tender wisdom…

You see, the big thing for me is to love reality and not live in the imagination, not live in what could have been or what should have been or what can be, and somewhere, to love reality and then discover that God is present.

-jean vanier

jean vanier continues to destroy me. in a very good way. i’ve linked to the previous podcast that speaking of faith did on the l’arche community called brokeness and beauty. if you haven’t listened to that yet, listen now. this one is purely an interview with jean vanier and is so very special. listen if you have the chance.

quote…

“We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. “

— Jean Vanier

prayers from the lake…

Who is that staring at me through all the stars in heaven and all the creatures on earth?

Cover your eyes, stars and creatures; do not look upon my nakedness. Shame torments me enough through my own eyes.

What is there for you to see? A tree of life that has been reduced to a thorn on the road, that pricks both itself and others.

What else-except a heavenly flame immersed in mud, a flame that neither gives light nor goes out?

Plowmen, it is not your plowing that matters but the Lord who watches.

Singers, it is not your singing that matters but the Lord who listens.

Sleepers, it is not your sleeping that matters but the Lord who wakens.

It is not the pools of water in the rocks around the lake that matter but the lake itself.

What is all human time but a wave that moistens the burning sand on the shore, and then regrets that it left the lake, because it has dried up?

O stars and creatures, do not look at me with your eyes but at the Lord. He alone sees. Look at Him and you will see yourselves in your homeland.

What do you see when you look at me? A picture of your exile? A mirror of your fleeting transitoriness?

O Lord, my beautiful veil, embroidered with golden seraphim, drape over my face like a veil over the face of a widow, and collect my tears, in which the sorrow of all Your creatures seethes.

O Lord, my beauty, come and visit me, lest I be ashamed of my nakedness—lest the many thirsty glances that are falling upon me return home thirsty.

-st nikolai

silence…

Worshipfully

the winter night offers its pure cup to heaven.

And I raise my heart, my benighted heart.

Lord my heart, to your emptiness.

But I know you will not answer. You do not exist, my heart’s desire.

I know you are a lie and my lips pray and

my knees. Your large hands are shut,

your large eyes withdrawn from my despair.

I know you are my imagination.

Lord have pity on my hopelessness.

To your silence I must cry.

The winter night offers its pure cup to heaven.

Darkness.

I am here, the other is elsewhere, the silence doesn’t

give

we are unhappy. Satan passes us through his sieve.

We both suffer and there is no road

between us, neither hand nor word.

Only the common night is incommunicable,

we cannot work and love is not possible.

I listen, I am alone and it frightens me.

I hear the sound of her voice, I hear a cry.

I feel a slight wind ruffle my hair,

from the jaws of the Beast, from death, save her.

Again I feel death between my teeth.

My stomach turns, I catch my breath.

Alone in the winepress I trod grapes deliriously

all night from wall to wall, laughing wildly.

will he who made our eyes not see me?

And he who made our ears not hear me?

I know that where sin is great, your mercy is greater

still.

In the hour of the Prince of this world, deliver us

from evil.

- Emile Verhaeren

sadness…

Andrew Wyeth 1917-2009

lament

rainer maria rilke

Everything is far

And long gone by.

I think that the star

Glittering above me

Has been dead for a million years.

I think there were tears

In the car I heard pass

And something terrible was said.

A clock has stopped striking in the house

Across the road…

When did it start?…

I would like to step out of my heart

And go walking beneath the enormous sky.

I would like to pray.

And surely of all the stars that perished

Long ago,

One still exists.

I think i that I know

Which one it is-

Which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,

Stands like a white city…

prayer…

“oh Lord, my God, You will illumine my darkness.”

-st isaac the syrian

the wild geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

by Wendell Berry

the remorseless love of God…

from “courage to pray” by met anthony bloom

“that is the beginning of our cry to God. “Lord make me what I should be, change me whatever the cost.” and when we have said these dangerous words, we should be prepared for God to hear them. and these words of God are dangerous because God’s love is remorseless. God wants our salvation with the determinatiion due to its importance. and God, as the shepherd of hermas says “does not leave us till He has broken our heart and bones.“