Morning Prayer

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being; We, thy needy creatures, render thee our humble praises, for thy preservation of us from the beginning of our lives to this day, and especially for having delivered us from the dangers of the past night...

AND since it is of thy mercy, O gracious Father, that another day is added to our lives; We here dedicate both our souls and our bodies to thee and thy service, in a sober, righteous, and godly life: in which resolution, do thou, O merciful God, confirm and strengthen us; that, as we grow in age, we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

-The Book of Common Prayer, 1892 Edition

Like and As

You put up a brave front in this world, especially if it’s the world I was born into. No matter what sad thing happens, you go on with business as usual if for no other reason than that it would never do to let down in front of the help. You go on teaching your ninth graders the difference between like and as. You keep the lawn mowed in the summer and the walk shoveled in the winter. When you find out your wife has been cheating on you with your muscle-bound nephew, you don’t throw them out but get out yourself. You move into Mrs. Gunther’s boarding house where after a while things work themselves out somehow and you get back together again so almost entirely as if nothing had ever happened that it might as well not have, for all you take away from it that might have saved your soul.

-Frederick Buechner, Treasure Hunt

So Much Beauty

And if I were a painter I do not know which I'd paint--
The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints.
And there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see,
But everywhere I go I'm looking.

-Rich Mullins, "Here in America"

Thy Kingdom Come

Kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight...

-Rev. Charles Garland (this year's Fairmont speaker)

The Road Goes Ever On and On

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

-J. R. R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

Can You See Her?

When it was so dark at the St. Michael's playground that we couldn't see the basket, we couldn't see Mary Magdalene, either. What Owen liked best was to practice the shot until we lost Mary Magdalene in the darkness. Then he would stand under the basket with me and say, "CAN YOU SEE HER?"

"Not anymore," I'd say.

"YOU CAN'T SEE HER, BUT YOU KNOW SHE'S STILL THERE--RIGHT?" he would say.

"Of course I'm sure!" I'd say.

"BUT YOU CAN'T SEE HER," he'd say--very teasingly, "HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE'S STILL THERE IF YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY SEE HER?"

"Because I know she's still there--because I know she couldn't have gone anywhere--because I just know!" I would say.

And one cold, late-fall day--it was November or even early December; Johnson had defeated Goldwater for the presidency; Krushchev had been replaced by Brezhnev and Kosygin; five Americans had been killed in a Viet Cong attack on the air base at Bien Hoa--I was especially exasperated by this game he played about not seeing Mary Magdalene but still knowing she was there.

"YOU HAVE NO DOUBT SHE'S THERE?" he nagged at me.

"Of course I have no doubt!" I said.

"BUT YOU CAN'T SEE HER--YOU COULD BE WRONG," he said.

"No, I'm not wrong--she's there, I know she's there!" I yelled at him.

"YOU ABSOLUTELY KNOW SHE'S THERE--EVEN THOUGH YOU CAN'T SEE HER?" he asked me.

"Yes!" I screamed.

"WELL, NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT GOD," said Owen Meany. "I CAN'T SEE HIM--BUT I ABSOLUTELY KNOW HE IS THERE!"

-John Irving, A Prayer For Owen Meany, p. 451

Wine and Water

Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale,
He ate his egg with a ladle in an egg-cup big as a pail,
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup, and the fish he took was Whale,
But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail,
And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
“I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”

The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink
As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink,
The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink,
And Noah he cocked his eye and said, “It looks like rain, I think,
The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”

But Noah he sinned, and we have sinned; on tipsy feet we trod,
Till a great big, black teetotaler was sent to us for a rod,
And you can’t get wine at a P. S. A., or chapel, or Eisteddfod.
For the Curse of Water has come again because of the wrath of God,
And water is on the Bishop’s board and the Higher Thinker’s shrine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.

-G. K. Chesterton

Sheep Without a Shepherd

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matt 9:36 (ESV)

Leaderless, Sheep are Lost

This is the way that it was in the south: the snow fell fine and beautiful, with a soundless flake. There was the sense of mothering come to a drowsy child, someone tucking the world to sleep. Animals were thankful for the featherbed.

But in the north, those several nights, the snow was a dissatisfied hag: bitch-winter beating the earth with her stick. Bitter crystals blew hard and horizontal so that the Animals lowered their heads and turned away. If someone tried to see where he was, his eyeballs stung for the trouble, as though punished for looking—and he saw nothing anyway.

So the Sheep simply stopped on a hillside—the lee side, they hoped, but they didn’t know. They were leaderless, and their own poor senses had been whited out. They pressed together in a flock, all of them hanging their heads, not one of them lying down, for fear that he might be covered and smothered and lost forever. Or, maybe Sheep were just too stunned to think of lying down. They’d walked into this weather standing up; they’d wait the weather standing up still. They stood, leaderless. They stood like plain cattle in the blizzard. They packed their tails against their anuses and stood motionless. And this is how submissive the Sheep were: they didn’t so much as shake the hoarfrost from their faces. Their own breathing bearded them; their exhalations froze, and the white beards grew, because no one told them to move.

It is a perilous thing to be leaderless and obedient at once. When there’s no command to obey, then “No” becomes the only command, and a heartless one: No to instincts, no to boldness, no to newness even in this witching weather; then no to survival, and no to life. Don’t move! How do you know your movement isn’t for the worse? Then stand still and hang your heads, Sheep, Sheep! And the harder the storm blows, the meeker the Sheep. The worse the conditions, the more they yearn to obey. Therefore, this blizzard fixed them.

Leaderless, there was nothing to do but nothing.

Leaderless, they just stood still, and the Hag shrieked all around them, cursing them, beating them with her stick.

Leaderless, Sheep are lost.

-Walter Wangerin, The Book of Sorrows

Praise the Lord, Hallelu!

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

Habbakuk 3:17-18 (ESV)

Make 'em Laugh

Don, the world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as...
But are we? No. Definitely no! Positively no! Decidedly no! Uh uh.
Short people have long faces, and long people have short faces.
Big people have little humor, and little people have no humor at all.

-Cosmo Brown, Singin' in the Rain

Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 1

Q.
What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A.
That I am not my own,
but belong--
body and soul,
in life and in death--
to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven:
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.

Sonnet on His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide:
“Doth God exact day labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

-John Milton

Old Friends Who've Just Met

There's not a word yet
For old friends who've just met
Part heaven, part space
Or have I found my place?
You can just visit
But I plan to stay
I'm going to go back there someday

-Gonzo, The Muppet Movie, "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday"

Trousers vs Braces

Let me give one simple illustration of the difference between the right and the wrong kind of feminism. Let us take this terrible business--so distressing to the minds of bishops--of the women who go about in trousers. We are asked: "Why do you want to go about in trousers? They are extremely unbecoming to most of you. You only do it to copy the men." To this we may very properly reply: "It is true that they are unbecoming. Even on men they are remarkably unattractive. But, as you men have discovered for yourselves, they are comfortable, they do not get in the way of one's activities like skirts and they protect the wearer from draughts about the ankles. As a human being, I like comfort and dislike draughts. If the trousers do not attract you, so much the worse; for the moment I do not want to attract you. I want to enjoy myself as a human being, and why not? As for copying you, certainly you thought of trousers first, and to that extent we must copy you. But we are not such abandoned copy-cats as to attach these useful garments to our bodies with braces. There we draw the line. These machines of leather and elastic are unnecessary and unsuited to the female form. They are, moreover, hideous beyond description. And as for indecency--of which you sometimes accuse the trousers--we at least can take our coats off without becoming the half-undressed bedroom spectacle thatt a man presents in his shirt and braces."

So that when we hear that women have once more laid hands upon somthing which was previously a man's sole privilege, I think we have to ask ourselves: is this trousers or is it braces? Is it something useful, convenient, and suitable to a human being as such? Or is it merely something unnecessary to us, ugly, and adopted merely for the sake of collaring the other fellow's property? These jobs and professions now. It is ridiculous to take on a man's job just in order to be able to say that "a woman has done it--yah!" The only decent reason for tackling any job is that it is your job, and you want to do it.

-Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human?

Hello Old Friends

Hello old friends,
There's really nothing new to say,
But the old, old story bears repeating,
And the plain old truth grows dearer every day.
When you find something worth believing
Well that's a joy that nothin' could take away.

And so we meet again,
After all these many years.
Did we sow the seeds we're reaping
Now that the harvest calls us here?
It seems that love blooms out of season
And much joy can blossom from many tears.

So old friends,
You must forget what you had to forgive,
And let love be stronger than the feelings
That rage and run beneath the bridge.
Knowin' morning follows evening
Makes each new day come as a gift.

-Rich Mullins

This Whiffling Century

Rather than follow in the train of this insatiable monster of modern reading, I would forswear my spectacles, play at put, mend pens, kill fleas, stand on one leg, shell peas, or do whatsoever ignoble diversion you shall put me to. Alas! I am hurried on in the vortex. I die of new books, or the everlasting talk about them...I will go and relieve myself with a page of honest John Bunyan, or Tom Brown. Tom anybody will do, as long as they are not of this whiffling century.

-Charles Lamb, quoted by Anne Fadiman in At Large and At Small

On the Reading of Old Books

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of the past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, ‘But how could they have thought that?’—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

-C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Land of My Sojourn

And the coal trucks come a-runnin' with their bellies full of coal and their big wheels a-hummin' down this road that lies open, like the soul of the woman who hid the spies who were lookin' for the land of the milk and honey.

And this road she is a woman, she was made from a rib cut from the sides of these mountains, oh these great sleeping Adams who are lonely even here in paradise, lonely for somebody to kiss 'em.

And I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song in the land of my sojourn.

And the lady in the harbor she still holds her torch out to those huddled masses who are yearning for a freedom that still eludes them. The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered

here on the New Jersey shoreline in the greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos. But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral and they stoop in the silence and there their prayers are still whispered.

And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song in the land of my sojourn.

Nobody tells you when you get born here how much you'll come to love it and how you'll never belong here. So I call you my country, and I'll be lonely for my home, and I wish that I could take you there with me.

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley all those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons of Thunder, while off in the distance the smoke stacks were belching back this city's best answer.

And the countryside was pocked with all of those mail pouch posters thrown up on rotting sideboards of these rundown stables, like the one that Christ was born in when the old world started dying, and the new world started coming on.

And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song in the land of my sojourn.

-Rich Mullins

Recipe

Take one ingot of unsweetened Baker's chocolate, remove the paper, and drop it in a tiny saucepan settled over an adjustable heat-source. Then unfold one end of a brand-new silver bar of unsalted Land O Lakes butter and cut a chunk off roughly comparable to the piece of Baker's chocolate, which has by this time begun to smear slightly. (An old stick of butter has too much refrigerator flavor in its exposed end.) The butter will melt faster than the chocolate. Entertain yourself by breaking the ingot of chocolate into its two halves and pushing the halves and the subsiding chunk of butter around with the tip of the butter knife. Then abandon the butter knife and switch to a spoon. When the unmelted chocolate is no more than a small soft shape difficult to locate in the larger velouté, shake some drifts of confectioners' sugar into the liquid. You're aiming for a bittersweet taste, a taste quite a bit less sweet than ice cream--so sprinkle accordingly. But you'll find that a surprising amount of sugar is necessary. Stir idly. If the mixture becomes thick and paste-like, add another three-eighth-inch sliver of butter; to your relief, all will effortlessly reliquefy. Avoid bubbling or burning the mixture, which can now be called sauce. Turn off the heat, or turn it down so low that you don't have to worry about it. Spoon out some premium plain vanilla ice cream. Lately this has become hard to find--crowded out by low-fat premiums and Fragonard flavors. But you want the very best vanilla ice cream available in your area; you have to have that high butterfat content for it to be compatible with the choclate sauce. Spoon the sauce over the ice cream. It will harden. This is what you have been working for. Once cooled, it will make a nice sound when you tap it with a spoon. If you want more tappable choclate sauce and you have already covered your scoop or scoops of ice cream with a complete trelliswork, simply turn over one of the scoops and dribble more over the exposed underside. Eat with haste, because premium vanilla ice cream melts fast. Refrigerate the unused sauce right in the original saucepan, covered with tinfoil, with the spoon resting in it; that way, when you put it back on the heat-source, you'll be able to brandish the whole solidified disk of chocolate merely by lifting the spoon. It looks like a metal detector.

-Nicholson Baker, The Size of Thoughts

Praise the Savior, Ye Who Know Him!

Praise the Savior, ye who know Him!
Who can tell how much we owe Him?
Gladly let us render to Him
All we are and have.

Jesus is the Name that charms us;
He for conflict fits and arms us;
Nothing moves and nothing harms us
While he trust in Him.

Trust in Him, ye saints, forever--
He is faithful, changing never;
Neither force nor guile can sever
Those He loves from Him.

Keep us, Lord, O keep us cleaving
To Thyself, and still believing;
Till the hour of our receiving
Promised joys with Thee.

Then we shall be where we would be;
Then we shall be what we should be;
Things that are not now, nor could be,
Soon shall be our own.

-Thomas Kelly