It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

...but in battalions

My daughter is being tested for cancer. This is the daughter with the twins, and the miscarriage. The problem is one of a feminine nature, and may very possibly result in a hysterectomy. She's only 24.

Farewell, Cuddles

Our sweet wuddley-bug is leaving us tomorrow. She is seventeen years old, and the last survivor of the menagerie of cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, and assorted rodents and reptiles we had when I was still married and the children were small.

Cuddles went crazy when she was young, and has spent her entire life suffering from what I can only describe as feline agoraphobia and paranoia. She had a litter of kittens, and we gave them away, as one does. But Cuddles somehow took it to heart like no other kitty mother I've ever known, and her poor little mind snapped. It's indescribable how bad I've felt about it for all these years. She's lived in my daughter's room, hiding under the bed all day, every day, except for when someone she trusts is in there with her with the door closed, at which point she'll cautiously come out, eat, use her box, and get some affection. But she is now deteriorating fast, mentally and physically, and my daughter has decided that it will be kindest to let her go peacefully rather than try to eke out a few last weeks or months living in torment and pain.

Back during the time I've described to you before, when I hit bottom and God softened my heart, it was Cuddles who was the catalyst that night. I was keeping her while my daughter was living in the dorm, and I'd go in there once a day or so and just sit on the floor so she wouldn't be alone for a while. One night, as I was holding her, it struck me how much like her I'd become, and I broke down and wept for the first time in decades.

So, Goodbye, sweet kitty. I will miss you so, but I hope to see you in a happier place one day, reunited with your babies and your mind.

Truly my Utmost

"Belief is not an intellectual act; belief is a moral act whereby I deliberately commit myself. Will I dump myself down absolutely on God and transact on what He says? If I will, I shall find I am based on Reality that is as sure as God’s throne.
In preaching the gospel, always push an issue of will. Belief must be the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to persuasive power; a deliberate launching forth on God and on what He says until I am no longer confident in what I have done, I am confident only in God. The hindrance is that I will not trust God, but only my mental understanding. As far as feelings go, I must stake all blindly: I must will to believe, and this can never be done without a violent effort on my part to disassociate myself from my old ways of looking at things, and by putting myself right over on to Him.

Every man is made to reach out beyond his grasp. It is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is a personal one, not an intellectual one. I am introduced into the relationship by the miracle of God and my own will to believe, then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transaction."

-- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" -- Job 13:15

St. Claude de la Colombiere on God's Mercy

"I glorify You in making known how good you are towards sinners, and that your mercy prevails over all malice, that nothing can destroy it, that no matter how many times or how shamefully we fall, or how criminally, a sinner need not be driven to despair of Your pardon...It is in vain that your enemy and mine sets new traps for me every day. He will make me lose everything else before the hope that I have in your mercy." -- St. Claude de la Colombière

Little Women

I'm reading Little Women now. I did Wuthering Heights in the meantime, between this and Jane Eyre, but wasn't impressed enough to write about it. I mean, it was moderately interesting, but I wasn't very moved. Had a hard time caring about any of the characters: they're all pretty horrible people.

I had to struggle through the first couple chapters of Little Women, and I didn't have much hope for it. It just felt overly prim and affected. But now I've just finished reading the part where the neighbor gives Beth the piano, and I lost it. I mean, totally lost it: drool dripping on the ground.

I'd give anything short of my soul to live in a world like that: a world where a man can show love and kindness and receive, in return, gratitude and trust. In the world in which we live, if the old neighbor gentleman gave a young girl living alone with her mother and three sisters a gift like that, he'd be rewarded by gossip and suspicion that he was some kind of creepy pervert, and his life and reputation would be destroyed. And if he tried to apologize and explain to them that he'd meant no harm, he'd be given a restraining order.

Believing the Impossible

Have you ever seen a miracle? Or had a prayer or wish answered after long years of hoping and struggling, wanting to believe that it's going to happen but not really daring to get your hopes up?

There's this weird thing that happens: this thing has been looming over your consciousness for so long, or this assumption has been firmly in place all your life. And then, suddenly, there's the thing, right there, and it's actual reality. And it's sort of anti-climatic. You're like, "Huh. Well, okay then."

My daughter was just talking to me about this with having lost weight. She's been chubby since she was a child, and now she's finally passed that point where she looks completely normal in clothes. It happened to me when I'd been fighting the government for my disability for something like five years, and praying fervently and desperately the whole time. And also, when I saw actual miracles and answered prayers--ones that couldn't be explained away rationally. And spiritual beings. Yeah, literally saw them with my waking eyes. You accept the reality with which you are presented.

So it seems like, once you've experienced this once, or twice, or several times, you'd be always ready to believe for the next one. But for some reason, no. Apparently it's human nature. Look at the Israelites. They saw waters turn to blood, frogs raining from the sky, all the firstborn in the land except their own die in one night, the sea parted, the pillars of cloud and flame moving with them, the rock split and water pouring forth. But still, every time it got a little difficult, they doubted and grumbled and whined.

And I am just as guilty. I've seen all kinds of things in my life: been told by God to pray for things, then watched them happen. Been miraculously healed. Had prayers answered which seemed impossible, after long times of waiting and struggle. Seen God Himself. But still here I am, bitching and moaning, terrified and full of unbelief because the thing which he told me is his will, and is going to happen, seems impossible by human standards. Well, okay. It's impossible. But that doesn't mean God can't do it. He even told me ahead of time that this time was coming, in which I would lose all my hope and everything I was relying upon. But even though I knew that, it still doesn't stop me from falling to hopelessness and despair.

So this is me, professing my faith and trust in God, in spite of the fact that I know it can't happen. But I believe in spite of my unbelief.

This is the point in the story when Sam has to pick up Frodo and carry him, because Frodo has lost all hope and strength, and the will to go on, but knows he has to go on anyway.

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." -- Jesus

Finally got some sleep and, more importantly, some spiritual refreshment. I thought about taking the previous few posts back down, but why try to hide what I've been going through? It's part of the journey, and I may as well be honest about it. So there it is: it's not always neat or pretty to be a human.

Back to War

Just got off the phone with my son, and his orders are confirmed: he's definitely going back to war. This is the son with the baby who was premature a few months ago. It's a good career opportunity: he's going to be deploying with the Special Forces. But it's in a seriously hot zone, and he's got a new family, so it kinda sucks too. He hasn't got travel orders yet, so doesn't know whether he's leaving before Christmas.

I wish I could go instead of him. We were just talking about how there should be a volunteer corps of worthless old men with no point to their lives, whom nobody loves. We could do high-risk missions--get killed, nobody cares, and it'd be doing us a favor.

Sorry, I didn't mean that to come out quite so dark. No sympathy or concern needed: just one of those bad times. Wee hours after no sleep, after days of little sleep and much grief. I can't really say for sure why. I think maybe that the more I open myself up and try to be positive, the further the pendulum swings back to the negative afterward. I'm past pain. I'm past agony. I'm dead inside. I don't know what to do. I don't know anything anymore. I still profess my faith in God, and that he is faithful and true, but I can't say anything beyond that. Lord, help me. Please.

Down to zero sleep. Also having chest pains again, but I'm not going back to the hospital this time. They said my heart is healthy, so it's probably just stress, or grief, or whatever you want to call it. But I don't really care either way. Well, that's not true: I actually wish it would just stop. Honestly, my only concern is what would happen to my cat.

In old novels, people waste away and die from grief and broken heartedness. I wish that really happened. 

I've been reading about people with near-death experiences from suicide, and it seems pretty universal that they all experience either hell or some sort of purgatory. I've never been absolutely convinced of the theology on that point. 

I've lost all hope that my life will ever have any joy or mean anything at all. Forget everything I've ever said about being loving, vulnerable, and courageous: THIS is all it gets you.

Fiona Apple - Every Single Night

Tiny Addison opened her eyes today, and her mother got to hold her for the first time. Thank you for your prayers. And thanks to the Lord, for answering.

The Tree of Life - the Way of Nature and the Way of Grace

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien

Last night was the worst one I've had since the incident with the pain medication that made me suicidal. I dreamed that I was in a house haunted by all kinds of evil spirits, where I had to spend the night being attacked and tormented. Then I woke up (at 3 am) and found that it was true, in a manner of speaking. I awoke full of the most horrible thoughts and feelings, and have been struggling with them all day, with varying degrees of success.

Now it's bedtime again, and I'm dreading going to sleep.

"As far as I am concerned, the greatest suffering is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved."

-- Mother Theresa

Mother Theresa on Love

"Love, to be real, must hurt."

"Jesus, in order to give us the proof of His love, died on the cross.
  A mother, in order to give birth to her baby, has to suffer.
  If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices."

-- Mother Theresa

Well, I've gotten out of going to Kansas for Christmas, but not in a way I would have wished. My son has received orders for deployment. I won't say where, for security reasons, but it's somewhere where people are shooting each other. So all his and his family's plans are cancelled. Such is life in the Army. I hope he gets to at least spend Christmas with his family at home in Hawaii before he leaves.

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if you said a prayer for him.

Foiled Again

So far my plan to avoid all holiday celebrations has not gone well. I got a text from a friend on Thanksgiving, just as I was getting dressed to go hiking, saying that they'd burned their turkey and were going out to a place near me for the Thanksgiving buffet, and wanted me to join them. After some resistance, they talked me into it. It was nice, in a way. But kind of depressing. First time I haven't cooked for Thanksgiving in about 30 years.

Then my daughter announced that she was coming up to celebrate my birthday. So I found something to do at the last minute, and we went to the holiday concert at the symphony and out to dinner at one of my favorite places. It was sweet of her, and of course I was glad to see her. I acted like I enjoyed it, for her sake, but the whole thing really just made me very sad--especially the concert.

My son really wants me to meet them in Kansas for Christmas, and I feel obligated. I do want to see him and the baby, but I just really don't want to go and stir up more sadness. And I know I'm no fun to be around: I don't want to ruin everyone else's holiday. Maybe I'll drive out after Christmas; that way I can sit in here and pretend it's not happening, but still see them.

I think the hardest of all will be Twelfth Night. Don't know how I'm going to get through that one: maybe I'll get hammered.

The Feast of St. Nicholas

Today is St. Nicholas Day. And, incidentally, the anniversary of my birth, making him one of my patrons. (The other being St. Michael. Obviously.)

I feel a close affinity to the good bishop, beyond just having been born on his feast day. He was a defender of women: when a poor father near his home was considering selling his three virgin daughters into prostitution, Nicholas provided dowries for each of them so they could marry honorably. Also, a fierce defender of the truth: at the council of Nicea, he punched Arius, author of the Arian heresy which split the church for centuries, in the head.

St. Nicholas clocking Arius the heretic. Yeah!

When he wasn't beating heretics, he was known as a very kind, devout, humble, and generous man, who always remembered the poor and those in need. I like to think of him as a reminder that one can be a Christian and still be a man.

What I Want

It occurs to me that I haven't really made clear what I have in mind when I talk about you and me. I've spoken of my feelings at great length; but I haven't said much about anything on the concrete side of things. So here it is: this is my wish. I'm not saying that I have our whole future mapped out immovably: just that when I dream, this is what I dream.

I want to marry you. I don't want to waste your time, or dither around, or leave you wondering about "where this is going". Not that it would have to be "let's get married right away". There are obviously many steps we would need to go through to get there. But I want to be clear, that that would be my ultimate intention, if you were willing. I haven't bought a ring. But I've got it picked out.

I want to have children with you. I've seen them in my dreams, and they're beautiful. I want to raise them in the love of God, our family, and the church. I want to home school them together. Between the two of us, we have so much to offer them. The boys would have my strength, and the girls would have your beauty. I could teach them to be courageous, passionate, adventurous, and bold, and you could teach them to be virtuous, self-disciplined, focused, and excellent. And think of how smart they would be--and the talent! A family of musicians, singers, actors, artists, dancers, and writers. Although I do have to confess, there are some lawyers in my family line.

I want to buy a little house, maybe in Staunton. Preferably an old house, maybe one we could fix up together. and furnish it with antiques. With a little garden out back, chickens (in a safe pen I built for you, to keep them from the foxes!), some fruit trees, and maybe near some woods with wild raspberries and a trout stream. I'd sell this place: it's a bit rugged for a wife, and especially for a family. I wasn't planning on getting married when I bought it.

I want you to keep doing what you're doing: you know how I've always supported you. And I would write. I can't promise that I'll ever sell anything, or make any money. But I can promise that, with my muse by my side and my heart made whole, I would do the work. But even if I weren't successful, I've got a guaranteed income of about $50k (that's take-home; it's tax-free). For life. It's not a fortune, but I'm old enough to know how to manage my money, and we could, with good stewardship, be modestly comfortable. I really do believe, though, that something's going to happen with my writing.

I want to wake up every morning, look over at you, and think, "My God." And make sure that you feel loved, cherished, appreciated, protected, and adored every single day of your life. I want to walk up behind you and kiss the back of your neck while you're doing your girl thing in front of the mirror. I want to zip up your dress while you hold your hair out of the way. I want to stand in silent awe and watch you in the kitchen, baking blueberry scones and singing a little song.

I want to say our prayers and devotions every morning together at the breakfast table, and every evening before bed. I want to sit at the dinner table with our children, and listen to all the silly things that they have to say. I want to sit by the fire and read you poetry, while you sew. Or read a book, while you practice. I want our house to be full of music, and singing, and joy. I want a household that doesn't need TV and computer games, but who make our own fun with each other, like people did before electronics. I want a house full of books for all ages, and children who read and love them. I picture the older children reading to the younger ones, and looking out for them.

I want Sunday dinners and holidays with your parents. I want them to be in their grandchildren's lives all the time. I want to spend every Sunday of the rest of my life in my old spot in the front pew, with you and your mom ten feet away where I can hear your beautiful voices, and look over and see the two of you tearing up at the touching parts of the music. And try to hide the fact that I am too.

I want you to be friends with my other kids. Not a stepmother or anything, just a friend. I think you'd like them: they're really awesome people.

I want to surprise you all the time with presents, flowers, and thoughtful little gestures. I want to tell you every day something about how wonderful and beautiful you are.

I want to drive your mom to the doctor when she's ninety, and to get her pills. And then sit and have coffee with her, and talk about both of our favorite subject: you.

I want to have long, meaningful talks with you about everything. I want to stay up too late because we can't get enough, and smile guiltily at each other the next morning, bleary-eyed over coffee. I want to take long walks, sit in cafés, visit museums, attend the theatre, the ballet, the opera. Not as an exercise in "being cultured" but because we both genuinely love them. I want to hold your hand as we both cry over La Traviata or hold our breath during Swan Lake. I want to read books together, and share our thoughts about them.

I want to be in the front row, where you can feel my love and admiration, for every performance. I want to clap the loudest, be the first to stand for the ovation, and make you roll your eyes and smile at the same time, because you think I'm being corny and am completely partial and blinded by love, but you secretly really like it anyway. I want to tell you how great it's going to be when you're worrying and stressing about the thing you've got coming up, and then how proud I am of you when it comes off a spectacular triumph. And maybe buy you something pretty to commemorate your achievement; you know, I've still got the present I bought you that one time, the first time you planned the whole program yourself. And I want you to be the first one to read everything I write.

I want to write you a poem for your seventieth birthday, with my trembling, ancient hands, that tells you that you're just as beautiful to me that day as you were the day I wrote you the first one. And really mean it. And get big, blotchy tear stains on it when I try to read it to you at your birthday dinner, with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren all around. And maybe a little bit of drool. I will, after all, be eighty-seven.

I want to be known as "that sweet old couple" as we walk through the streets of the town where we live, I in my tweed jacket and pipe, and you in your sweater, with your knitting in a bag. I want people to be amazed when they see how I still look at you with so much love in my eyes that they can feel it, even after all those years. I want people to say, "Wow. I wish I could find love like that." And, "How did you two meet?" And I'll say, "Buy the book." Which, by that time, will be a classic, having spent a record length of time on the best-seller list, and then been made into a blockbuster movie.

I want us to be laid side-by-side in the same grave, with one of those double headstones, maybe with two hearts joined by a cross. And I want to wait for you, in heaven (I'm selfishly very glad that I will most likely go first). And, if it is allowed, spend all eternity with you. I know there's not supposed to be any marriage, but we can still spend most of our time together, right?

Well, that's what I want, anyway. Just to let you know.

“Blessed art thou, O God of our fathers,
and blessed is thy name in all generations forever.
Let the heavens and the whole creation bless thee forever.
Thou madest Adam, and for him thou madest his wife Eve
as a helper and support.
And of these two the human race has sprung.
Thou hast said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone;
let us make a helper for him like himself.’
I now take this, my sister, to wife,
not because of lust,
but with sincerity of heart.
Grant that she and I find mercy
and that we may grow old together.”
-- Tobit 8:5-7

Daring to Believe

I've been considering myself and my life, partly in light of what my daughter wrote to me the other day, and also that someone else that same day, very kindly, said to me, "You're my hero, Mike. Not sarcasm." But mostly, I've been thinking about how hard it's been to relate to the rest of the world and most of the people in it. And wondering, "Why?"

And I think that it's because I actually believe. That is, I Believe. I believe the things that most people just wish were true, or wish that they dared to wish were true. The things that fill books, movies, poems, songs, and plays, but that aren't part of most people's daily lives: destiny, true love, heroism, altruism, beauty, truth, virtue, the music of the spheres, angels and demons, powers and principalities, and the things of the spirit. I believe them enough to actually try and live my life by them. And that makes people uncomfortable--scares them, even.

It's not enough for me to just read books about how heroes persevere, or how saints sacrifice, or how the pure in heart find true love. I mean to live it, to the absolute best of my ability and the utmost of my strength. Moses did not create God, nor did Paul create Jesus. Homer did not invent heroism, and Ovid not make up true love. They are real, for those with the courage to reach out and take hold of them--and those are the ones about whom the stories are told to the timid and the weak, who think they are just fairy tales. I don't want to be one of the small-minded inhabitants of the Shire who think there are no such things as dragons or dark lords--I don't want to be a Dursley. I want to be one of the ones who visits elves, fights goblins, talks to dragons, and travels with dwarves. Even if that means I end up being roasted by dragon fire or dragged away into dark chasms that open at the back of caves. So be it.

And so, I guess that makes me "dangerous" and "cracked". But that's ok--because I know what I've seen, and I know that it's real. I can't prove it to you, without you having been there. But I know. I have my moments, in which I struggle with doubt. But so does the hero of every story. (Bilbo wished he was back in his nice Hobbit-hole--not for the last time!)

Did you ever notice that, in the Bible, the cowardly and unbelieving are listed alongside perverts, liars, sorcerers, and murderers as being unworthy to enter the kingdom? Try Rev 21:8, for instance. Think about it. What is the one thing Jesus praised most in the Gospels, and what is the one thing he condemned most harshly and frequently? The answers are faith and unbelief, in case you don't know. And faith is not the intellectual assent to a correct set of beliefs, as so many denominations would have you believe. The Pharisees had correct doctrinal beliefs. So does the Devil (James 2:19). The kind of faith Jesus praises is the kind that leads to action and changed life.

So this is how I will live, or I will not live at all. I tried compromising with practical mediocrity, for a large chunk of my life, and I simply won't do it again. It's Truth or nothing for me. Beauty or nothing. Love or nothing. I choose to believe, and if I'm wrong, I've lashed myself to the mast and I'm going down with the ship.

“Then in the name of Aslan,” said Queen Susan, “if ye will all have it so, let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us.”

"Nothing now remains for us seven but to go back to Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that Aslan sends us."

"I was going to say I wished we'd never come. But I don't, I don't, I don't. Even if we are killed. I'd rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a Bath chair and then die in the end just the same."

-- C.S. Lewis, from The Chronicles of Narnia

Mystical Love and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

I've been thinking about this dilemma I have, that the closer I am to God, the more I feel the agony of unrequited love; and that, whenever I close myself off to the suffering, I experience a separation from his presence.

Here's what I think: I think that, back when he did that thing that changed my heart, what he did was give me a little bit of his heart. And his heart, while full of overflowing divine love and compassion, is also full of unimaginable grief for us, and for all the sin and suffering in the world. And of longing, to be united with us in full communion, and to return at last and claim his bride, whom he won through his own suffering. 

I think that, through this experience, he is giving me a tiny little taste of how he loves us. Infinitesimally small, relative to his own love and pain; but still, almost more than my small strength can bear. Well, more, really, only he sustains me through it with his grace.

This is not something that I've come up with. There's a long history of the theology of and devotion to the Sacred Heart.

The theme of God as bridegroom and lover, and his people as bride and beloved runs throughout the Bible. The first thing that happens in the beginning, after creation, is a marriage, and the last thing that happens at the end, after judgment, is another marriage. God spoke through the prophets to the people of Israel as a husband calling out to a straying wife; the wisest mere human ever to have lived wrote the parabolic form of the love between us and God as a love poem between husband and wife; Jesus himself explicitly spoke of himself as the bridegroom; the apostle commanded husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. 

In other words, he's allowing me to suffer for the one I love as he suffers for us, the ones he loves.

I can see fairly clearly what would be his purpose toward me in doing this: to bring me closer to himself and make me more like him. But I can only hypothesize about how it relates to her. His purpose toward her must be good and not evil--that is theologically imperative. But how, exactly, I don't know for sure. Here's an educated guess, though: Could it be that this is what it's going to take to convince her to finally open herself up to someone? Is, perhaps, seeing that someone loves her enough to go through all this for her what she needs, to be able to trust? Is it that it's going to take someone completely baring every little corner of his heart, to give her the confidence to open up that safe, dark casket she's had hers locked up in for so long, just a little bit?

You may say, "Yes, a husband is supposed to love his wife as Christ love the church. But you're not her husband." That is true. But neither were we his bride yet when he suffered and died for us. Nor when he first called to us in our individual lives. He already loved us first; and even while we resisted and rejected him, he kept loving, kept calling, kept extending the invitation: "Come away, my beloved". And that's all I'm doing: just baring my soul, and saying, I love you. Just you, exactly as you are. No matter what. Will you choose to let me love you?

If I am right, then I thank you, Lord, for allowing me the privilege of sharing in your sufferings. And of doing so for this woman in particular. She is absolutely worth every bit of it. And even if she never chooses to respond, I thank you for allowing me to have known her, and to have seen that such a wondrous and beautiful thing exists upon this earth.

Another Sick Baby

This is Addison. Will you pray for her?

She is my granddaughters' father's sister's daughter. :P  So, my daughter's niece, I guess. She is 8 weeks premature, and it's been touch and go, but she is not doing well today. Also, her mother is suffering complications from a botched delivery.

Mystery Sonata No. 1 - Biber

<sigh>

Another visit with the Lord

I had another visitation. This time, it was when I was asleep--not like the other time when it was...I don't know what to call it: a vision? theophany? epiphany? Anyway, this time I guess it would technically be classified as a dream. But it was still him. "The Lord appeared to him in a dream" is found throughout the Bible. Christ appeared to me in bodily form, very much as we expect him to look: white robe and all that. He put his arms around me, hugged me, and said, "With repentance, even your wrong answers become right." By which, I think he meant something along the lines of, "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose," but specific to me. I've been worrying a lot about what I've written here: did I say too much, or not say enough, or say the wrong thing, or say it at the wrong time?

This is the second time in my life he's appeared to me like that. A long time ago, during a very difficult time in my life, he appeared to me and we walked for some time  through the streets of a beautiful city made of white stone. We talked, but I was not permitted to remember what we talked about when I woke. I think he was putting things into my spirit to help me get through the times ahead, but that my mind wasn't prepared to understand.

Chesterton and Handel

Here's an experiment in finding the Presence of God that you should try: Read G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. Then, while the images of cruel pagan civilizations and demon-gods, and the general darkness of the world before Christ are still fresh in your mind, sit down and listen to the complete Messiah. Do nothing else: just close your eyes and listen, and meditate on what you're hearing and what you've been reading.

A Glimpse of Aslan's Country

Further up and further in....