"with the thanksgiving breath"

O cry created as the bow of sin
Is drawn across our trembling violin.
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.
O law drummed out by hearts against the still
Long winter of our intellectual will.
That what has been may never be again.
O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath
Of convalescents on the shores of death.
O bless the freedom that you never chose.
O trumpets that unguarded children blow
About the fortress of their inner foe.
O wear your tribulation like a rose.

This was a verse I heard sung on Friday.  It is from a work by Benjamin Britten entitled Hymn to St. Cecilia, and the words are by British poet W. H. Auden.   It speaks of that which is beautiful, sorrowful, fragile and strong, intangible and yet resonate.  It is poignant in its understanding of fallen humanity.  This theme is one common in the arts, and one we would do well to grasp.  Or perhaps we all grasp as much of it as we can handle at a given time, and that is enough.  For do you not think that in understanding the sorrow of man we can better grasp the depths of the love of God?

Hope: Willard refutes the disconnect between life and faith

I've been reading The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard, and thought I'd share a few enlightening things I've read so far. These are things that I tend to think, "of course that's part of our faith and church!", but find that even in my own thinking I am not always where I expect to be. That may sound confusing, but perhaps as you read on you'll see what I mean.


What exactly is the central message of the gospel?
Many Christians would begin with John 3:16, and by saying that God, in his infinite love and mercy saved us from the punishment our sins deserve through the death of Jesus Christ, defeating death allowing us to have eternal life. This is true, yet Willard suggests that our focus on eternal life after death really misunderstands Jesus' main message and leads to a kind of hopelessness about how we are to live now.

"When we examine the broad spectrum of Christian proclamation and practice, we see that the only thing made essential on the right wing of theology is forgiveness of the individual's sins. On the left is removal of social or structural evils. ... Transformation of life and character is no part of the redemptive message. Moment-to-moment human reality in its depths is not the arena of faith and eternal living" (41)

Willard translates John 3:16 as follows:

God's care for humanity was so great that he sent his unique Son among us, so that those who count on him might not lead a futile and failing existence, but have the undying life of God himself (1)

Eternal, or "the undying life of God himself", life begins now. Christ healing and touching us, working in our everyday lives.

The Kingdom of Heaven
Sometimes when I'm reading I get really excited. I sense that I am finally going to have an important question I've been wondering about answered. This was the case when I read this:

The phrase kingdom of the heavens occurs thirty-two times in Matthew's Gospel and never again in the New Testament. By contrast, the phrase kingdom of God occurs only five times in that Gospel but is the usual term used in the remainder of the New Testament. What is the significance this variation in terminology? (73)

Willard devotes many pages to this, but the gist of what he is saying is this: the world translated "heavens" meant, in the context of both the old and new testaments, the space where God is. Importantly, this was considered to be the "air or atmosphere which surrounds your body" (67). "The heavens" are not far away, neither in time nor space. They are here and now. (This is really hard for me to explain in a few words; you should either read the book or talk more with me later!) When Jesus said "the kingdom of heaven is at hand", he did not mean that it was arriving soon or in the future. God is in this very real world he has created, and offers to us the possibility of living in this heavenly reality.

To more clearly answer the above quotation:

Matthew, the quintessentially Judaic Gospel, as a matter of course utilizes the phrase he kingdom of the heavens to describe God's rule, or "kingdom". It captures that rich heritage of the Jewish experience of the nearness of God that is so largely lost to the contemporary mind. (73)

The Brilliance of Jesus
I will close by leaving you to meditate on the brilliance of Jesus. Willard cautions that "The world has succeeded in opposing intelligence to goodness" (135) This discourages our faith, and doesn't really make sense. As Willard writes,

Can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what we take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived? (94)

I've been reflecting on this, because as Willard also says, "It is not possible to trust Jesus, or anyone else, in matters where we do not believe him to be competent" (94)

Human

Lately I've been feeling, somehow more poignantly than usual, so human. The mental, physical, emotional, and even spiritual exhaustion brought about by daily life reminds me just how limited I am. And yet - the shape of branches against sky, the colour of the hills, the smell of damp earth - these little things fill me with such delight that their superposition against the ordinary greys of life in February only serves to increase my wonder at their beauty. As I try to make decisions, The decision-making required of me makes the unknown future loom large while simultaneously I feel deeply how insignificant each choice, even my life, really is.

More than all these things, however, it is people that make me feel human. The heartfelt conversation, the shared experiences, those flashes of time when self becomes less important than that person you are with. It is people, who live and who die around me, who show me the complexity of life and who shape who I am. It is also people that allow me to see how self-absorbed I really am; I see both how I don't love them as I am loved and as I expect them to love me. Or, even more, my low expectations for others and myself, standing in relief against longings of what should be, reveal that we humans are not living in the best way. And I am just as human as everyone else.

Last night I was guided once again by the wisdom of the writer of the Litany of Penitence, which includes the prayer: "My anger at my own frustration ... I confess to you, Lord" It is so easy to become frustrated with our humanity. I think this frustration is one of the painful parts of growing, but let us not stop there. Another prayer from the daily liturgy I use resonated with me this week:

O Almighty God, who pours out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and supplication: Deliver me, when I draw near to you, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind, that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer acknowledges that very human ability to be distracted and distant without being overcome by it. This is tremendously encouraging. It brings me back once again to the fact that our Savior was incarnate, and he too experienced the intense joys and frustrations of being human. I will press to know this Lord deeper, for in Him, I believe, lies the ability to live joyfully in our humanity.