O Father Eterne

This summer has been a veritable roller coaster of moods, feelings, and various levels of spiritual fortitude. This summer, for better or worse, has led to a drying of my prayer life, but even it is during these droughts of prayer that even the smallest of prayers do begin to help set into motion the answers that God has already set before us.

Before yesterday morning, I was pretty much just spiritually going through the motions. In a way, I fear this might be a symptom of something to come after graduation next year. It's a major concern that I can find a proper balance with prayer life and work. It took me a while for when it was just classes and prayer life, but now it is an even greater issue because the "safety net" of close friends being around you is gone. And while the Information Age has ushered in a time where connectedness is ever-present, it does not reflect the real thing. There is no substitute for the real thing.

Enter in this weekend. Yesterday I was thinking of the events coming up and clearly in my mind I remembered the summer Aggie Awakening was coming up. I had filed it away before the summer started and thought nothing else of it. However, staffing it is just the jumpstart I need going into the backstretch of the summer. So, I have decided to jump ship from Austin for the weekend to help others find Christ and also try to find Christ in the others along the way. The planning for the trip and the retreat have now engulfed my thoughts and put me in a much better mood—albeit still a sleepy one.

It goes without saying that nowadays if there is a free moment, I have pencil and paper on hand to scribble down words. My lunch break on Tuesday led me to following poem/prayer, which is a simple one but one of my instant favorites.

What I was trying to achieve in the poem in the three major stanzas was to address the overall nature of God's love, the Old Testament era, and then the New Testament era, all the while tying them together to a present-day request (or "call to action"). It is, at the same time, a prayer and a poem, but in a sense it is one for me a request for help in renewing His call to me in my daily vocation. These things are at least what the few stanzas below mean to me. I hope you find them as enlightening and beautiful as I felt them to be.

O Father Eterne

Since time eternal
Has your love been present.
From age to age,
You love has been Heaven-sent.

Your love was there for Abraham
And for Isaac, Samuel, and David, too.
In the Great Flood your mercy was shown
As after forty days the sun broke through.

How merciful is your love, O Father Eterne!
For your compassion do so many still yearn.
It continues to be shown each and every day
Through Your Son who has shown us the Way.

O God so merciful, be with us this very day
As we turn to You in a world that has turned away.