A Sure Place getting real on this holiness thing copyright Doug Blair, Waterloo ON, 2017
by the Seine River, thanks to Jordan Blair
It's All Right Broken At this moment From all my safety valves And self-assurance Allowing you To verbalize this prayer Sensing the tickle Of your presence But only whispers Of your depth. And you have chosen me Heaven knows why Or to what end
And I am humbled Crushed in fact By my smallness My need and shabby Record of performance. But now you suggest No matter No dead end No weighty rule Of strict accomplishment. Only love And forgiveness Comfortable closeness Baffling, tugging And amazing One thankful Worm. So Lord...Father What's next? I can listen better I will listen better.
To Be Holy
The old hymn says Take Time to Be Holy. That's the first part. Allowing the passage of time and the flow of encounters and reactions. God has willed you to be where you are, not where you are not. Your path to separation from the world's clutches will be unique because the Lord loves you uniquely. He also wants to use you to woo others. There are places for the cloistered life of prayer, petition and meditation. They are spiritual dynamos occupied by peculiar and largely isolated saints. They bear fruit in the quieter moments and operations coming upon a busy, covetous, colliding world system that will not slow down to think deeply, to feel selflessly. Remember the beautiful fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians chapter five (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance). But the monastery and the convent will not be for many. God wills that His ambassadors usually go out there to rub shoulders with a confused, hurried, questioning community. Read all of Second Corinthians Five. As Jesus prayed His disciples were not to be taken out of the world but to be insulated from the threats and schemes of the Evil One (John 17) The writings of John the Beloved in the Gospel and in the epistles say much about the world system that would seek to squeeze out the atmosphere and influence of the Kingdom of Heaven. Believers are not to be infatuated by that world but are to love it in a missional sense.
No Longer Opting Out
You say you wouldn't dare Discern the Word for certain You couldn't utter out 'Thus saith the Lord.' And let us not forget all The wars and persecutions That marred the trail of faith Can't be ignored. Great minds have gone to battle On just a single precept And here you sit a simple Doubting saint. You think it oh so humble To hold out reservations. But really, gotta tell ya' Friend, it ain't. Those scriptures are the one meal To feed the inner warrior And give him strength To tread down unbelief. That Dragon who devours The hopes of hurting people And builds a wall To block out all relief. You wouldn't pass a diamond by Or fail to stake your claim So why the double mind On Holy Writ? The Spirit makes it clear If we only pray for vision And trust His urge As we are getting it. This truth that God deposits Will span the miles and ages. He knows the needs of Every human heart. The ones quite universal That bind a mystic Body The Church He dreamed of From the very start.
Kaleidoscope
It's a Living Word we're given And it lives in each one's sphere And it shows its rule in happenings And in friendships held most dear. Though it speaks of ancient Abraham And of Joseph behind bars It will grab the timeless human hope And offer it the stars. It will sing in David's loneliness And soothe in Job's dread pain And will walk our Christ up Calvary Till the grave gives up the slain. It is one more blessed circle Like the sun or seasons round First a Garden's shameful folly Last a Garden's Grace re-found. As a child holds up the eye-glass And its colours mix and move So the scriptures' applications Always love and mercy prove. And the fragments' vivid colours Share a multitude of views Though each piece of glass is constant Ever true to our Good News. There's an orange for flesh and folly There's a blue for Heaven's call There's a red for sin's blood ransom And a black for Eden's Fall. There's a green for new life budding And a violet regal throne And a golden treasured harvest Made by Jesus' pain His own.
Holy Orders
Why all this fuss? About living alone About getting intense About building a fence
In this Way? Listen to Us. There is Life in exchange And to Faith a wide range In simplicity shared Everyday. Can the Holiest stop When you get off your knees And explore the new trees Of the spring? When you laugh With a child Share an elder's wise smile Join a praising choir Simply to sing? It is all of God's gift Always meant to be shared Market streets A cathedral of sorts. As you mix it up, Love Like the Love Three above. Just imagine the joyful reports! Note: Life is a sacrament. Commonplace expresses the holy. Bend your knees, but also rub shoulders one with another. There is a universal priesthood of believers. All Body parts are equal, excepting the Head Christ Jesus.
Only the Love of God
When they've tried the best here offered And they've watched the systems fail Seen the pointlessness of battles And their leaders sent to jail When they've watched a Mother grieving With her baby limp in death And the countryside denuded
Missing joy from one bird's breath When they plead to save the planet But they cannot cleanse the heart When their fables are all wicked Doubt and death occlude their art Then they might just dump the culture That denies our God is real And embrace the Heart so willing To enlighten and to heal. His a passion that transcends all That we ever saw of love And invites those poor in spirit To the Triune bliss above. Yes this God bowed down so meekly To the terrors of this place That a death might bring deliverance And abundant songs of Grace.
Controversy with David's Psalm (37)
Whadya mean “fret not�? Can't ya see all The wickedness Manipulation Outright oppression Slippery talk
Unjust gain Pain and grief Ignored By rogues who Could easily help? Even the King Sold over To darkness. And you say...fret not. Ha! But you say more Don't you. “Trust” That's a good one Trust others? Trust family, myself? That's pretty shaky. Oh, trust you Lord. But I hardly know you And can you be known? You say “delight” Easy perhaps for the shepherd With the psalms And fresh air and liberty. ...Oh but that shepherd Became the hunted animal Despised and tracked And nearly trapped But got through somehow. And that was you right? Well I've had some Narrow misses too. Should I be thanking you Looking higher for provision And protection? HHHMMM... Obviously that shepherd “Delighted” in you Got to see really That there was No other Source. “Committed” his ways And hopes unto you. Found that he could “Rest” in a mighty confidence Found only in Another. Made the conscious quality Decision to “cease from anger And forsake wrath”.
Started to realize That nothing, absolutely nothing Could better the new-found process Of “waiting” upon your majesty Your timing, agenda and pathway. But all that is really Just for your special anointed No? “The steps of a good man are ordered...” Could that ever be me? “You forsake not your saints They are preserved forever.” Could that ever be me? “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Could that ever be me? This process of delightful dependence? Surely such a God Is all Giver and not Taker. And I think I am beginning to see And I praise you For your justice and mercy And sing out my thanks. Starting now.
Of Caesar's Household
(Taken from The High Calling, Meditations on Philippians by J.H. Jowett, 1909, Fleming H. Revell Company) All the saints salute you, especially they that are of Caesar's household" (Phil. 4:22) "That is a very wonderful thing that the general river of Christian courtesy should be flowing from the hard precincts of imperial lust and tyranny... Here is a clean, clear river streaming out of the very centre of a poisonous swamp. Here is a sweet spring lifting its healthful waters in the bitter waste. Here is a white lily spreading its radiant purity above a very noisome bed. This is the kind of miracle to arrest and startle the world. Goodness in unexpected places! ...A commissioner of one of our great London dailies has recently been exploring some of the awful howling wastes of London's slums. He went into one court, and up one terrible flight of stairs, where gin and sweat and swearing and putridity were horribly commingled, and in the very thick of it all he heard a woman's sweet, clear, triumphant voice singing, "We thank Thee, O our Father, for all things bright and good." Yes, and the commissioner discovered that she
was a saint indeed. But how adverse the environment. Where did the lovely fern find even the requisite pinch of friendly earth? God knows, and he provided it. It seems as though God's plants can laugh at circumstances, that they can sink strange roots right through their immediate setting, and reach such marvelous resources that their inhospitable environment counts for nothing."
The calling of Matthew by Caravaggio