becoming flame

What he said…

Jesus didn’t say: Figure me out;
He said – Follow me.

He didn’t say: Get your doctrine right;
He said – Judge not.

He didn’t say: Puzzle out the End Times;
He said – Stay awake.

He didn’t say: Perfect yourselves;
He said – Love me with all your heart.

He didn’t say: Develop your vision for ministry;
He said – Love your neighbor.

He said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
the meek,
those who mourn,
who seek peace,
who hunger and thirst for the world to be right with God,
who are judged and ridiculed for doing so.

He said those things – that’s what He said.

Tags following Jesus, love your neighbor, loving God, ministry, peacemakers, poor in spirit

Bible reading love Poetry Scripture

I had lost something

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!

Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi (AmazonClassics Edition) (p. 74). Kindle Edition.

My hunger for knowledge about God,
my obsession with doing what was right,
what would leave me blameless
before any accuser,
even God himself
(myself another Job),
all but devoured my chance,
my only chance,
to experience ‘the grace,
the beauty, the poetry’
of the Majestic River
of Life.

I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
Revelation 2:3-4

Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Locations 88055-88057). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Grace and peace to you…
dw

Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash

Tags Life on the Mississippi, loss, loving God, Mark Twain, Mississippi River, revelation, river of life

Poetry the real self

This cup

Post author By dw
Post date January 12, 2020
1 Comment on This cup

Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?
This cup, just for me, appointed for me.
Chosen for me.

I could say No, not this cup.
Father, give me another;
I don’t want the one you chose for me.

I could say No cups for me,
thank you very much.
But one day I would wake up:
There, at my lips, sour, bitter,
would be the cup of my own making.

Every moment is another cup,
A cup I will drink to get to the following moment.

Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?
This cup, just for me, appointed for me?
Chosen for me?

Tags choice, escape, fulfillment, God's love, God's will

hope Other Writings Poetry

Hope completes Faith

If I do not hope in His love for me, I will never really know Christ. I hear of Him by faith. But I do not achieve the contact that knows Him, and thereby knows the Father in Him, until my faith in Him is completed by hope and charity: hope that grasps His love for me and charity that pays Him the return of love I owe.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

Faith without hope
is light without sight
warmth too far away to feel
music that can’t be heard
over the dry, drafty doctrine
that being correct is a higher calling
than simply being loved.

p.s. I’ve written about this before with similar sentiment. I wish I had learned this lesson much earlier in my life.

Tags doctrine, faith, faith without hope, hope, Jesus, No Man is an Island, sentences on hope, Thomas Merton

Music

Mary’s Song

You don’t know me if you don’t know this about me: music is my first language. When English fails me, music remains; God knew I needed it to know Him more deeply than English has words for. I offer to you today a gift God gave me to give to others, this setting of the Magnificat, Mary pouring out her heart as a gift to all of us. Please give yourself time to settle and listen and receive.

Grace and peace to you you…
dw

(Posted on my piano music site in 2017.)