This quote is from the Christian classic by Hannah Hurnard, “Hinds’ Feet on High Places.” It is an allegory about the journeyings of a maiden, Much-Afraid, under the protection and guidance of the Good Shepherd. I read it several years ago, but it came to mind again when I saw it at a friend’s house. Since then I’ve started it again and given it to a friend. This quote is from Chapter 4: Start for the High Places.

In this section, little Much-Afraid, who is starting her journey to the High Places and learning to trust the Shepherd, is asking him why the sweet, tender flowers grow in the “wild places of the earth” to be unseen and trod upon by animals. I’ve seen (what I think are) tundra flowers before, growing in a thick mat beside a mountain lake. One can’t help but step upon them. One can’t help but marvel at their beauty and vivacity in the thin air and thin soil under the clear rays of the sun.  In this allegory, we learn from such little flowers.

The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. “Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted,” he said quietly, “and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach.  They offer themselves so sweetly and confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them.  Just as though they sang a joyous little song to themselves, that it is so happy to love, even though one is not loved in return.

“I must tell you a great truth, Much-Afraid, which only the few understand.  All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at.  Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love.

“Many a quiet, ordinary, and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love’s flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a lace of delight where the King of Love himself walks and rejoices with his friends.  Some of my servants have indeed won great visible victories and are rightly loved and reverenced by other men, but always their greatest victories are like the wild flowers, those which no one knows about.  Learn this lesson now, down here in the valley, Much-Afraid, and when you get to the steep places of the mountains it will comfort you.”

The Love of which the passage speaks has several meanings. Love is God, our Good Shepherd, who in this story is also the heavenly lover who chooses and nurtures little Much-Afraid. He is teaching her to love him faithfully, even when the way of obedience is secret and hard. Love is the beauty which he grows in us by giving us his love.

Announcing the Quote Collection. I like to collect quotes and for a while I used to write them in a book, but I got lazy with that. Also I don’t post very often on my blog during the school year. To answer both deficiencies, I would like to begin posting quotes that I find particularly interesting or well-put in my readings.

To begin, a quote from Of First Importance on Christ’s obedience on our behalf:

“I must not only wash in Christ’s blood, but clothe me in Christ’s obedience.

For every sin of omission in self, I may find a divinely perfect obedience ready for me in Christ.

For every sin of commission in self, I may find not only a stripe or a wound in Christ,
but also a perfect rendering of the opposite obedience in my place,
so that the law is magnified,
its curse more than carried,
its demand more than answered.”

—Robert Murray M’Cheyne, quoted by Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1960), 176

This parable has to do with the hopes and expectations we can build upon a friendship. There is an opportunity to reap something good even when the results of friendship-growing are different than what we had hoped. I dedicate it to my friends S, P, N, and myself.

 A Parable of Friendship

Once upon a time there was a man. He gardened, but not in the ordinary sense. Someone else laid out the plots of earth and planted the seeds. His job was to tend the plots and enjoy what grew there. Eventually, he would share the fruit of his labor with the owner of the plot.

The man had only recently begun tending plots in this manner. He had tended others in the past, freely and sometimes carelessly tending them and freely enjoying the vegetables and fruit. He smiled when some of the plants continued to spring up year after year, and sadly patted down the ones that grew for a season but then passed away.

 But this time he had hopes. He hoped that this time the owner had planted the seeds of the sweet perennial shrubs of roses and lilacs. Day by day, he looked at the plot, waiting for something to grow. He didn’t tend it every day, but every so often he would sprinkle some water and a handful of mulch. He kept an eye out for weeds, but there didn’t seem to be too many. He could smell the roses and lilacs. He could feel the strong stem of the lilacs and their enveloping perfume. And even though he knew roses had thorns, in his imagination it was easy to turn aside the thorns of the roses in order to rejoice in the sweetness.

 

Slowly he saw shoots coming from the earth. He didn’t know what it was yet. He took a break and came back in a few days. Looking at the tender shoots, he eagerly knelt and whispered to the winds and the plants “please be roses and lilacs!”  He went home, to wait and hope. As he was gone, rain fell from heaven and God gave an increase.

In a few more days he came back again. But what was there? Greenleaf lettuce, crunchy carrots, juicy tomatoes, and pragmatic cabbage intermingled with a few patches of basil. The man was surprised. He mourned inside… surely his longings for roses and lilacs had counted for something … surely his loving care was not in vain. He blew his nose. After sitting for a while looking at the vegetables, he reached out, plucked a leaf of lettuce and took a tomato, and bit into them slowly. It would take adjustment to like the red of a tomato when he had been dreaming of the red of a rose. Bolstered by the energy from his gentle meal, he stood up.

 

Carrying his watering can, mulch, and rake, the man slowly walked to the next plot. He bent down on his knees and reached for the can and the mulch. With care he touched the earth. Who knew what was inside it? Perhaps nourishing vegetables, perhaps, just maybe, roses and lilacs. He glanced over his shoulder in the general direction of the owner, who had prepared and planted the plot. Either way, he would tend this plot watchfully and keep an eye on his established vegetable gardens. Slowly and respectfully he stood up and began to mulch and water.

Peace

My soul, there is a country

Far beyond the stars,

Where stands a winged sentry

All skillful in the wars.

There, above noise and danger,

Sweet peace sits crown’d with smiles,

And one born in a manger

Commands the beauteous files.

He is thy gracious friend

And (O my soul, awake!)

Did in pure love descend

To die here for thy sake.

If thou canst get but thither,

There grows the flower of peace,

The rose that cannot wither,

Thy fortress, and thy ease.

Leave then thy foolish ranges;

For none can thee secure

But one, who never changes,

Thy God, thy life, thy cure.

– Henry Vaughan, 1622-1695

I love the imagery of peace and rest as evoked by the words ease, peace, security. Jesus asks me to leave my ranging search for fulfillment in foolish pursuits. He calls “Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in spirit and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:28-29) Rest in Jesus this Christmas-time!

I tend to take a while to post things because I am a perfectionist. Advent is also a challenge for my perfectionism because I feel that I should plumb the depths, seek God whole-heartedly and meditate on his mysteries with perfect zeal. Well, needless to say I never live up to it. I fall short of all those things and tend to encounter Christmas guiltily, with much more luke-warm-ness than I would like. That is ironic, because in reality Christmas is the time when we remember that because of Jesus, guilt is no more, and grace is forevermore. 

There are moments in the midst of my luke-warm-ness, glorious moments, when I taste the mystery of Christmas and am humbled by God’s goodness. This poem is one of them. Read it at least three times. The first time to get the feeling of it, the second time to understand it, and the third and fourth times to let it imprint the facets of its beauty on your heart. The beauty of the Incarnation, God becoming Man, occurring by that strange mystery, the virgin birth.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner

Annunciation

By John Donne (1572-1631)

 

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is All every where,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo, faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though he there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet he will wear

Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created, thou

Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;

Whom thou conceiv’st, conceived; yea thou art now

Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother;

Thou hast light in dark; and shut’st in little room,

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

 

How can Jesus be 100% man and 100% God? How can he be sinless and yet understand what it is to be a human struggler? How can the immortal die? Immensity be shrunk into flesh? As I meditated in an earlier post, these paradoxes are contained in Jesus, Emmanuel. These paradoxes are the richness behind Christmas that I strive to savour.  Jesus, receive my imperfect worship.

Since school ended and I finished with all my performances, the pianist in me has gone into hibernation and the bookworm has been reborn. I’ve been reading books (Start Your Family by Candice Watters, The Tempest by Shakespeare, and A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature by Wiker and Witt) and poetry (George Herbert and selections on www.poetry.org) and blogs.

I’m not familiar with either of the things I’m posting articles about – I’ve never watched  Tiger Woods play golf and I haven’t read or seen Twilight. But in my reading I have come across some articles that are very well written and that provide fascinating and convicting insight about the human condition.

[If I were nifty with photoshop, I would here insert a picture of Tiger with vampire fangs.

For now, please use your imagination.]

The first set of articles is about Tiger Woods and his tremendous fall, from having the image of a public role model to the image of a public fake.

 Albert Mohler’s article, The Travail of Tiger Woods — Lessons Not to Be Missed, draws warnings from Wood’s situation.

Tim Challies uses the metaphor of a movie set – picturesque, but a false front—to draw similar moral conclusions in his article Lessons from Tiger.

In Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity, Lisa Schiffren at the American Thinker website warns people not to trust in human gods, whether Tiger Woods or Barack Obama

The second set of articles is about the Twilight book and movie series. Twilight has been criticized as a fad, immoral, and appealing only to girls. I haven’t read the series so I do not have my own opinion, except that I don’t want to bother reading it. The first two excellent articles are analytical, but not necessarily negative. The last is a medley of several things.

In Twilight’s Vast Gleaming: John Granger Explains the Widespread Popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series, Bobby Maddex at Salvo magazine interviews John Granger, who is writing a book on the artistry and meaning of Twilight. Granger is mostly positive about the value of the story and explains why it communicates powerful to a contemporary audience. He provides insight into the culture and philosophy that Twilight reflects.

In Salvo’s cousin, my favorite magazine Touchstone, Granger provides fascinating details about Mormon Vampires in the Garden of Eden, explaining how Stephenie Meyer’s Mormon background influenced the allegory and metaphors of the story.

Last, Schubert’s Killer Abs! Jeremy Denk is a world-famous concert pianist (who kindly gave me a lesson last October!). He also writes a blog, with a mixture of musical analysis and witty cultural commentary. This article appealed to me on many levels– I’m excited about playing Schubert’s song cycle “Die Schone Mullerin” next year and I will probably never watch Twilight. Denk describes how, against his will, he ended up at a movie theater watching New Moon (of all things.) In the soundtrack of the movie is a Schubert song, which leads him to all sorts of musings about the perception of classical music in popular culture. Denk rhapsodizes on the superlative beauty of Schubert’s song and Goethe’s poem, especially within the irony of its context.  

I want to write a more Christ-oriented post soon. For now, read the links and comment here if you liked anything in particular!

Each snowflake is unique.

My mother recently invited a friend from church over for tea. This lady is a single mother who grew up in our town, had lived elsewhere for many years and only recently returned to our town. She sweetly said she feels more comfortable in our church than in others she had attended in her past. We were grateful that she felt that way, because sometimes single parents would feel uncomfortable in a church full of intact families. We thanked God that he allowed our church, with all its flaws, to be a place of welcome to her.

As I was thinking about her, I thought about other people in our congregation. There are a couple of single guys over age 50 who work for a trash collection company. There is ascerbic Mr. H, quirky Mr. G, loquacious Ms. A. Our pastors are hard workers, faithful students and teachers of the Word, but neither of them have social charisma. In the college group there is an unusual collection of introverted, sometimes awkward geeks, with a high concentration of engineering students. There are divergent tastes in music. There are families who homeschool and families who send their kids to school. There’s me, teased by my siblings and friends for blunt things I say, passionate about marriage and family and classical music.

I would not say any of these people “ordinary” or “normal.” As I thought about it, I realized that everyone sometimes feels out of place. Each person has something “special” that sets him apart. Sometimes it is something we feel is negative– a personality trait or a sad history. We may feel out of place because we do not think we are capable or intelligent, do not have an exciting job, have a secret struggle, or are not married as we would like. Sometimes that which sets us apart is a passion for something that is good, but that does not seem to fit in with most of the church, such as my love of classical music. Indeed, at times we (including myself) can be prideful about the things we feel set us apart, our career specialties, our smarts, or our popularity. We alienate ourselves from others in making those things too much a part of our identity.

It is good to avoid the word “special” most of the time, because it is so overused that it no longer conveys meaning. It is more significant to tell why something is unique and valuable, than to describe it as special. Mr. Rogers solemnly told millions of children, “you are special,” and that was good of him. But millions of children have also been put in “special ed.” What is so special about that? Today, however, I had a glimpse of the truth behind Mr. Rogers’ cliche. God has made billions of people in the course of history, and he intended each one to reflect his image in a unique way. In the words of George MacDonald,

Not only … has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, made after his own fashion, and that of no one else. Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship him.

Each person is peculiar. Another word for special, a word that captures the quirks as well as the talents. I am glad I am peculiar, and that others are too. I am glad I am part of the body of Christ, which is the place that God designed to shape us, with all our quirks. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,” (Prov. 27:17) and so we sharpen up each other’s strengths and trust our God-who-disciplines to sand down our weaknesses. The modern-day Samaritan, the talkative one, the one with depression, the stay-at-home mother, the one whose marriage has fallen apart, the computer geek — we are all seen by a God who knows our individual peculiarities and loves us with an everlasting love. You are special.

This quote is from the anthology of George MacDonald quotes compiled by C. S. Lewis.  It addresses my tendency to procrastinate on tasks, even when I should just to do the next thing and get on with it.  Sometimes I procrastinate because I am a perfectionist — I want to do a thorough job or nothing at all. Worry also causes me to put off necessary things.  It is easier to avoid them, instead of doing what I can and placing the result –whether it is a paper to write, a relationship to address, or an email to write — in God’s hands.  Instead, I should seize the moment and do a small portion of a task, even if I don’t accomplish or perfect it at that time.  One of my relatives, John, is a medical student.  Even with all the pressures of his studies, he has found a balance. He told me he doesn’t worry about the next task or test, he knows it will work out.  Obviously, he is faithful to work on his studies, but I think his attitude is similar to Jesus’ proverb “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”  Though I have many ups and downs in the process, I am trying to change my habits of thinking about time and tasks, one step at a time.

“The Sacred Present”

The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp

and as much in God’s care,

as that a hundred years away.

Care for the next minute is just as foolish

as care for the morrow,

or for a day in the next thousand years—

in neither can we do anything,

in both God is doing everything.

Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared today

are of the duty of today:

the moment which coincides with work to be done,

is the moment to be minded;

the next is nowhere till God has made it.

Language has words that point to the incapabilities of language: indescribable, inexpressible, ineffable.

The incapabilities of earthly language, that is.

What is there outside of earth, outside of this miniscule planet with its myriad inadequate languages?

Is there any word that captures the extent of the universe, and goes beyond it to inifinity?

Is infinite beauty, infinite power, infinite knowledge, infinite love more than a figment created by short Engish words?

Any word that transforms this from concepts to corporeality?

 

There is one Word which captures infinite greatness: the Logos himself.

How did He do it? Not so much by words, though words were part of his proclamation.

He portrayed it. He gave it flesh. Incarnated it.

By his infinite power, his word created the worlds into being.

By his infinite knowledge, he spoke the course of history and is carrying it through.

His infinite love was expressed, pressed it out, in his blood.

His infinite beauty will captivate his children eternally, magnetizing their untiring words of praise.

 

Infinite. This word falls infinitely short. It and its kin, boundless, unfathomable, immense. . .

They try to define the greatness of greatness by what it is not. Not-measurable.

In Him, the immeasurable was “shrunk into a span.” God with us.

His numberless names, holy tetragrammaton, eternal I AM are now captured by a single pronoun:

He. Jesus is.

 

 

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Christmas is coming soon, when we remember the Incarnation.

Christ is coming soon.  Will we have words of righteousness to cover us? Only the righteousness of the Word can do that. How do we stand under his Word, claim his word for us?

 ”‘The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” — that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

Romans 10:8-11

In reading my Shakespeare homework I happened upon this sonnet. The Beloved to whom the sonnet is addressed is playing a keyboard instrument, probably the virginal, which is similar to a harpsichord. Needless to say, this poem tickled my fancy!

Sonnet 128

How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,*
Do I envy those jacks* that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

*amazes my ear
*keys of the virginal; (alternative meaning) fellows