Here, here
I’d rather make the gravest of mistakes than surrender my own judgment.
-Cora (The Last of the Mohicans)
Faith and Sight
I believe! Help my unbelief…
The Bells of Christmas Day
Several years after the tragic death of his wife, and during the midst of the civil war in which his oldest son was injured, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat down at his desk on Christmas Day, 1864. He wrote this poem:
Christmas Bells
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night today,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Longfellow knew suffering. After his wife’s death he said he was “inwardly bleeding to death.” At times he questioned his continued sanity. I imagine him sitting at his desk that day, hearing the bells and looking at the brokenness around him.
For a new interpretation of the poem and familiar Christmas Carol, look up Casting Crowns’ “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” For the New Testament scripture that Longfellow was referencing, read Luke 2.
My theology of sleep
...image courtesy of my sister and her roommate.
Remembering me?
Reading Psalm 103 today and wondering: does he really remember my frame? Does he remember that I am dust?
Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.
Job and his friends
Job and his friends hold a special place in my heart. Something about their tedious pontification and God’s eventual response brings me a degree of comfort that few other biblical portraits offer. First of all, it’s just so awkward. Who can’t relate? There they are – trying to figure out why, trying to assign blame… Who is wiser? Who needs to be humbler? Who can speak with authority? No one, says God. Stop! Knowing the way it ends makes my toes curl as I read through all their conversations. I feel embarassed for them. I know that they are me.
Second of all, there’s the happy ever after ending. This sometimes makes me mad. How in the world can God just “make up for it” like that? And, if he can, why in the world won’t he do that for me? Where’s my blessing? And there I go again, sounding like an idiot.
At the end of the day, I admit this: I come down on the wrong side of the whole biblical anecdote. I don’t get Job, who do I really relate to? His friends. Job says “though He slay me, still I will praise Him.” I say things like: What the hell is God thinking? And, even better, more recent, and humbling to see in print: “I just think God is wrong!” Yes, I did say that.
I can’t pretend that I’ve fully repented of that attitude. But I want to! I want to praise God, to tell Him I love him and how wonderful He is, in the middle of my tragedies and pain. This is the kind of trust that saves me. The few times that I have done this, I feel a peace that – as they say – passes understanding.
Where’s my blessing? He’s it.
Puppies and Kids
they do go together, as they say. I’m a pretty big fan of our new pup, Cody. Almost 12 weeks old…
Faith Against Sight
The world has cycles in its course, when all
That once has been, is acted o’er again:-
Not by some fated law, which need appal
Our faith, or binds our deeds as with a chain;
But by men’s separate sins, which, blended still,
The same bad round fulfill.
Then fear ye not, though Gallio’s scorn you see,
And soft-clad nobles count you mad, true hearts!
These are the fig-tree’s signs; – rough deeds must be,
Trials and crimes; so learn ye well your parts.
Once more to plough the earth it is decreed,
And scatter wide the seed.
– John Henry Newman
Faith and Sight 