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Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Living witness



The multitudes cannot know the Gospel unless they have a living witness. Merely giving them an explanation will not suffice. The wandering masses of the world must have a demonstration of what to believe they must have a mentor that will stand among them and say ‘follow me I know the way.’

-Robert Coleman.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The Purpose of the Covenant of Two/Mustard Seed Shade

Was quote-hunting and struck by multiple deep and lovey quotes about marriage.

“Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing...” 
― Wendell BerrySex, Economy, Freedom, and Community: Eight Essays

“If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.” 
― Madeleine L'Engle

“What marriage offers - and what fidelity is meant to protect - is the possibility of moments when what we have chosen and what we desire are the same. Such a convergence obviously cannot be continuous. No relationship can continue very long at its highest emotional pitch. But fidelity prepares us for the return of these moments, which give us the highest joy we can know; that of union, communion, atonement (in the root sense of at-one-ment)...To forsake all others does not mean - because it cannot mean - to ignore or neglect all others, to hide or be hidden from all others, or to desire or love no others. To live in marriage is a responsible way to live in sexuality, as to live in a household is a responsible way to live in the world. One cannot enact or fulfill one's love for womankind or mankind, or even for all the women or men to whom one is attracted. If one is to have the power and delight of one's sexuality, then the generality of instinct must be resolved in a responsible relationship to a particular person. Similarly, one cannot live in the world; that is, one cannot become, in the easy, generalizing sense with which the phrase is commonly used, a "world citizen." There can be no such think as a "global village." No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality.
(pg.117-118, "The Body and the Earth")” 
― Wendell BerryThe Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essay

I also found a "essay" I wrote dated 9/9/14. No title. Who was I thinking about? Or was it a dream for myself/dear ones in the future?

            Their family- their marriage- the coming together of those two individuals into a couple has proved to be a bulwark for many. As if the promises that kept them from uprooting from each other grew deep roots and then branches that spread out to shade and shelter. The lonely ones, the orphaned ones- came and found shelter under them. Their commitment to each other invited the trust of the lonely, the isolated. In their love and unity others found strength and belonging. "I will take shelter here," they thought, "under this imperfect roof. They will be for me a home, a resting place, at least for this time."
            It wasn't' that either individual was particularity special. It was that each of them looked beyond their own interests to the cares and needs of others, so their world expanded. It never shrank with their own cares. It was always growing, like that mustard seed tree. It was always spreading, so more birds of the air flocked and landed, flourishing on those branches, in that shade.
            Why is two so much stronger and more stable than one? Trouble shared is trouble halved? The weaker one is made strong? Wisdom and council gained in cooperation? That proverb about being kept warm? Helped? I'm not sure. But here is a cry to the God who created community and family out of his very nature to unfold the riches and beauty of fellowship among his people more and more.



Sunday, June 21, 2015

Solstice Words

Romans 1/Father's Day
I dove above and below, skimming the waters, halfway 
in and out and
I cried out
He's got an exo-skeleton                                     (I will not be ashamed)
               a parched tumor of neglect                   (I will still pray)
               a vacant tare, un-embodied stare          (The righteous shall live)
               a pew bench beat                                 (Revealing faith for faith)
               a scar and an obtuse mouth                  (I am under obligation)
               an itch and a chemical feel                    (Your faith is proclaimed all over)
               a diesel engine procession                    (That we may be mutually encouraged)
               an anger dilemma, wait, it's a dungeon  (That I may reap a harvest) 
               a spelled out fate                                  (Is it too late?)

Thank you/belonging
Clothe me in your love and acceptance- I belong to Abba Father.
A rigorous advocate is the man Christ Jesus, the power of God resting on Him.
Who left his Abba Father to clothe himself, in humility and loneliness.

Thank you for this bitterness.
Thank you for this loneliness. 
Thank you for the unfulfilled yearnings. 
Thank you for the pit of pain and tears.

Thank you for coming, for leaving the Father's right hand, forsaking the glory from time immortal.
Thank you for wondering, your wonder on me.
Thank you for breaking in on bleakness and striving, and mediating a peace that now clothes me.
So clothe me in your love and acceptance- I belong to you, Abba Father. 

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Justice and mercy

“Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.” 
― Wendell Berry

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Go.

Go where your best prayers take you.