"Your word, O Lord, is truth: consecrate us in the truth." - John 17:17b,17a
Are there not days we wonder, "Does the Lord trust me too much?" Well, can He trust too much? No, for with trust, there is grace, and with grace there is much mercy, and with mercy there is much love—with much love, there truth rests.
Monday had startled me, immediately being thrust into an ongoing anxiety. Yet, it is the Lord who trusts imperfect instruments that we are. We can desire to delve deeper, to write more, and to share more, putting to paper with broad strokes of the pen the welling, the throbbing of our hearts. Within these lofty reflections, by God's grace, dwell His love and thus His truth. Yet, we are broken instruments, or, at least, flawed ones. Still, love must win out. We have been told this—no, SHOWN it!
Yes, it is so. He has shown it. Love has shown the Way. What other desirous act or thought should supplant it or surpass it? What human endeavor would increase the worth of life or existence if it was not first imbued with such grace? And these words today, "Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!" What searing words! We must let these words sink into our depths. It is not a competition with the Other. No, we are in competition in service to the Other!
We are a people called to service, to thinking of others more deserving the honor, the glory, the joy. Yet, He does fill our hearts with great joy, if we but let Him in.
We must let this golden light stream in each day, especially at the close. With our hearts open to this light, how can we not ourselves radiate this same joy to and for others? We are called to do it, and He himself has done it. He has promised it, if we but enter faithfully into this work.
Tuesday began a series of deepening introspection which gave even greater depth to this continuing gift of prayer and presence of the Beloved. He still trusts though imperfection. Through this imperfect response of ours, He trusts. This he does in a manifold series of ways, some more perceptible to our human eye or ear and others more sublimely.
One for me, as of late, are the dreamlike notes of the second movement of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. They continue to resonate with me like a dream and, yet, here I am. It is no dream.
Like the Impressionist pieces by Claude Monet, such as the one above,
Towing a Boat, Honfleur (1864), things focus at a distance and lose clarity up close. It is the paradox of the long distance view of joy. Pain seeps in as though points and sharp strokes of paint, yet the joyous picture is completed at a harmonious distance.
That is what I dwell upon recalling this week and the amber-lit evenings, as the sun drenched the church in those beautifully warm hues. I could not leave the place where I first beheld the beauty of the week nor the reminder of the Beloved as evening fell each day before the Presence of the Lord.
It felt as though the sunset of Creation, that dusk to darkness before the next day, the Renewal of our hearts before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. As every sunset shines, whether painted or seen, it shines back to the deathless sunset of the One who is our Light. We are called to reflect it.
