Godric and Sunset Rum

 A whiff of the scent of sunset rum wove in and out of my nostrils as Brent and I breathed deep of the slow Friday afternoon. It was good. It seemed a long time coming. We talked of things that matter and things that don’t. 

Life can be hard. Sometimes those brief moments of peace, when the pace of the world seems to slow on its axis, bring a fresh draught of water to a weary soul and steady the mind that feels lost amidst the crashing waves and darkness of the storm of the week before.

At least that’s how I felt.

Frederick Buechner writes of two men in ages past perched on the roof of their church watching rain raise the level of the River Wear, bringing it nearer and nearer to where they sat. That moment lends to this observation:

“Time is a storm. Times past and times to come, they heave and flow and leap their bounds like Wear. Hours are clouds that change their shapes before your eyes. A dragon fades into a maiden’s scarf. A monkey’s grin becomes an angry fist. But beyond time’s storm and clouds there’s timelessness. Godric, the Lord of Heaven changes not, and even when our view’s almost dark, he’s there above us fair and golden as the sun.”

In the midst of my own storms past and those to come, I was granted a brief look through the dark clouded heaven. I was graced with a moment of peace and nourishment and a brother who shared in it.

August Mornings

I have tried to write about why I like this picture, but every time I begin I realize that my words are not capturing my internal response. So, I'm not going to write about the jumbled description on the mug. I am not going to mention that it lacks any manner of coherence. That all that can be gathered is that the subject is love. Once you feel as though you begin to get a grasp of what is written the mug, the thought changes. This happens in every line, which as you read you begin to notice that the mug is used. It is not new, but has stains of dripping coffee running down the text.

As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long

As one who having wondered all night long
In a perplexed forest, comes at length
In the first hours, about the matin song,
And when the sun uprises in his strength,
To the fringe margin of the wood, and sees,
Gazing afar before him, many a mile
Of falling country, many fields and trees,
And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean's smile:

I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze:
I, liberated, look abroad on life,
Love, and distress, and dusty traveling ways,
The steersman's helm, the surgeon's helpful knife,
On the lone ploughman's earth-upturning share,
The revelry of cities and the sound
Of seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air,
And of the circling earth the unsupported round:
I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore;

And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands
In adoration, cry aloud and soar
In spirit, high above the supine lands
And the low caves of mortal things, and flee
To the last fields of the universe untrod,
Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea,
And the contended soul is all alone with God.

 -Robert Louis Stevenson

Barbaric Faith

Friday morning as I walked around my empty home in Dallas looking for things to do, I began the long overdue process of washing the portable mountain of clothes that i've collected over the past couple weeks, I saw a small book nestled among a pile of books under the edge of my brother's bed that he intends to read. I myself had been wanting to read "The Barbarian Way" for some time now and finally had the chance to begin it. So far, the book has called for a re-evaluation to our response to Jesus. McManus says our lives should not lose the raw, energetic emotion that many of us thrived on as new believers, when our devotion to Jesus was in its infancy. He says the Christian culture has tamed our excitement for the work of Christ. This description of the person McManus wants to look like, a rugged, hungry-looking, spontaneous rookie with a heart that is ready to take on all comers, took me straight to the personification of Faith as a virtue by Prudentius. Prudentius, who lived in the early years of the catholic church and is known for his vivid allegorical depiction of war between the virtues and vices, wrote:

  "Faith first takes the field to face the doubtful chances of battle, her rough dress disordered, her shoulders bare, her hair untrimmed, her arms exposed; for the sudden glow of ambition, burning to enter fresh contests, takes no thought to gird on arms or armor, but trusting in a stout heart and unprotected limbs challenges the hazards of furious warfare, meaning to break them down." 

McManus isn't the first to talk about how we should not lose the edginess of the new believer in our faithfulness to Jesus. Beneath what ever doctrine or theology confessed should always be the willingness to drop all we have for His glory to be made known. Nothing about our theology matters if this complete devotion to the Christ is not its source.