Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
Psalm 73:25-26
Amen.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Delaying the Inevitable
So, once again, here I sit. In front of my computer. With an outline to finish and miles to go before I sleep. (Sorry, I couldn't resist). Well, maybe not miles--perhaps kilometers? or even meters? And here I sit, thinking of how inadequate I am for the task of being a college student, of being a friend, of loving Christ. It seems like no matter how many times someone tells me I'm wonderful or beautiful or intelligent or worthy of being loved or of being friends with, I still cannot accept it in my innermost being. Silly, and irrational, isn't it? And I know these are lies. But they're terribly easy lies to believe. That's no excuse, I know. They're comfortable lies. Lies that allow me to stay tucked in my shell, never reaching out and making myself vulnerable to my friends, never really loving my neighbor as I love myself. Never really accepting the fact that I am, in some measure, valuable to my friends and family, perhaps even classmates, but most importantly to my Father and Creator.
So, here are some antidotes to these lies:
I was created out of love, to love and be loved by God, to know and be known by God.
I was created in the image of God--somehow I am a unique expression of the character and beauty of God.
No one can steal me out of your hand.
You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same.
Dust of the earth, but Thine we are.
You love Your children freely and generously; You are merciful and graceful toward them.
And God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.
What am I, that I might be called Your child? What am I, that You might die that I might live?
You know my innermost being Lord, even better than I know myself!
What a beautiful God!
At the risk of wearing out my welcome, at the risk of self-discovery, I'll take every moment and every minute that You give me
So, here are some antidotes to these lies:
I was created out of love, to love and be loved by God, to know and be known by God.
I was created in the image of God--somehow I am a unique expression of the character and beauty of God.
No one can steal me out of your hand.
You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same.
Dust of the earth, but Thine we are.
You love Your children freely and generously; You are merciful and graceful toward them.
And God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.
What am I, that I might be called Your child? What am I, that You might die that I might live?
You know my innermost being Lord, even better than I know myself!
What a beautiful God!
At the risk of wearing out my welcome, at the risk of self-discovery, I'll take every moment and every minute that You give me
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Medieval Theology...pt. 1
From the Writings of Thomas a Kempis:
If your heart were right, then every created thing would be a mirror of life for you and a book of holy teaching, for there is no creature so small and worthless that it does not show forth the goodness of God.
Christ will come to you offering His consolation, if you prepare a fit dwelling for Him in your heart, whose beauty and glory, wherein He takes delight, are all from within. His visits with the inward man are frequent, His communion sweet and full of consolation, His peace great, and His intimacy wonderful indeed.
Nothing so mars and defiles the heart of man as impure attachment to created things.
How dry and hard you are without Jesus! How foolish and vain if you desire anything but Him!
The man who lives without Jesus is the poorest of the poor...
Let all things be loved for the sake of Jesus, but Jesus for His own sake.
In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness.
Let it be granted me to find You alone, O Christ, to open to You my whole heart, to enjoy You as my soul desires, to be disturbed by no one, to be moved and troubled by no creature, that You may speak to me and I to You alone, as a lover speaks to his loved one, and friend converses with friend.
You in truth are my Beloved, chosen from thousands, in Whom my soul is happy to dwell all the days of her life. You are in truth my pledge of peace, in Whom is the greatest peace and true rest, without Whom there is toil and sorrow and infinite misery.
You truly are the hidden God.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Names
My mom did not give me the name Olivia because of any potential biblical significance; in fact, she named me after the mother of the Waltons--you know, the television show?
My name itself means something like olive tree, branch, or leaf. I suppose given that symbolism, I've sort of taken ownership of verses, especially in the Old Testament, that mention olive trees and branches. I do have a name placard which says "One of Peace". My favorite verse relating to anything olive is Psalm 52:8:
But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I trust in God's unfailing love forever and ever.
God has, quite literally, hundreds of names or manners of address. The names of God I currently identify most with are:
Yahweh-Shalom (our Peace)
Redeemer
Deliverer
The God Who Sees
Abba, Father
Yahweh-Rapha (our Healer)
Husband of the Bride of Christ
Names can have such wonderful, tangible, relatable meanings.
My name itself means something like olive tree, branch, or leaf. I suppose given that symbolism, I've sort of taken ownership of verses, especially in the Old Testament, that mention olive trees and branches. I do have a name placard which says "One of Peace". My favorite verse relating to anything olive is Psalm 52:8:
But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I trust in God's unfailing love forever and ever.
God has, quite literally, hundreds of names or manners of address. The names of God I currently identify most with are:
Yahweh-Shalom (our Peace)
Redeemer
Deliverer
The God Who Sees
Abba, Father
Yahweh-Rapha (our Healer)
Husband of the Bride of Christ
Names can have such wonderful, tangible, relatable meanings.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
He is especially fond of you.
Today in chapel, Dean Brittain preached on the parable of the talents. To be honest, I always dread when someone preaches on this particular topic because it usually convicts me about how I'm not using my 'talent' (yes, i've always happened to think of myself as the one talent person). What stuck out most to me was that fact that the one talent person had thought of the Master as some terribly mean and vindictive entity. And then Dr. Brittain discussed how some people may view the distribution of the talents as either punishment or reward. That is certainly not the case! And today, I learned for the first time how much an individual talent is worth.
I must confess that I have fallen prey to all of the above lies. I've always been quite covetous, and jealous of those who have immense talent--or, rather, the talents I thought I had or wanted or needed. I'm an okay writer, but I'm certainly not Tennyson or Austen or anything of the sort.
I'm sort of intelligent, but I have not the math and science gift, so to speak. I can take landscape shots of which I may be terribly proud, but utterly ashamed of in the next breath as I take a look at the skill of others my age. And so on, and so forth.
But really, I'm missing the whole point.
I received this quote in a card for my birthday while I was in London, by George MacDonald:
"I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I can think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing"
This is rather intimidating, don't you think? It's much easier to think of God's love in an abstract sense than to actually receive it, actually accepting the person God had in mind when He created us. This love is so extravagant, so embarassing, even! Sitting in the chapel for the concert tonight, surrounded by a few hundred students and families and teenagers, I was overwhelmed by this concept. Each and every single one of these persons is dear to you! You are especially fond of them.
I really can't quite grasp this.
God had us in mind, much like the way, I imagine, an artist dreams up his or her next painting or drawing or collage--or a poet conceives of an abstract concept or strikingly simple event and incarnates it in his/her words. It is much easier, typically, to extol the grandeur of creation, than to celebrate the crown and most precious part of God's creation. No matter how enraptured we may be by a night sky with stars sprinkled in precise patterns or calmed by a gentle breeze on the quad while it's still sort of summer, God claims us, His creatures, as more wonderful than these things! I'm not in any way trying to discount the beauty of the earth, but I just really think it's incredible how much value God ascribes to humans.
Zephaniah 3:17-19, Hosea, Psalms, 1 John
I must confess that I have fallen prey to all of the above lies. I've always been quite covetous, and jealous of those who have immense talent--or, rather, the talents I thought I had or wanted or needed. I'm an okay writer, but I'm certainly not Tennyson or Austen or anything of the sort.
I'm sort of intelligent, but I have not the math and science gift, so to speak. I can take landscape shots of which I may be terribly proud, but utterly ashamed of in the next breath as I take a look at the skill of others my age. And so on, and so forth.
But really, I'm missing the whole point.
I received this quote in a card for my birthday while I was in London, by George MacDonald:
"I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I can think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing"
This is rather intimidating, don't you think? It's much easier to think of God's love in an abstract sense than to actually receive it, actually accepting the person God had in mind when He created us. This love is so extravagant, so embarassing, even! Sitting in the chapel for the concert tonight, surrounded by a few hundred students and families and teenagers, I was overwhelmed by this concept. Each and every single one of these persons is dear to you! You are especially fond of them.
I really can't quite grasp this.
God had us in mind, much like the way, I imagine, an artist dreams up his or her next painting or drawing or collage--or a poet conceives of an abstract concept or strikingly simple event and incarnates it in his/her words. It is much easier, typically, to extol the grandeur of creation, than to celebrate the crown and most precious part of God's creation. No matter how enraptured we may be by a night sky with stars sprinkled in precise patterns or calmed by a gentle breeze on the quad while it's still sort of summer, God claims us, His creatures, as more wonderful than these things! I'm not in any way trying to discount the beauty of the earth, but I just really think it's incredible how much value God ascribes to humans.
Zephaniah 3:17-19, Hosea, Psalms, 1 John
Friday, March 14, 2008
Romantic and Realistic Poets
This week we're studying, among other things, the literary movements of Romanticism and Realism. Surprisingly, I had a really strong reaction against Romanticism. When you really, really look into the theological basis for Romanticism, it's actually quite disturbing. Nature is viewed as God, and the experience and search for the meanings of the Universe is all. There is, in some cases, a disdain or disregard for matter and the real, instead of the ideal romantic sentimentality. This movement did follow the rigid and excessive reason of the Enlightenment, but it went completely too far in the opposite direction. Realism, on the other hand, I really enjoy. In poetry, in this period, the poets were attempting to incarnate emotions using concrete images.
Barrett Browning, in Aurora Leigh, argues that:
Without the spiritual, observe, the natural's impossible, - no form, no motion:
without sensuous, spiritual is unappreciable-NO BEAUTY OR POWER
Anyway, I guess I've come to the conclusion that I'm really NOT a Romantic, in the sense of -isms. I mean, I am occasionally sentimental and dream about a perfect world consisting of meadows of heather and wildflowers on top of a rugged cliff overlooking the unpredictable ebb and flow of the ocean walking with my lover, or sitting in a window on a rainy day with a cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate, reading poetry or getting lost in a romantic adventure, and other such things. But I find the most beauty in what I see, now: the human soul under the lordship of Christ, God's stamp on each of His creations, lone flowers in the midst of a multitude of bulbs, a laugh, the sweet sounds of an oboe or violin, etc.
I recently fell in love with this Emily Dickinson poem, and I thought I'd post it here:
He fumbles ar your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on--
He stuns you by degrees--
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers--further heard--
Then nearer--Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten--
Your Brain--to bubble cool--
Deals--One--imperial--Thunderbolt
That scalps your naked Soul--
When Winds take Forests in their Paws--
The Universe--is still--
And...
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth the nibbles at the soul.
And, of course, there's the brilliant Tennyson:
I falter where I firmly trod,
and falling with my weight of cares upon the great world's altar stairs
that slope thro' darkness up to God.
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, and gather dust and chaff, and call to what I feel is Lord of all, and faintly trust the larger hope.
A warmth within the breast would melt the freezing reason's colder part, and like a man in wrath the heart stood up and answered--I have felt.
No, like a child in doubt and fear: but that blind clamour made wise;
then was I as a child that cries, but, crying, knows his father near.
(Both passages from In Memoriam)
For always roaming with a hungry heart much have I seen and known.
-from Ulysses
Barrett Browning, in Aurora Leigh, argues that:
Without the spiritual, observe, the natural's impossible, - no form, no motion:
without sensuous, spiritual is unappreciable-NO BEAUTY OR POWER
Anyway, I guess I've come to the conclusion that I'm really NOT a Romantic, in the sense of -isms. I mean, I am occasionally sentimental and dream about a perfect world consisting of meadows of heather and wildflowers on top of a rugged cliff overlooking the unpredictable ebb and flow of the ocean walking with my lover, or sitting in a window on a rainy day with a cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate, reading poetry or getting lost in a romantic adventure, and other such things. But I find the most beauty in what I see, now: the human soul under the lordship of Christ, God's stamp on each of His creations, lone flowers in the midst of a multitude of bulbs, a laugh, the sweet sounds of an oboe or violin, etc.
I recently fell in love with this Emily Dickinson poem, and I thought I'd post it here:
He fumbles ar your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on--
He stuns you by degrees--
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers--further heard--
Then nearer--Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten--
Your Brain--to bubble cool--
Deals--One--imperial--Thunderbolt
That scalps your naked Soul--
When Winds take Forests in their Paws--
The Universe--is still--
And...
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth the nibbles at the soul.
And, of course, there's the brilliant Tennyson:
I falter where I firmly trod,
and falling with my weight of cares upon the great world's altar stairs
that slope thro' darkness up to God.
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, and gather dust and chaff, and call to what I feel is Lord of all, and faintly trust the larger hope.
A warmth within the breast would melt the freezing reason's colder part, and like a man in wrath the heart stood up and answered--I have felt.
No, like a child in doubt and fear: but that blind clamour made wise;
then was I as a child that cries, but, crying, knows his father near.
(Both passages from In Memoriam)
For always roaming with a hungry heart much have I seen and known.
-from Ulysses
Friday, March 7, 2008
A Touch of Royalty
We went to Hampton Court Palace today, the residence of Henry VII, William and Mary, and so on. It was just stunning, visually, inside and outside (the grounds were delightful). What struck me most about touring the palace were the several larger, more general public state rooms that the monarches occupied that preceded the interior or heart of the king or queen's private residences. It reminded me of the elaborate ritual involved with Judaism and only the high priest being allowed into the Holy of Holies: the most isolated, compact, sacred space in the temple. It makes me thankful that Jesus tore the veil so we could approach Him directly, but it also makes me think-if kings and queens were once treated with such reverence (whatever the motivation), how much more so should we honor the King of kings. That title of Jesus really took on a new meaning for me today. God (in Three Persons) is so many things: in essence, He's everything-everything good, beautiful, and just.
The gardens were so unbelievably delightful and gorgeous; the kind of gardens I think all girls, at some level, delight and revel in. There were the more formal, strictly geometrical gardens with crisp cut corners on the laws and carefully and methodically laid out flower beds; but there was also this garden that had daffodils, crocuses, tulips, etc. planted everywhere-it gave the appearance of being in a field of wildflowers.
In open fields of wildflowers...she breathes the air and flies away...
She thanks her Jesus for the daisies and the roses in no simple language...
Someday she'll understand the meaning of it all
He's more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close as a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she'll trust Him, learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call her and she will come running...
and fall in His arms...and the tears will fall down and she'll pray:
I want to fall in love with you...
-Jars of Clay, Love Song for a Savior
There was such a contrast between the whimsical, relaxed loveliness of some of the gardens and the pomp and order of the palace rooms. Just as Jesus is as close as a heartbeat, He is also the King of all kings, who reigns forever or ever.
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