Serving in the Divine Light

"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.

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.

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.

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

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.

L'Angelus: Lac Bijou

I am wholly convinced if the world listened to and lived by this song, all of the world's problems would melt away. Then again, I am quite possibly a perennial optimist... or a melancholic who is a lazy perfectionist, a morning person if it weren't for morning. You see, since this song is, by definition, in music form I, a lazy perfectionist, would strive to put it simply to words alone, and still I would be up until morning (coffee-fueled jitters an all) trying to place each musical movement to words. Yet, this is the beauty of music... it means another whole world from one person to the next. It is the universal language.

And the strange thing is... I still try.


L'Angelus - Lac Bijou