‘The cloister madness of the monk’

November 7th

“Everybody sets out the fine wine first, then, after people have drunk freely, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.”

John 2:10 (HCSB)

They drank, and lo! in heart and brain
A new, glad life began;
The gray of hair grew young again,
The sick man laughed away his pain,
The cripple leaped and ran…

…Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!

from John Greenleaf Whittier’s The Brewing of Soma

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Yes, they made it into a hymn (Youtube, Spotify), because: irony.  (The Youtube link has a bit of explanation on that.) I would apologize for taking the first verse out of context, but, well, I’m not sorry.

 

Two ears, one mouth

August 6th 

…if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'” 

1 Samuel 3:9 (NIV)

Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue. Its most essential part is God’s voice in response to mine. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that he will listen to mine.  “Incline thine ear and hear,” “Give ear to me,” and “Hearken to my voice” are words which God speaks to man as well as man to God. His hearkening will depend on ours. My willingness to accept His words will determine the power my words have with Him. What God’s words are to me are the test of what He Himself is to me. It shows the uprightness of my desire to meet Him in prayer.

More than once Jesus had said “Abide in me and I in you.” His abiding in us was the complement and the crown of our abiding in Him. But here He says “You in me and my words in you.” The abiding of His words is the equivalent of Himself abiding.

When God reveals Himself in His words, He does indeed give Himself— His love and His life, His will and His power— to those who receive these words, in a reality passing comprehension.

from Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer (Ch. 22) 

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I figured it was the week for folksy sound bites. …and one side of my family hails from the Midwest, so I have plenty more where that came from.

‘…work enough to watch the master work’

June 4th

…for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13 (NASB)

We know, according to the Bible, that the Spirit of God dwells within us, works there, prays without ceasing, sorrows, desires and asks for what we ourselves do not know enough to ask for; urges us, inspires us, speaks to us in the silence, suggests all truth to us…

This is what faith teaches us. Without the actual inspiration of the spirit of grace, we can neither do, nor desire, nor believe anything good. We are always inspired, but we continually stifle this inspiration.

O, how rare it is that the soul is sufficiently stilled to let God speak! The least murmur of our foolish wishes, the least murmur of self-interest, confuses the message of the Spirit of God. We do hear him speaking and asking for something, but we have no idea of what he is saying and often we are as glad not to guess. The least reservation, the least fear of hearing too clearly that God is asking for more than we want to give him, any of these will disturb the word within.

from Fenelon’s Christian Perfection (The Word Within)

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The first paragraph (and the last, actually) is already covered in this post about Romans 8.