliver quotes this as the epigraph to her collection of poemsThirst:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” (from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers)

May the new year bring us all closer to becoming all flame.

Christmas Stories from NRO

Christmas "Over There"

A soldier remembers Christmas in Iraq

God with Us: A Meditation for Christmas Day

(I don't pretend to have any understanding of transubstantiation, but that's not really the point of the post, as you will see if you read the whole thing.)

The First Enlightenment

A sobering reminder of the way the world tends.

Watching Derek

Not exactly a Christmas story but a lovely reminder of the nature of beauty. If you look up the young man's website, you'll find video of his performances -- amazing.

Merry . . . er . . .

Something to make you laugh, I hope. (If you are one of my liberal friends, this probably doesn't apply to you personally. So I hope you will laugh with me!)

Making Room on Campus

The story of an organization committed to saving babies from abortion -- Room at the Inn

"Beauty, Beauty, Beauty"

Something I wrote a few days ago:

We arrive on the college grounds before dawn, in mist that has required a slow but steady clicking of windshield wipers. Seen from my office suite's third-floor windows, the dark fog clinging to the trees and wavering over the lawn makes the quad appear submerged in a faerie sea. Later, as the sun rises, the fog thickens and whitens. On my way to class, I pause beneath an ancient pine between buildings: five feet away all is blurred, suffused into the mist, while the tree's rough trunk, its nearest branches with their baby cones, the cracks in the sidewalk, the browning of still-green December grass, all sharpen into relief and startle with a vividness lost in the past weeks' dull wintery grays. "Beauty, beauty, beauty." How can I so often find myself believing that God has abandoned this world He creates and loves, or the image-bearers with whom He has peopled it? "The dearest freshness deep down things" is always pressing its way up to prove me wrong.

Success

Success: when your students quote Annie Dillard from memory in class presentations and in spontaneous reflection papers. Yes!

Scars and Destiny

Criminal Minds impressed me yet again last night. Last season ended with a serial killer who had escaped from prison finding Hotch (the team had put him into prison in the first place) and stabbing him multiple times, but deliberately not killing him, even taking him to the hospital emergency room to be treated in time to live. When they found that he had Hayley's address, his intent became clear: his goal was to destroy Hotch by destroying all that he loved. (Hayley was Hotch's estranged wife, whom he still loved deeply, and who had custody of their young son, Jack.) So Hayley and Jack were sent into protective custody, unable to have any contact with Hotch.

So this season they've been hunting the killer while dealing with other cases, and finally the killer, in the last episode, found Hayley's FBI protection agent, tortured him, got Hayley's phone number from his phone, and left him to die after calling her and telling her that her agent and Hotch were dead, he was her new agent, and she needed to meet him at her old home so he could take her to a new safe house.

Hotch is talking to her on the phone (the killer, to further his mental torture of both of them, calls him after getting control of Hayley and Jack), and tells her to be strong, not to let the killer make her beg, and so on, then tells Jack that he needs to "help Daddy with the case," code for hiding in a trunk near Hotch's desk. Hayley holds up her courage to avoid distressing Jack into giving away or leaving his hiding place, and Hotch (along with the rest of the team, patched into his phone) hears the two gunshots that kill her. He arrives in time to save Jack, and Morgan, arriving with the team shortly after him, has to pull him off the killer as he continues to pound his face in fury and in terror -- if he stops, and the killer is not dead, he could still harm Jack.

In this week's episode, the team was called away after Hayley's funeral to a case in Nashville. Before they go, Rossi talks with Hotch about his future: will he continue with the BAU, resign, what? It seems clear that he needs to continue using his gift by "catching the bad guys," as Rossi says, but he is broken and scarred, both literally and figuratively. Rossi, without pressuring him in either direction, says to him, "Scars remind us where we've been; they don't have to dictate where we're going." Later, when Hotch indicates his feeling of helplessness before single fatherhood, Rossi says, "You need to decide what kind of father you want to be, then you'll know what to do."

The episode takes us back and forth between the team's work and Hotch as he moves into a new home, comforts his son, and tries to understand his next step. One especially poignant scene: Jack is lying on the couch watching a video taken on his recent third birthday, a time Hotch couldn't share with them because they were under protection. Hotch enters the room, watches until the video is coming to a close, then says, "Time for pjs." Jack, staring at his mother and himself blowing kisses to his daddy, says sadly, "I want to wait a little longer for Mommy."

Hotch's big decision now is whether to remain in the BAU. Jack needs him, and he needs his work. Hayley's sister has been helping with Jack and the household work, and she tells Hotch that if he chooses to stay with the Bureau, she will care for Jack when he has to be gone. "Please let me do this," she says, ". . . for Hayley." Finally, the Chief -- who has been trying to get rid of Hotch forever because his skill and ambition pose a threat to her own ambitions -- brings him an offer for retirement with full pension and benefits. She is startled when Hotch asks for time to consider instead of accepting it immediately.

When the team returns to D.C., Rossi finds Hotch at Hayley's grave. He asks, nodding to the grave, "Have you told her yet?" "Told her what?" Hotch replies. "That you aren't leaving the BAU?" "Oh, I don't need to tell her that," Hotch says; "she already knows."

The voice-over at the end is from Emerson: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Scarred and broken people still have the opportunity and the responsibility to live well, to use their gifts in service.

Writing is Survival

Deciding to eat breakfast in the cafeteria today, I caught up Ray Bradury's Zen in the Art of Writing to take with me, as I am teaching Fahrenheit 451 again next semester. The preface reminded me of the need for writers to write: "[W]riting is survival," Bradbury writes. "Any art, any good work, of course, is that."

Restlessness sets in when a writer fails to write for any length of time. And so, a few minutes this morning to exercise the writer's means of knowing the world.

Life is, of course, too busy. Urgency upon urgency demands moment after moment until one's days are filled with a frantic attempt to get it all done while perhaps failing to ever approach the truly important. In light of this reality, Thanksgiving break was a true break for me this year. Tuesday after collecting the last essays due, I went shopping for a turkey and all the "fixins," as my grandmother always said. Wednesday I thought to do some grading but ended up taking off altogether, reading, napping, surfing my favorite websites to catch up on the reflections of writers I've come to know and appreciate. The Young Man had declared his intention to cook for the holiday meal, so I took the turkey from the fridge before I went to bed so it would finish thawing overnight and went to sleep without a thought to the next day's work.

I woke Thanksgiving morning to the enticing odors of cornbread, sauteeing onion and celery, pumpkin pie -- and the lovely feeling that there was no rush ahead of me. It was only the three of us; we could eat any time. I ensconced myself in the living room LazyBoy with my laptop and notes for the online course I'm designing, dispensed a bit of requested advice about the cranberry-apple dessert, and got a couple of hours of relaxed work done. Once the dessert was out of the oven, I did my bit -- put the turkey in and washed and sliced the sweet potatoes to boil and mash just before time to eat. The next four hours I worked a bit, watched UP and cried like a baby -- and simply relaxed. Dinner was a delight (except for the occasional infelicity resulting from my failure to be a sufficient civilizing influence on my barbarians' dinner conversation), the men cleaned up the kitchen, and I got some more work done during the evening after a nap.

Friday was another lovely day, waking when I was ready, working on the online course, napping, a trip downtown to the antique store where K. bought me a set of rings (finally I can wear a wedding band that fits again!) and a necklace, Thanksgiving leftovers. Saturday was more of a strain, simply because commenting on freshman essays took longer than I had anticipated. But Sunday morning I was able to finish them, and, surprisingly, completed the advanced comp essays before dinner time with the evening to work on the online course again.

Five days, almost all my planned work completed, and completely relaxed except for a panicked hour Saturday evening when I knew I wouldn't finish the freshman essays and despaired of having time for any rest on Sunday. But the rest was provided, the panic unnecessary.

The details aren't what's important, of course. It was the taste of a few days of the way I think life should be. Accomplishing work but without the constant sense of harried desperation that permeates our culture. Resting without a frantic need to do something and the sense of real leisure for reflection. Surely this is something, however remotely, like what we were designed for?

Last night, K. took me out for a hamburger after work. As we walked to the car from the restaurant, I looked into cold and threatening clouds, darkening into late evening, to be greeted with the nearly full moon faithfully lighting the sky. Hope to hold on to.

It is Good to Give Thanks

Today was our Thanksgiving chapel. Psalm 145 was the text we followed, and several people shared meditations on various sections of the chapter, with songs between the meditations. It was most well-organized and edifying. I had been asked to do a meditation on verses 13-16. Much of what follows has been gleaned from other Inscapes posts, but some is new and all edited for today. It is indeed good to meditate on the lovingkindness of the Lord.

Psalm 145:13b-16

"The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.
 The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.
 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.
 You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing."

It is all too easy to look about this broken world and despair. Where is the Lord? How is His faithfulness and kindness displayed when all around we see the horrors of war and famine and poverty; families devastated by divorce and abuse; illness and death robbing us of those we love; unborn babies ripped from the womb. And too often weariness sets in and makes all the foolish little everyday annoyances seem almost unbearable as well – the printer that won’t work, a thoughtlessly flippant word, piled-up traffic making us late to an appointment.

I am far too prone to focus on the brokenness that surrounds me, to succumb to irritation that sees only imperfections in myself and others. And then God hands me a gem of joy, a reminder that love and beauty and kindness are all around me even in the midst of the brokenness of this world we've tried so hard to destroy. There is still "the dearest freshness deep down things" and God keeps bringing beauty to the surface to delight my heart, if I will be still long enough to see.

A few gems I’ve been given over the last couple of years, that come immediately to mind:

A music CD from an old friend, an office mate from graduate school, whom I haven't talked to in years but who knew I’d like the music and the message.

A decorated balloon tied to my office door, bouncing a cheery face up and down in greeting from a beloved student.

News that my oldest son was returning from his latest six-month deployment in Afghanistan.

Simple Christmas lights in someone's yard -- cheery color leaping out from the gloom of a foggy evening to lift the spirit.

Notes of thanks and encouragement from former students that make it possible to keep going when weariness threatens to overwhelm my sense of duty.

A trip to Knoxville that cemented an already lovely friendship as my writer friend and I shared our passion for books and for family and for the God who has made our love strong and true.

A birthday lunch at Red Lobster, a necklace to match my anniversary earrings, conversation both funny and serious – a relaxing and enjoyable day with my beloved husband of 35 years.

A hand-painted ceramic unicorn whose rainbow colors will forever remind me of a young woman who entered my life unexpectedly to become a cherished treasure.

A cup of hot tea and a shoulder to cry on from a former student become a colleague and now a dear friend and confidant.

Precious hugs and teasing laughter from my youngest, so close to leaving home, giving me memories to light my heart on the days to come when the house will be at times all too quiet.

* * * * * * *

Oh, yes, the brokenness is here, it surrounds us and we have to be blind to deny its devastation in our lives. Even our “happy endings” in this world – graduation, marriage, retirement – will always be tinged with some edge of sadness.

And yet – there is an ultimate happy ending where all tears, all sorrow will be washed away forever, and even now “the Holy Ghost over the bent / World bends with [. . ] bright wings.” In light of this, I desire to seek out, to learn to recognize, the gems of joy that strew my path, and dance in the delight of His always-giving, ever-faithful love.

Rally in Ohio for Rifqa Bary

Please join in prayer those in Ohio rallying today for the civil rights of our sister in the Lord Rifqa Bary. Pray that those in authority will act on their responsibility to protect this young girl who is in mortal danger from those who despise her and wish to see her dead because she has chosen Christ over Mohammed. Pray that the Lord will be glorified in Rifqa’s life and that she will find comfort and strength in the Lord whom she has come to love.

Veteran's Day

Here is a reprint of a column by war reporter Ernie Pyle, which first appeared in 1955:

What is a Vet?

Read it and thank a veteran today.

Pray for Rifqa Bary

I copied this from my friend Lydia McGrew's FB status:

"Praying for Rifqa Bary, Christian convert from Islam. Now returned to Ohio, to foster care; doesn't look good. Ohio judge has ordered her held incommunicado: No phone or Internet. Cut off from Christian friends and Christian lawyer. A real danger of being returned to her parents and dragged to Sri Lanka to be (parents' quote) 'dealt with.' Jesus said he will never leave nor forsake his own. May Rifqa be very conscious of that now."

Please, please pray for Rifqa to have the comfort of the Lord she has sacrificed so much for, and that He will release her from the martyrdom that begins to look inevitable. No matter what happens, may she stand firm in His love and power, and may He be mightily glorified in her. She is, remember, 17 years old and facing possible torture and execution for her faith.

More Gems of Joy

The last two weeks have held sweet moments of offered love, from the blessings of sunshine and moonlight after weeks of dreary weather to the kindness of friends and family. Phoebe's brilliant white glow has reminded me of beauty again and, a friendly muse this week, even seems to have wakened the ability to put a few words on paper.

Former students have sent notes of thanks and encouragement -- these make it possible to keep going when weariness threatens to overwhelm one's sense of duty. It is always such a delight to hear their stories and know that, however little real influence one might have had, there has been the privilege to watch them grow in their love for the Lord and their pursuit of Him in their journey.

A trip to Knoxville cemented an already lovely friendship as Marcy and I shared our love for books and for family and for the God who has made that friendship strong and true.

My birthday was during fall break, and my sweet husband took me to Chattanooga for lunch at Red Lobster and some window shopping at the mall. We looked at diamond pendants and Vera Bradley totes and came home empty-handed -- we needed to process the diamond information and the bag I wanted was too expensive.

This past week dear Monika came to see me, a box in hand, saying that when she saw the object it contained she knew it was for me. And I lifted out a ceramic unicorn, which she had painted herself in rainbow colors that will lighten my spirit each time I look up to see him.

And a birthday check came from my mother, so we went back to Chattanooga today. I found the tote I wanted, and we found the best deal of any we'd seen the week before for a sparkling diamond pendant (my birthday present for the rest of my life, I'm assured -- and that's fine with me!) which complements my earrings, an anniversary gift several years ago.

Gems of joy, reminders that love and beauty and kindness are all around me even in the midst of the brokenness of this world we've tried so hard to destroy. There is still "freshness deep down" and God keeps bringing it to the surface to delight our hearts, if we will be still long enough to see.

On The End of Suffering

"How I will cherish you then, you grief-torn nights!

Had I only received you, inconsolable sisters,

on more abject knees, only buried myself with more abandon

in your loosened hair. How we waste our afflictions!

We study them, stare out beyond them into bleak continuance,

hoping to glimpse some end. Whereas they’re really

our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one

of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only

season —: they’re site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode."

This is a passage from a new translation of Rilke’s poetry, which Mike Potemra posted this morning at The Corner at NRO. It reminded me of the last line of Scott Cairns’ meditation The End of Suffering: “May our afflictions be few, but may we learn not to squander them.”

Scott graciously sent me The End of Suffering when he read a post in which I’d quoted one of his poems. I’ve been taking my time reading through it and savoring both the style (a poet writing reflective prose: only the poetry itself can be better) and the thought. For the most part, it didn’t hold a great many new-to-me thoughts about suffering – I’ve filled the margins with names of other writers and thinkers his words bring to mind – but his unique approach and stories challenged me to think deeply again, to revisit the subject thoughtfully, to re-see it and be encouraged to press on in my own trials. The Eastern Orthodox vocabulary and perspective deepened my thinking, and the final chapter offers a discussion of wholeness that fascinates me – that was new.

The title is of course a play on words. Someday our sufferings will end – “every tear shall be dried” – but until then we need to understand the end – the purpose – of suffering. Suffering is inevitable, and Cairns reminds us that one of its immediate purposes is to “drag us – more or less kicking – into a fresh and vivid awareness that we are not in control of our circumstances, that we are not quite whole [. . .] .” This in turn leads (or can lead) to the stripping away of self so that we can have fellowship with God – our purpose as created beings.

Cairns writes of the need to rid ourselves of pride, of that modern curse of “self-esteem,” and how suffering, if we respond wisely to it, helps us to do this by bringing us face-to-face with our own weakness and sin: writing of people he has known for whom this was true when they were diagnosed with a terminal disease, he says, ‘It was as if their imminent deaths freed them from petty, distracted lives and freed them into greater, genuine living [. . .] .”

Suffering, Cairns says, “may also provide to us a glimpse of what actual virtue might require.” He writes of how we are united to the body of Christ, and the sacrifices and blessings of understanding what that unity means as we learn to love one another as He loves us. Drawing on his pilgrimages to Mount Athos, he describes how the monks who live there love each other and God, how they take on each other’s sufferings and pray sacrificially for all of us who are struggling together to play our part in this spiritual body – and this is what we are called to in our various places in life.

He writes of how each of us, by virtue of our own sinful nature and actions, is complicit in all the suffering of the world, including the suffering of the innocents. Because no man is an island, as Donne puts it, each individual’s connection to the rest is “absolute.” If an innocent child suffers, it is because “[e]very choice in our lives that separates us from communion with God, and every decision that clouds our awareness of His presence or erodes our relationships with one another has a profound and expanding effect – as the proverbial ripples in a pool.” The striving for autonomy is great evil, and leads to great evil not only for ourselves but for others. Realizing this – taking responsibility for the evil that happens throughout the world – should humble us into a desire to live righteously, to leave sin behind.

But to begin “fixing” this state, it is not enough to merely decide not to sin. “It is not our finally turning away from sin that frees us from sin’s recurrence,” Cairns writes; “rather it is our turning toward Christ – and the mystery of our continuing to turn into Him – that puts sin behind us.” I kept being reminded of Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell, the message of which is essentially that every choice we makes sets us on either the road to heaven or the road to hell – and enough choices in one direction will eventually make the end of that road our inevitable end. “We acquire our salvation through partaking of that body [of Christ]” – we must be a part of the body, the church, making choices to live as a member of the body. I especially love the story Cairns tells of the monk who answered the question “Is Jesus Christ your personal savior?” with a smile and no hesitation: “No, I like to share him.”

Cairns quotes a Russian priest: “’And when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it’ is said of the Church. If we do not feel this, we are not within the Church.” The life of the body of Christ is essential for us to learn to live well, to understand suffering, to share the suffering of others, to know God’s love in fellowship with Him, to reach out to a suffering world. It is only here that we can understand suffering as purposeful – that it is “remedial”; it is “grace.”

And so in one sense we are being saved continually. Cairns writes, “I want to be saved from what passes for myself. This is because what passes for myself does not always feel quite like the self that is framed in the image of God and is thus united with those around me and is, allegedly, growing with them into His likeness.” Amen to that.

The book’s final chapter is one I need to mull over a great deal. It is about becoming whole, the reuniting of nous and kardia – what most of our translations render as mind and heart, but Cairns explains is so much more. I’m not going to pretend to “get” this yet; the phrase he quotes from another writer – “the intellective aptitude of the heart” – intrigues me, but I shall leave it for now simply saying that we must watch and pray, we must suffer in the garden with our suffering Lord, in the journey to wholeness. Perhaps I’ll be able to revisit the concept of wholeness as Cairns develops it here after I’ve had time to begin integrating it into my own thinking.

For my literary friends -- Cairns discusses art earlier in the book and its potentially redemptive purpose for its maker and its receiver, a discussion you will find encouraging and profitable.

Scott sent me this book because I had revealed some of the suffering I happened to be seeing and living. The book has certainly been a strong encouragement to keep going, to remain vulnerable, to embrace the purpose of suffering, for which I am grateful. The act of giving, accompanied with his prayers offered up for this complete stranger, has in itself been a reminder of the purpose of the body to be united in loving each other. He wrote on the title page, “for my sister along the way.” May we all remember that we are brothers and sisters along the way and exercise grace and love, lifting each other up in prayer and practical helps as we seek to learn the lessons of suffering.