In Pursuit Of Self

"From the rising of the sun to its setting The name of the Lord is to be praised." ~ psalm 113:3

When I was a little girl, I was the center of my small universe. I have the distinct memory of riding home from  lake Sherando- I guess I was about four years old or so- looking out the window of the unusually quiet car, staring at the moon. Every time we turned, the moon seemed to follow us. The faster we went, the moon kept the pace.

"Mommy!," I remember excitedly whispering," The moon is following me..."
Now that I have my own children, and I know a little about the so-called psychological development of children, I realize that this "egocentric" view of the world is a "normal" stage of development in a child's life.

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And, of course, we hope to pass through this self-centered phase, as remaining the center of one's own existence is certainly not the foundation of maturity. Have you ever met an adult who still thinks that life should center around him or her? We all have moments of self-god, but hopefully it's not the norm.

There is one area of our lives, however, where it would be good to see ourselves in the center, in focus. As I took my walk yesterday, the sun seemed to follow me. I was once again that child in the car, small and stilled...to think that the sun follows me. It was not the arrogance of self being glorified. It was the humility, the awe of a child, that such grandeur would pursue nothingness. That though I am not worthy, He gifts me every day in innumerable abundance.

That it doesn't matter  how good I am, or what I do, or how I look. That it doesn't matter what my house looks like, or how my kids turn out, or what a mess my life is. That perfection is not the prerequisite. He pursues me because he loves me. He Loves me. Is there really anything more than this?

Every day God pours his very life out for us. Every morning we must commit ourselves to sharing in his love. Loving God isn't about being good; loving God is about becoming a receptacle of his grace by choosing Him above all else.

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve."~ Joshua 24:15

Every morning, every moment, I make that choice. Loving God isn't about me; I am only able to respond to Him, to be filled with love, because He first calls me. And when I respond to that call, when I choose to serve Him above all, I love Him in a way that completes self: self in the center, self radiating out, self widening circles that unleash His love to others.

Invitation To Love
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene'er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd'ning cherry.
Come when the year's first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter's drifting snows,
And you are welcome, welcome.

A Beautiful Blessing

A Traditional Irish Blessing

My wish for you:

I wish you not a path devoid of clouds, nor a life on a bed of roses,
Not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.
No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed and chasms are to be crossed,
When hope can scarce shine through.
That every gift God gave you might grow with you
and let you give your gift of joy to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend who is worth that name,
whom you can trust and who helps you in times of sadness,
Who will defy the storms of daily life at your side.
One more wish I have for you:
That in every hour of joy and pain you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you and for all who care for you.
This is my hope for you now and forever.
-- anonymous Irish blessing

Lessons From Zumba And A Beautiful Poem

Photo Credit : Ben Smithdeal

Would you believe that an old prude like me had my first Zumba class tonight?  Boy, did I feel like an elephant with two left feet. I can't imagine how I looked (Don't worry-no pictures of that!)
I had the time of my life!! It was like a giant dance party, and as clumsy as I was, the instructor and the great group of ladies there made me feel perfectly fine.

Along with my early rising regime, I'm making a big push to drop some pounds. I don't know where,
when, or how it all happened- I used to be a twig of a thing-but somehow the weight crept on. I am watching carefully what I eat and exercising every day.

 I keep thinking of the encouragement the instructor gave us panting Zumbans (?) One thing she said was :
"Just do your own thing if you need to. It doesn't matter what you do AS LONG AS YOU KEEP MOVING! Just keep Moving!"

Isn't that a great life message? Baby steps, leaps, twirls, gallops, inches, miles, micrometers....It doesn't matter....AS LONG AS WE KEEP MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!

self portrait by Ben Smithdeal

As we were leaving the class, I noticed a little pile of give away books. I found a small book that contains one poem.  It is so lovely that  I have posted it here on my blog. It is quite long; you may want to print it up and read it when you have a quiet moment. I also discovered that the poem is in The Harp And Laurel  Wreath  poetry anthology by Laura Berquist.The poem describes how we flee Christ when we most need his love:


The Hound Of Heaven  by Francis Thomson

I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated
Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears
From those strong feet that followed, followed after
But with unhurrying chase and unperturbe d pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat, and a Voice beat,
More instant than the feet:
All things betray thee who betrayest me.

I pleaded, outlaw--wise by many a hearted casement,
curtained red, trellised with inter-twining charities,
For though I knew His love who followed,
Yet was I sore adread, lest having Him,
I should have nought beside.
But if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of his approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clange d bars,
Fretted to dulcet jars and silvern chatter
The pale ports of the moon.
I said to Dawn --- be sudden, to Eve --- be soon,

With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover.
Float thy vague veil about me lest He see.
I tempted all His servitors but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him, their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue,
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind,
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue,
Or whether, thunder-driven,
They clanged His chariot thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their feet,
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following feet, and a Voice above their beat:
Nought shelters thee who wilt not shelter Me.

I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of Man or Maid.
But still within the little childrens' eyes
Seems something, something that replies,
They at least are for me, surely for me.
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair,
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
Come then, ye other children, Nature's
Share with me, said I, your delicate fellowship.
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning with our Lady Mother's vagrant tresses,
Banqueting with her in her wind walled palace,
Underneath her azured dai:s,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice, lucent weeping out of the dayspring.

So it was done.
I in their delicate fellowship was one.
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies,
I knew all the swift importings on the wilful face of skies,
I knew how the clouds arise,
Spume d of the wild sea-snortings.
All that's born or dies,
Rose and drooped with,
Made them shapers of mine own moods, or wailful, or Divine.
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the Even,
when she lit her glimmering tapers round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
and its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine.
Against the red throb of its sunset heart,
I laid my own to beat
And share commingling heat.


But not by that, by that was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah! we know what each other says,
these things and I; In sound I speak,
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor step-dame, cannot slake my drouth.
Let her, if she would owe me
Drop yon blue-bosomed veil of sky
And show me the breasts o' her tenderness.
Never did any milk of hers once bless my thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase, with unperturbe d pace
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
And past those noise d feet, a Voice comes yet more fleet:
Lo, nought contentst thee who content'st nought Me.
Naked, I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke. My harness, piece by piece,
thou'st hewn from me
And smitten me to my knee,
I am defenceless, utterly.
I slept methinks, and awoke.
And slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours,
and pulled my life upon me.
Grimed with smears,
I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years--
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst like sunstarts on a stream.
Yeah, faileth now even dream the dreamer
and the lute, the lutanist.
Even the linked fantasies in whose blossomy twist,
I swung the Earth, a trinket at my wrist,
Have yielded, cords of all too weak account,
For Earth, with heavy grief so overplussed.
Ah! is thy Love indeed a weed,
albeit an Amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must, Designer Infinite,
Ah! must thou char the wood 'ere thou canst limn with it ?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust.
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver upon the sighful branches of my
mind.

Such is. What is to be ?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds,
Yet ever and anon, a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity.
Those shaken mists a space unsettle,
Then round the half-glimpse d turrets, slowly wash again.
But not 'ere Him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal; Cypress crowned.
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether Man's Heart or Life it be that yield thee harvest,
Must thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death ?

Now of that long pursuit,
Comes at hand the bruit.
That Voice is round me like a bursting Sea:
And is thy Earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me.
Strange, piteous, futile thing;
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of Naught (He said).
And human love needs human meriting ---
How hast thou merited,
Of all Man's clotted clay, the dingiest clot.
Alack! Thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art.
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save me, save only me?
All which I took from thee, I did'st but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy childs mistake fancies as lost,
I have stored for thee at Home.
Rise, clasp my hand, and come.
Halts by me that Footfall.
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
Ah, Fondest, Blindest, Weakest,
I am He whom thou seekest.
Thou dravest Love from thee who dravest Me.

photo credit: Ben Smithdeal

photo credit: Ben Smithdeal

Solitude

In the stillness, in the quiet, I am who I want to be.
simple, thoughtful, moved, one, daring, bold, free, fragile, alive, vast, whole
For one moment, a poet
For one moment, an artist
For one moment,
Sheltered

The Bright Field

by R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying


on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.



And here is the book where I read this beautiful poem:

                                        

One Moment

I felt life breathe today~green, fresh, vibrant, undying~



 She will not "go gentle  into that good night"(click here to read the poem)
She will cling to what is hers
She is still becoming



 still pulsing, still singing,




 still flowering, still giving
delicate abundance





  She weaves a bower of beauty for us to behold

Her gentle arms embrace me for one moment

peace.

Mary Margaret led me into the garden today to discover the Mustard greens and Romaine lettuce that had replanted itself from the Spring growing season. We even found a bit of Arugula. Do you know what an Arugula flower looks like? It's the flower in the fourth picture down. I was awed by the life abounding in what looks from the distance to be a has-been ,withered, used-up garden. There is always life to be found; that life is the pulsating of God all through His marvelous creation.

Industry

Their little hands had been busy all afternoon...

Mama's hands were busy, too...

Mama and children were pleased with the results:

Treasures were discovered on Mama's bookshelf:

Wisdom passed down through the ages

Was this prophetic writing? How relevant these words are to us today!

I want to feel the poetry of beauty.

"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart." ~ Helen Keller

Barter
by Sara Teasdale


Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been and could be.