Into Thy Light

Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come; Jesus I come.Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
-William Sleeper 

I drove into the light after such a day where I wept,
it seemed, at every turn;
half a tank of gas to be anointed with a balm of peace.
694 was never so sweet, except this moment.
His light, which shone in setting sun
echoed in the words he sang to me.
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A day of grief, heaviness
sorrows rose and trouble rolled
taking on another's burdens
(as my burdens were taken too)
and truly burdened,
weeping,
interceding,
without words
and with words, claiming Jesus' Peace
and Light
against the Evil Power.

I do not say this lightly,
but I see a miracle
in her rising.
I see a hopeless daughter, tossed by anxiety
weakened by darkness
burdened by sin.
I asked if I could pray.
"No, I think I have to get off the phone."
Okay, I'm praying for you. Text me in an hour.

In that stone cold sentence, I knew no power in myself to save.
I prayed.
I cried.
Then others joined, and prayed. (Which was beautiful in and of itself, Thank You Father).

And, an answer.
She said "I am feeling a bit better. Are you up to driving?"
YES. Yes. yes.
In an hour's time.
A weeping breakdown later,
after kneeling in a gravel parking lot,
as songs drifted from the stone arched window,
a broken soul crying for a broken soul
a merciful, gracious, unspeakable kind Creator
unleashing Power.
--------------
A day where goodbyes pressed in,
sweet and bitter.
One expectant and departing; may you Call her there.
One dear family sent for the Name; Amen.
-----------------
A day where I saw a Lion and a Root,
a Fountain and a Well,
in a room of Saints who sang to tell
each other and themselves:
of this hope
of this Name
of this Living Breathing Life
Who Shines like the Sun
Who cuts like a Knife.

Reading Lolita...Favorite Quotes

I finally conquered Reading Lolita in Tehran this summer. It was fun to read a novel full of rich sights and smells- Persian tea and Pistachios- as well as a writer who so loves to read. You experienced life with her, the tortuous decision to leave her home, how she survived the war, how she lives now. You saw James and Austen through new eyes- through her eyes. Here are some of my favorite quotes. 

P. 317 ch 19
There is a term in Persian, “the patient stone,” which is often used in times of anxiety and turbulence. Supposedly, a person pours out all his troubles and woes into the stone. It will listen and absorb his pains and secrets, and this way he will be cured. Sometimes the stone can no longer endure its burden and then it bursts. My magician was not my “patient stone,” although he never told his own story- he claimed people were not interested in that. Yet he spent sleepless nights listening to and absorbing others’ troubles and woes, and to me his advice was that I should leave: leave and write my own story and teach my own class.

P. 325 last para
Other people’s sorrows and joys have a way of reminding us of our own; we partly empathize the with them because we as ourselves: what about me? What does that say about my life, my pains, my anguish? For us, Nassrin’s departure entailed a genuine concern for her, and anxieties and hopes for her new life. We also, for the moment at least, were shocked by the pain of missing her, of envision the class without her. But in the end we finally turned back towards ourselves, remembering our won hopes and anxieties in light of her decision to leave. 

P. 5, 4^th para
There was one more: Nassrin. She is not in the photographs-she didn’t make it to the end. Yet my tale would be incomplete without those who could not or did not remain with us. Their absences persist, like an acute pain that seems to have no physical source. This is Tehran for me: its absences were more real than its presences.

P. 135, para 4
As for the book, she had nothing more to say in its defense. The novel was its own defense. Perhaps we had a few things to learn from it, from Mr. Fitzgerald. She had not learned from reading it that adultery was good or that we should all become shysters. Did people all go on strike or head west after reading Steinbeck? Did they all go whaling after reading Melville? Are people not a little more complex than that? And are revolutionaries devoid of personal feelings and emotions? Do they never fall in love, or enjoy beauty? This is an amazing book, she said quietly. It teaches you to value your dreams but to be wary of them also, to look for integrity in unusual places. Anyway, she enjoyed reading it, and that counts too, can’t you see?

P. 145, 4^th para
Until then home had been amorphous and elusive: it presented itself in tantalizing glimpses, with the impersonal familiarity of old family photographs. But all of these feelings belong to the past. Home was constantly changing before my eyes. I had a feeling that day that I was losing something, that I was mourning a death that had not yet occurred. I felt as if all things personal were being crushed like small wildflowers to make way for a more ornate garden, where everything would be tame and organized. I had never felt this sense of loss when it was a student in the states. IN tall those years, my yearning was tied to the certainty that home was mine for the having, that I could go back anytime I washed. It was not until I reached home that I realized the true meaning of exile. As I walked those dearly beloved, dearly remembered streets, I felt I was squashing the memories that lay underfoot.

P. 219, para 3
The other quotation from James on the pink index card records his reachiton to the death of Rupert Brooke, the beautiful young English poet who died of blood poisoning during the war. “I confess that I have no philosophy, nor piety, nor patience, no art of reflection,” he wrote, “no theory of compensation to meet things so hideous, so cruel, and so mad, they are just unspeakably horrible and irremediable to me and I stare at them with angry and almost blighted eyes.”

Grief and Ground

Cold and hopeless now
Bones in the ground
Bones in the ground

He no longer feels the sweat on his brow
Bones in the ground
Bones in the ground

In the soil he loved when he lived and breathed
Bones in the ground
Bones in the ground
            ---
He is gone, and I grieve.
Just having known him, I was touched.
I sit cross-legged on the living room carpet and

We utter prayers
to a God we say we know.

Do they pray, too? Saying "he is at rest now. he is at peace."
With all assurances in their minds
of their god's universal offering of eternal life.


Did he repent and call on your Son
Only Savior, the beautiful sun?
Oh Lord, my heart grieves for Bud and family.
I pray for your power to be revealed in this passing.
Your eternal life-giving, dead raising power,
born of your suffering.
So unlike our suffering.
So freely chosen.
Oh Lord, may your Name be exalted through me and through this I pray.
In Jesus' name.


Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV)

This. Is. Not. Okay.

I stumbled upon an ironical article on Relevant (9 Quick Ways to Get Depressed). Quite amusing, I chuckled. Until I got to number 6.

"Become a Cynic: Start to believe the following things: people don’t change, life generally sucks and avoiding pain is more important than risking love." -Nicole Uncie

Wait, that sounds a little close to home. 

That sounds a little...like me. 

I never would have put myself in this category. I'm a sanguine optimist! I have a rosy-colored view of the past. I forgive and forget. I have hope in God. Until now, I guess. I look around...

People I love are sick. And suffering. 

People I know are dying.  In hospice. Suffering.

People I respected and cared for are gone. Eternally. Suffering.

It's external, and it's internal.

I am broken. I am hurtful to others: impatient and stubborn and harsh. I think the worst. I judge. I compare. The list goes on. 

And it does, really, suck. And it's not okay. And I can't fix it. 

But I can cry out tonight. Lord, do what only You can do.
-------------------------------------------

I don't want to ride on somebody else's passion
I don't want to find that I am just dry bones
I want to burn with unquenchable fire
deep down inside, see it coming alive 

Help me find my own flame
Help me find my own fire
I want the real thing
I want Your burning Desire

In my heart tonight, do what only you can do
In my heart tonight, do what only you can do

Why wait for tomorrow, when I can have you today?
When I can have the change....

Change me by Your beauty God
Change me by Your beauty God

Help me find my own flame.

-Will Reagan and United Pursuit Band

 

First love

God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.
-C.S. Lewis

Great Relisher

What I know of spirit is astir
in the world.
The god I have always expected
to appear at the wood's edge, beckoning,
I have always expected to be
a great relisher of this world, its good
grown immortal in his mind.

-Wendell Berry, The Mad Farmer Poems

This path of love

Love,
made on the kitchen table
across with eyes, fountains to
empty pitchers,
lies and jars of pennies.
Such is the family heritage.

I admit, I am one
capable and culpable,
I give up and in
and go.

This pursuit of happiness
in the Driftless region
of agnostic hypocrites
such a harmonious cacophony.
It's electric.

Now I wait for a penman
from the Red Cedar River,

I wait for the Man
of God to enter
again
into this Tapestry
and complete the loose ends fraying
and batten down the hatches blowing
and rescue mind from Satan's plaguing
and until then,
counting it all joy;

He is singing, strumming, loving
over us, over us.