Head-dibs

  Whoever said, “love is a many splendored thing” summed it best (I think it was Shakespeare, but I could not find it). So much to be said about love that will not be rehearsed here, except to say that when you love someone who will not love you back is . . . I can’t find a word for it. Those who truly love, that is, reciprocate love, don’t have to meet. Love is there by trust. But there are those who do not trust and so they do not love. Does that mean I must cease to love because someone will not love me in return? That would be selfish, and that would not be love. When love is withdrawn or love becomes duty, everything changes. True lovers need not see each other every day.    They just love, knowing. No work involved. Love is not earned. It is given and received. “It does not seek its own.” Those who withdraw love have forgotten what it is. They say, in effect, “I cannot overlook your faults though I expect you to overlook mine.” Love does not rejoice in what is wrong...

  This time of year one might be inclined to say “frightful.“ We live in an age when every single weather report seems loaded with more negativity than positivity. The forecasters say we need more rain and we need more sun. We can’t wait for warmer temperatures but it’s too hot and can’t wait till it cools off. Opinions about the weather spin like a weathervane in a tornado. If I were to choose a word about the weather I choose the word “fascinating.” Hans Christian Anderson said, “The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.” Our weather is miraculous. Farmers work with it while the traveler plans against it. The blinding brightness of day is quenched with the turning of the earth, plunging us into smothering darkness in a handful of hours. The air heats and cools so drastically we sometimes heat ourselves at night and cool ourselves at day. Those clouds that block the sun are weighted with millions of gallons of water, untold th...

 Idea for a new blog series a-brewing. Stay tuned!

 

 

  After binge watching every episode of “Call The Midwife” on Netflix, I remembered a book by Jack London that I read in high school. I feel a bit foolish taking so long to remember it, but I’m very glad I did. I found a copy in the public domain by going to Amazon and then searched the book by title + “free kindle.”   For many people, just hearing the name Jack London invokes images of his two most well-known stories “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang.” The Cohen brothers did an excellent job capturing his short story, “Valley of Gold,” in the anthology film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” It’s too bad that works such as this one have fallen by the wayside. Though the events of the Jack London’s experience take place 50 years before the TV show, it is been the most educational in getting the full context of what it was like to live in the East End of London. By the end of the seventh chapter, the author has found his way to Poplar, of all places! It is not a difficult or comp...

  “Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time of difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom. God chose the crucible for Abraham, and Abraham made no demur; he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. You must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible you learn to know God better. God is working for His highest ends until His purpose and man’s purpose become one.” (Oswald Chambers) “A soul cannot seek close fellowship with God or attain the abiding consciousness of waiting on Him all the day without an honest and entire surrender to all His will.” (Andrew Murray) Art: Caravaggio, 1598

“ Dry spells are the instrument of God, for your good. Yes, it is true in such times, your five senses have been deprived and all outward progress of outward piety ends. Know this: In such times you are either going to leave off prayer, and perhaps even a large part of your Christian walk, or you will be driven to a comfort which has nothing to do with the outward senses… There is always a veil that comes to us in relationship to times of dryness; it is a time when we do not know what He is doing. If we always knew what His working was (as He works on our outward man and works in our inward man) we would become very presumptuous. We would imagine we were doing quite well if we always knew what He was doing, would we not? We might  even reckon that we had drawn very near to God. Such a conclusion would soon be our undoing. A dependence upon outward circumstances, everything about your spiritual understanding depending on your outward senses all of this must go by the way. How? By dr...

  “I once met an old man who spoke very slowly, pausing for several seconds between his words. He did this because he was afraid to sin with his words. . . A word is an expression of thoughts; thoughts are the expression of divine force. Therefore, words should correspond to our true meaning. Speech can be indifferent, but it should not be an expression of evil.” (Leo Tolstoy)

  “Have we recognized that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, though it is only a tiny bit of our personality, is to be regarded by us as a shrine of the Holy Ghost. He will look after the unconscious part that we know nothing of; but we must see that we guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.” (Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest”) “The Father in heaven is so interested in His child and so longs to have his life in His will and His love at every step that He is willing to keep his guidance in His own hand. He knows that we are unable to do what is holy and heavenly except as He works it in us, so His very demands become promises of what He will do in watching over and leading us all the day. Not only in special difficulties and times of perplexity, but also in the common course of everyday life, we may count upon Him to teach us His way and show us His...

  “The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line.” (Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost For His Highest) “Before you pray, bow quietly before God to remember and realize who He is, how near He is, and how certainly He can and will help. . . . And when you are praying, let there be intervals of silence, reverent stillness of soul, in which you yield yourself to God in case He may desire to teach you or to work in you. Waiting on Him will become the most blessed part of prayer, and the blessing thus obtained will be doubly precious as the fruit of such fellowship with the Holy One.” (Andrew Murray, “Waiting on God”, Fourth Day)

 

  “Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these?”  (Shakespeare, “King Lear” III.IV.35ff)

  Upon that night, when fairies light On Cassilis Downans dance, Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, On sprightly coursers prance; Or for Colean the route is ta'en, Beneath the moon's pale beams; There, up the cove, to stray and rove, Among the rocks and streams To sport that night. Among the bonny winding banks, Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear, Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks, And shook his Carrick spear, Some merry, friendly, country-folks, Together did convene, To burn their nits, and pou their stocks, And haud their Halloween Fu' blithe that night. The lasses feat, and cleanly neat, Mair braw than when they're fine; Their faces blithe, fu' sweetly kythe, Hearts leal, and warm, and kin'; The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs, Weel knotted on their garten, Some unco blate, and some wi' gabs, Gar lasses' hearts gang startin' Whiles fast at night. Then, first and foremost, through the kail, Their stocks maun a' be sought ance; They ...

  “I ventured into the captain’s own private cabin, and took thence the materials with which I write, and have written. I shall from time to time continue this Journal. It is true that I may not find an opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but I will not fall to make the endeavour. At the last moment I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.” (Edgar Allan Poe, “MS. Found In A Bottle”)