pictures forthcoming (don’t you hate those blogger-promises? so trite.) as soon as i’m back from luray and the land of light and glowing green and imitation mountains.

Perspective required drove her down the path,
Eager what each new turn would reveal.
She was yearning on tiptoe for glances of glory untold;
In trepidation’s firm step, she danced forward.
Words enchanted, beauty sung bright, but
It was the words “Thy will” and “All things”
That opened those doors and lent strength
To knees weak in time past and self’s sustaining alone.
“Hold fast,” she whispered, and her voice
Fell quiet amongst the brilliant clamor she found.
“I can’t” soon gave way to “His will”
As weakness enfolded self in a shroud of humbling.
Inability and failing hard press, flanked by pride’s hot tears—
Weakness reveals glory on cold stones; bare feet
And lifted hands cross the curtain’s tattered shape.
Redeemer faithful washes with love and wakes song again.
“I know not the way” gives over to “I know my Guide”
In moments burning away dross as rising walls
Of demands and surrender loom high o’er head.
Quietness lent strength on those cold stones.
Sister spoke of pure communion, made holy by song
And weariness was shaken in fellowship’s light,
Flaming out on cold stones and quick-played keys.
Moments burned into memory, and the Savior came nigh.
Surrender is made real in reverent song;
Hands held open, lifted high. “If it’s His will,
He’ll do it His way” rang out o’er and o’er.
Eyes fixed high turn bright with tears, hungering for holiness.
Perspective required was the goal,
Until a heavenly sight claimed her heart,
Lending more than promised or hoped.
Beauty made alive by hymn and song
Joined with Redemption’s child to make Him bright.

Fingers open, outstretched in supplication’s posture
Leave the hope in offering cords
Suspended above desire or will.
Moments of unknowing frequent 
This heart’s tremulous offering, but
Faith requires all devotion girded by
Action, sustained in utter surrender—all that I am.
Maybe, maybe, this will be a season’s unfolding
Or yet another unraveling, dross burning away
In denial’s fire at the altar called “His will.” 
Wait, Child. Love all requires of you, and know
It may be given away or slain in a moment’s breath—
The knowing is not near enough yet to see.
Open hands, rest the full heart in eternity’s side;
For supplication nothing else could sustain.
What He dictates deviates not from paths of
Goodness and mercy, guarding from devious
Entanglements laid from around and within.
Wisdom veils her bright eyes, time presses, breathes
Heavily in moments full of maybe’s coy smirks.
When shall the two intersect? Here, now, not yet, never? 
“Peace. Be still. Oh, you of little faith!
Love’s scarred hands withhold no good thing from His own.”
Decisions made in coffee mugs bear out providence
Breaking indecision and unknowing—soon, soon.
Fatherlove incises with wisdom’s knife,
Humility wakes and tremblingly trusts;
Surrender’s cause righteousness supports
And quietness follows in strength. 
Confidence falters in man’s court;
But transcendent principles make strong 
Hearts’ quaking hesitancy.
Unknowing sometimes is the unbeing of pride
Grace will follow here as well.
“All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

“His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepherd would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?” -Passion and Purity

They rumble, clutter, swirl
In wearying commotion
Over each hidden perversion;
Each referenced image unfurls,
Bursting out in verbose commotion.
 
Laughter glib, “Read it again!”
Peals out, leaping to tales of old
Devoured, retold. Here the world falls
Into an order most right
And love of tales charts another
In the current of words.
 
Meaning unveiled dazzles
Green eyes, might truth and order
Yet be found haunting stories?
Yes, and ideas, too. But
The abrupt mutilation in the
Grown ups’ games frighten dewy eyes.
 
Mildewy words and crossed angles
Of ideas stifle, stunt.
Multitudes of empty words
Are all they have, young faithful.
The riot, the clamor over
Sin reinvented is all they can say.
 
Their phallic images and women—
Women abused, and children
Unincarnate are all they
Know in the wasteland where
Easter and a Child never dawned.
 
He is the Word and the words
Are His; fear not the yowling
Of the hollow men here.
This clutter hides but will not rob
The story of the Word alive.
 
If you write, be not too clever.
For the clamor of fools follows
The witty in ordered chaos.
A gentle word from the mundane
Still demands pondering
In the stillness, between pages.

Sometimes, I write letters. Sometimes, I send them. And sometimes, they are too weighty to be sent–someone might get hurt lifting them in transport, you see. So I keep them. 

His yoke is easy and His burden is light; He is the Word. And words are weighty things, being dusty mirror-tools given to the image-bearers to play with in their imitations of the Maker, scattering light or blinding and burning depending on the use. They are almost too much for us to bear and like the rest of it all must be redeemed to be light.

So why do I still play with them? For the extravagance of the weight of glory, I think, and the whispers of Him in them.

Yeats’ “Second Coming” and Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” echo in my head and I’m musing again.

Redemption persists, however. It’s far, far brighter and stronger–but you have to fix your eyes on the Light.