A Shepherd's Chorus

On holy ground we trod...
Glory be to Him Who Is, to our living God.
Will His grace come down again this morn,
This day when He, the Christ child, was born?

Will His grace come to us and visit us this day?
Heaven come down upon us, descend down to us,
Cover us in the grace to stay
For us this Christmas Day.

Manger-born, lowly-lived,
More than this, more is He than this...

A King in squalor
Raised up with selfless valor
For Love, a babe, is born unto us,
Love, our Love, He—Christ Jesus!

Good Christian men, join in!
With all voices begin
The Chorus to end all choruses then...

Join with us, the Praises now;
Join with us, as zeal allows!
Christ is born, Christ the King!

All glory now be;
All glory now rest!
Christ is near; Christ is here!
Christ be forever blest!

Dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham,
Houston, Texas, December 25, 2012.

To the One Whom Heaven Has Hidden

To the One whom Heaven has hidden... What glorious vision,
He for whom Time obeys and space diminish!
Sight remains obscured and the distance hidden,
This the Royal Road He hath given!

Speak of the one whom You have held from me, O Gracious One...
Speak of her as radiance that reflects the Light of Your Son!

Love, O Love, won't thou speak of the Other and in us indwell
Love's Spirit, and in all the tyrant temporal tempests quell.
O Love come now to us and dwell!

Make of us a shelter to weather the storm,
Out of the dust and air to form
Us in your likeness and to us transform,
That which is Love Outpoured.

Come to us, O Love in hiding...
Give us the grace to trust Your timing.

Tota Pulchra Es: The Virgin's Example

Love requires action, and thus sacrifice, at the very least to prove that our faith is not dead, to provide the fruits of the hope of what is to come in the Vineyard when the Springtime comes and the Wedding Feast is upon us. The action is but a kiss of truth to the beautiful words: "I love you."

Without the fruits that follow, the words are but bitter fruits not yet ripened for the harvest and are best disregarded until the maturation process has begun. Love, like new wine, cannot bear itself from unripened fruits. Even when borne the process takes years to age a wine or mature a love that is not easily forgotten or is utterly praiseworthy.

We must say yes to the love that abides, not because it depends on us, but rather, because it depends and begins with Him who is.

What better earthly example of these gifts put into action than our Blessed Mother, the Virgin conceived without Original Sin? Why should we limit those whom God so richly blesses? Is it a matter of Scripture? Who is this is so "Full of Grace?" And why? Because of her merits? Hardly! However, for God's own plan and desires has she been made spotless and yet still complete in free will! Why denigrate the mother of our Lord and Savior? Why is there no reverence at the gift of His mother to the Beloved Disciple? Are we not called to be the Beloved Disciple, too? Are we not to take her into our homes?

Can we live a life of love in action, not simply of movement but also contemplation, to the love that has been so richly poured out to us that we, even in graced moments, cannot fully fathom here during our limited time on Earth with our limited purview?

Even the most graced souls, as it was with our Blessed Mother, did not have full view of God's plan and yet, in Mary's example of her fiat, proclaimed in her graced words, "Be it done unto me according to thy word" (cf. Luke 1:38). It was Simeon who foretold that a sword would pierce her heart for the sorrow to be experienced and so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (cf. Luke 2:35-36). We must share in that sweet burden if those thoughts are to be revealed.

We are called to be faithful and fruitful in whatever we do, so that His glory may be shown through us, not for our own sake but for His glory. With this simple truth in mind, let us unite our prayers with those of our Mother in gentleness and kindness, that God's mercy and love will endure through our many faults. Let us love with the Heart of Mary the Sacred Heart of Christ, who bears all things for He, in union with Father and the Holy Spirit, is Love made manifest.

Let us rest in this ineffable truth, this beauty too wonderful for words and, like our Blessed Mother's example, let us treasure all these things and ponder them in our hearts (cf. Luke 2:19).

The Marks of Love: Fruit That Remains

It is into the final hours of the day, the deepest recesses of the mind that one reaches... as set upon the shores of an Eternal sunset, as slumber sets into sight.

All the desires, the deepest dreams of the heart bear out to the Creator from the Created... as a whisper into the cold, dark night.

Love has its end, not in the take, but the give. Therein is the wellspring of every dream, of every request: to see his Maker, to make his redress.

But to the human heart there is more: to love whom Love has given, to give to whom one has striven... To confess of all the hopes and desires and the dreams on the one whom Love has blessed.

The heart requires both the Creator and the Other. It requires the Triune Love of the Other with the Divine.

Love does not die out; Love does not return to the Creator without first bearing fruit. And with that Love, it is fruit that remains. It does not die on the Vine.

Love bears it all into one, for the endurance of the Spirit is greater than the failures of the flesh and the weakness to believe not the Truth in Love and the Love in Truth.

The rejection does nothing to mute the Truth, nor does it demur the ardor of the Love. It is still the same; it is still the Faith confessed.

Love presses onward undeterred, without ceasing. The chorus of the divine music of the heart resounds again and again: "Perfect love casts out fear."

Love never ceases.

To All Whom Sleep Doth Possess

To all whom sleep doth possess,
May all honor and glory in the Christ believed
Be now at once seen, and all with one voice confess
That Christ is King and reigneth over the See Eternal
With one voice in compact unity and share the Kingdom Blessed.

To all whom labors doth distress,
May all glory in the Royal Road trod be seen,
That Christ's road is ours now, too, in our egress,
And the joy of following the Master on the Way
Be at once made sweet and sorrowful in times of duress.

To all in the Holy Train, to all who Confess...
Join us here below, in our thoughts and in our prayer,
Join us in the dying of the night and the rising of day,
That with newness of heart we purge all that would keep us away
From that Communion in the Sacred Heart of Him who is,
Who was, and who will be ever be, One God Living and True.
To Him be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

In Memoriam Benita Eggemeyer Bankston, October 30, AD 2012.

Walsingham Way: Our Lady of Walsingham & Mary's Dowry

How does one enter into a people's spirituality? Is it something to be grasped? Can it be designed, manufactured, or even laid as one does stonework? Or rather, is it like all greatness, chiseled out of the rock, to resemble the masterpiece that was beneath the rock face all along?

Certainly a personal spirituality is not limited to one's person at all, even though it is personal. It cannot be, especially for the Christian. It is corporate. It is meant to be shared, not placed under the proverbial bushel basket. It is part of a greater body, as St. Paul wrote. And so, yes, one can enter into a people's spirituality.

I believe it to be important to recognize this point, even—or rather—especially in the quieter moments for the contemplative reflects into the active moments. It is important because we are not islands unto oneself, with our own spirituality or our own beliefs. We are part of the great Body that is meant—and is designed in our very being—and most optimally—to be transformative.

And yet I can claim to have discovered a people's spirituality laid deep beneath a spiritual rock face that is being, day by day, recovered from beneath—a masterpiece to be revealed once more for and by the people within Holy Mother Church. It is a personal discovery that continues to shape outside of the personal and into the corporate, into the very Body of Christ and into the personal of countless others. It is not the stirring of my own act but rather a cooperation with my own into and of the greater Spirit at work and of Our Lord and Our Lady. It is a witnessing to those acts brought about by their work and Our Lady's intercession.

And so the transformative begins.

My experience with this renewal of spirituality—and its implicit marks of the Church—began on All Saints Day in 2010. This great solemnity is as great a day to demarcate a new beginning, especially for one from New Orleans, but it was unplanned and fortuitously blind as could be expected from the mundane exercise of scheduling and execution of a plan for attending Mass for All Saints Day on a Monday evening in the Catholic Church here in the United States when the obligation of such a Mass is removed for the Faithful, a happy fault that should gain me such a blessing!

I was led with great curiosity, as I am prone to do, to wander—and thus, wonder—upon the Anglican Use parish (now Principle Church of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter) of Our Lady of Walsingham. On that faithful day in 2010 began a personal unearthing of the Spirit alive within the Church and those coming into the Church that continues to this day.

I recall those first two weekend Mass homilies that followed by the retired Fathers Noble—as they have said, "Noble by name, not by birth." I especially recall the first homily of theirs on the "Seven Words." As it went, there are four words you do not want to hear and three you do. The four being "You are under arrest," and the three being "I love you." And with those seven words, Fr. Bruce Noble began an exhortation onto the following the life of St. Thomas More, a dear saint to my heart. It was indeed spiritual kindling for the fire within. And though Fr. David Noble has passed, it brings great strength to those first days of discovery until now.

As so it has continued until now this past week, with the new rector, Father Charles Hough IV's homily on the weekend preceding the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was cause for great celebration in the first year of the new Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter created by Pope Benedict XVI and has also spurred this post forward though her feast day has come and passed on September 24th. For it was with the medieval noblewoman Richeldis de Faverches that Our Lady appeared in 1061 A.D. and gave instructions for a replica of the Holy House at Nazareth to be built there in the tiny hamlet of Walsingham. It was a standing testament of the Faith of the people of the British Isles and for hundreds of years hundreds of thousands made pilgrimage to that Holy House to recall that domesticity of the faith enkindled there, first with the Annunciation.

It was indeed with one holy "yes" that faith continued to be rekindled by the Faithful in movement towards that holy "yes." And then, there was nothing... If we are so to believe history, as Henry VIII and the English Reformation brought them into fire and destruction in 1538, most violently. Said of the images of Our Lady of Walsingham by one Hugh Latimer:

"She hath been the Devil's instrument, I fear, to bring many to eternal fire; now she herself with her older sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ipswich, and their two sisters of Doncaster and Penrhys will make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning."

Further more approved and executed:

"It was the month of July, the images of Our Lady of Walsingham and Ipswich were brought up to London with all the jewels that hung around them, at the King's commandment, and divers other images, both in England and Wales, that were used for common pilgrimage ... and they were burnt at Chelsea by my Lord Privy Seal"

And so it was, the place of pilgrimage of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Holy House were no more than ruins and a distant memory for centuries until both the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics renewed, first with the re-establishment of the 14th Century Slipper Chapel in Walsingham in 1897 and the recognition of the pre-Reformation pilgrimage by the Anglican Father Alfred Hope Patten SSC in the 1920s, even down to a replication of the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham based off her image in the medieval priory seal.

And so it was and is, a death knell at first appearance but a rebirth in the latter. And so it continues, as is witnessed both there in England and here in the States, as the movement of hearts back towards unity and away from division continues. It is said that England is Mary's Dowry, referred to both by the English from medieval times during the times of Henry V and then given papal recognition by Pope Leo XIII in 1893. Even so, the Faith remains strong, for it so.

For in Houston, of all cities, lies this new shrine for the Faithful here in the States to aid in that spiritual pilgrimage back into the Faith fully, and to aid those within the Faith a place of respite and hospitality to those sojourners on the journey of life on the Way. For as was related to me in this beautiful unfurling of the Faithful banner to Him, the most important route in all of medieval London—Walsingham Way. And so it is now, renewed, the Walsingham Way.

Faith Exposed

What wave is this? This that shoals the ship upon that bar of disbelief? What is this, that snuffs light from its presence?

Return to that which strengthens and to that which binds... "That I may be humble when face to face with you, but brave toward you when absent."

Are not the words of then, so also now? And what of this indescribable gift to which, ascribed to God and not to man, is not now once made live and present? Speak, O Incarnate Word!

We do not boast beyond measure, in or of the works of others that have so labor'd. But in that which increases what has already been given and takes from whom much already has been taken.

And so what foolishness would it be, that search for Truth and that search for Wisdom, if it were one led by darkness to darkness. Rather, it is Light.

What we battle is not according to the flesh; our weapons for "our battle are not of flesh but are enormously powerful." No, not a fortress could stand, nor an army could fight.

What has been written cannot be unwritten, and what has been given cannot be taken back. The Word has already spoken.

No, as He said: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."


Cf. 2 Corinthians 9-12

The Active and the Contemplative

I rest on the active in the contemplative and the contemplative in the active. O, this state of melancholy! The rest one gains in this state is one of exhaustion of day and not the release of it. I know not if to figure it to be grace or vice—only that both the active and the contemplative verily exists and are present within this state throughout.

Moving to to the active in the contemplative, is it to be a combustion, an undying fire of devotion? How can the active, that thing which is pent up as bound energy, be expected to remain as full as it was when it was first received and then given as it is meant to be have been now?

How can we not have some loss of this fervor? It must be then with a Eucharistic Heart that we press on in both the contemplative and the active! It must be through a completely thankful heart, a heart full of thanksgiving that we can be both active and contemplative. It is with a heart full of thanksgiving that we can respond to, even stave off, the unpurposed sadness of melancholy and turn it into something more.

What next then? What do we do with this knowledge? We serve. How do we serve? With thanksgiving for His Love, for His Gift—timeless and unrepeatable—yet present in the Eucharist. It is here that the nexus of the active and the contemplative rests. It is the crossing of the two, and it is the stage of our lives. We live out the Eucharist by living out His Love.

And so His Love is this: selfless in its pursuit, relentless in its opportunities, shameless in its multitude of gifts, endless in its joy and fulfillment it brings.

Let us be One with this dynamic love. Let us live out His Love. Let us be One.

Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness.
Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Our God is in heaven and does whatever he wills.
...
May you be blessed by the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to the children of Adam.
The dead do not praise the Lord, not all those go down into silence.
It is we who bless the Lord, both now and forever.
Hallelujah! - Psalm 115:1-3, 15-18

Building Upon Grace

Continuing our last conversation on being Rooted in Love...

Within all the clamor of the desire for action and movement of grace is need for the heart to first contemplate it. There one stands amid one's larger journey of faith and of love. One cannot grow disappointed in its timing—the action—if one doesn't first rest in the contemplation of Christ and His love. The remainder outside of this is dross and complete loss if not for the contemplation of Christ.

This clamor becomes a business that is not close to peace if it is not first peace in Christ. So it is with one's daily interaction and with one's daily work. There is no sanctification of the Ordinary without the Extraordinary nor process of growth without first growth and sanctification in Christ.

It is here in this very point that one's work takes meaning and one's work takes concrete shape. Life is worth living precisely because there is distinct purpose. If we are to see beyond the temporal of the here and now, we are to search out for the Truth that is not far away, yet it is that very Truth that remains ever the more in our midst.

This uncommon sense is not all that uncommon; more so, it is sense that is rarely seen for what it is—grace. The promptings of the Spirit fall into this column of distinction, and so it all deserves one's attention and prompt response in kind.

So then all we are left with then to respond to these glorious promptings of grace on Our Lord's part is to do the very thing I have opened upon and thus rested upon—to act with grace and to follow the promptings of the Risen Lord to completion.

It is not the velocity of the movement in response to this grace we should concern ourselves with, but rather it should be the resting on the place in which Our Lord has placed us to act on His love! Deo Gratias!

Rooted in Love

How is the Domestic Church to be built? How are the Living Stones of it to be built? How can we ignore this necessity in the present day? How can we not see its need?

I pray for the clarity of this point, and in this point that I too may make this plunge into the Deep. No, the jump is not soon for myself. The Truth doesn't change with the delay of timing—it remains Truth. Truth remains timeless as does Love because both are one in the same.

It is because both Truth and Love is at its heart Sacrifice, not vain sacrifice, but rather it must be sacrifice with purpose. Dying to oneself and picking up one's cross is senseless without purpose and so it must be there to be seen and experienced. Purpose must reside where sacrifice and, therefore, where Love and Truth exist. Therefore, the day of the Domestic Church and its fruition of its Holy Desire is to be rooted in love to the sacrifice of the glory of the Lord, in His Sacrifice and His Resurrection.

Where He places each one of us is not our own wills in isolation; it is His will anchored in our individual free will to choose His will for the greater good of our individual souls and the multitude of the souls of others.

I pray for my Beloved for these reasons. I must be purified for the glory of this union that prefigures the one to come in Heaven with Christ the Bridegroom and His Bride, the Church.

My love lifts up his voice, he says to me, "Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come.
For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone.
Flowers are appearing on the earth. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree is forming its first figs and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come." - Song of Songs 2:10-13

Anew has this Springtime come. Time has no place for this new springtime; the prefigurement brings the Reality to come to the very Ground we walk upon. We are on Holy Ground because He has made us and, thus, this ground Holy.

Patience in love endures all things. Love endures all things because He is Love. No tribulation extinguishes love because "perfect love casts out fear." We must remember this Truth. Love find its way. Through all things—Love finds a way.

I pray for the Little Ones for these reasons. We must first be purified for the glory of this gift, this glorious gift, of the blessed union to be. Fatherhood flows from the gift of adopted sonship with the Heavenly Father, Motherhood from the gift of the Fiat to Love Himself. The Little Ones are the glorious gift of this blessed union. They are the fruits of Love. They are the fruits on the Vine.

We are the Vine's branches; the Father is the Vinegrower. As Christ is the Vine and we the Branches, we are to transmit the Holy Faith of Ages Past, the Holy Faith in Christ Jesus. We must be the Vine's branches that unites the Little Ones to Christ and His Church.

We are called to grow the Domestic Church in all Her glory for the Love of Christ. For the Love of Christ, we are given to the Other. Love's fate is to fully give Itself: freely, fully, fruitfully, faithfully. Love must be transmitted for Faith and Hope to even branch out and blossom. Love must come first.

This is the Call—to love, know, and serve the Lord. Too often we get caught up in how, but the most important fact is that we must first be rooted in love. Faith and Hope can only supplement this one virtue, and—in the End—Love is all that remains.

This is where my heart and my prayer rests, for my Beloved and the Little Ones: let us first be radically rooted in love, to Love Himself, and all the rest will be added unto this. To be radical is to be rooted in that which you believe, as the 1350-1400 Middle English word came from the Latin radix, root. Let us be rooted in His love. Let us go to the Root of Love.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another." - John 15:1-17

Being Animated by the Holy Spirit

The greater the gift of self and the desire to give it, the more one wants to be out of the time and space of the moment. We are finite creatures in an infinite universe. Why shouldn't we yearn for this completion?

The trick then turns out to be making the present moment a result of that very desire to give that gift to the fullest. It is here that the motion from the first moment to the subsequent takes place and all is animated. As it is, to be animated is, by its very root, to be indwelled with the Holy Spirit. What more can we pray for? This indwelling lifts the moment from the static page and makes it a motion picture of grace. The moment multiplies. Time now takes shape and even starts to fly. The dimension which was static to the total gift of self becomes a movement along a divinely-willed plane. As it is, our Creator did not want us to be static but rather dynamic.

So when we forget why we are where we are, let us remember that this is only a stage, a place on the dimensional plane, that spans from the finite to the infinite. Our gifts are not wasted if they are being stored as they ought to be for the appointed time and place. Grace can never be wasted, so as long as we cooperate not just in one moment but the trail of moments that follow until the Spirit that dwells within these enfleshed temples of the same Holy Spirit parts with the souls who strive toward that holy desire of greater gift of self. For in the end, that desire that was put on the heart of the soul indwelled at conception will finally see the fullness of the desire complete; it shall see that restless heart's desire consummated. It shall see God face-to-face.

A Letter to One's Beloved

Beloved,

If there were a way to explain myself, my heart, my actions, my feelings, and my thoughts as a man—even then I wouldn't find the love that I long to not only give but also receive. As it were, it would be a love that satisfies.

And yet, I lack ready models—least of all ready human, in-the-flesh models to make it down this vocational road that I have decided to go down. Divorce does that even to the most graced souls.

What I do know, my dear, is that life isn't made to remain in questions and in books. Life isn't theory—it's action. And so the Lord has moved me to act here and now.

First, as a man, I cannot help but to apologize with all my heart and soul for the transgressions of my fellow man to you, dear daughter of God. So quickly do we men forget your royal claim to grace and protection. And still we take advantage of a moment. My dear, I am sorry for the pain caused. You are worth it all.

In all things you are worth the dignity and unconditional love and compassion from me and every man through our words, thoughts, and deeds. And so I'll say it again: you are worth it all.

And so the Lord has moved me to act, not out of lust for my inner most desires and hopes for the future, but rather out of a blind hope in love. I am convinced that is how love starts. No, not the emotion—the action. If love is to exist, a chance of failure must also exist. Not an unrequited attraction, that is separate.

Love must take that chance to exist and so not die out. And so love the action is not tied together with love the emotion. And so I must act.

This all is not to say that I am independent of the need of reassuring affection. I am wholly dependent upon that. It's our Achilles' heel, as it were. But I cannot remain affixed to the consolation for I would forget the Giver of the Gift. It is you; it is of God. It is similar for both.

At the same time the Gift is also a burden—a Cross. The beloved may not love in return. What then would be unconditional love? It cannot have strings attached. It cannot be manipulative. It cannot be lust.

And so I do love you. I love you not because it is easy. No, I love you in spite of the difficulties. I love you not because of the ease of the road but because of its resistance. I love you as He calls me to, because you are His daughter, a woman all-deserving of love and protection.

What shall I do with this infant love then? I have tried to bury it. Out of supposed convenience I've buried it. Out of sickness I buried it. Out of fear I buried it. Nothing should be done out of fear. And so I must act.

This is not how I imagined love. But confidence does not equate to love. No, love must be a gift. And this gift is never wasted.

The infancy of love is something I wish not to unwillingly burden you with. I beg for mercy in learning how to fully love in my vocational path. Forgive my words if they cease in elegance.

I wish and pray only for your understanding and your continued witness to hope. No matter its direction from here, the future depends on love.

"Belief and faith are proved by works, not by simply saying that one believes, but by real actions and a HEART burning with love." - St. John Chrysostom

Shards of Zion

O Love, what shall I speak of you?
A distant dream as sleep enters,
what night holds even in darkness.

Light is your watchword and gift your residing joy.
O Divine Fire, Pillar in the Night,
guide us to your Word, to your morning bright.

Beneath the shade tree, the Sycamore, clings one for the longing of the Lord.
The Road to Zion passes beneath it.

Will a good word go unsaid, a fragrant flower not bloom,
this the Road to Zion?

Climb the mount, dear one, yes, through the Bitter Springs.
Autumn rains await.

Little one, be not afraid for the demands of Faith—Love,
Tranquility Blessed.

The Roads of Zion call to you: Mercy and faithfulness have met;
justice and peace have embraced.

Autumn rains shall come, to wash the blemishes away.
Faithfulness shall spring in our land.

Justice shall gaze from Heaven with love for the little one.
At the gates to the Kingdom, the many Roads of Zion enter through.

Happy is the man who stands at the gateway, his quiver full,
like the warrior and his arrows, with sons of youth.

The Lord builds the house, His house, not in vain.
His quiver is full of sons ready to serve.

His foes will be put to shame, at the gateways of the Lord.
His love will not be put to shame. His love will endure forever.

The gates of Zion call out, O city of God! What glorious things are to come,
at these, the gates of Zion.

Let the voice ring out of the righteous:
"In you, all find their home!"

There David's stock will flower, a light to reveal to the nations,
the glory of the Lord!

There will His glory be known, manifold grace from age to age,
for love covers a multitude of sins.

Inspiration

There are a few ways to view writing and the composition of writing within and, by intimate association, inspiration. Chief among the defining is how to term its creation and placement. One is to term it is a blank slate, where it is all new, nothing to taint the total picture and message within. The second school would be to see it all connected, as life is, with what comes from before it and the influences of the writer. Both are correct in many respects.

First, inspiration isn't simply out of the blue. It is out a multicolored experience that we reach a moment of "Aha!" Secondly, there isn't a time that something else from our past that colors our display, our words, our choices. Life is colored in the past, but the future isn't the past.

Yet, there is something to be said about a "fresh" view. Yet, that view must come from something before it, and if so... purified to its essence, a message required to be proclaimed. Inspiration must be tested but not denied. A gift must be identified before it is known how to be used. So too must inspiration be handled.