Lipsmacking Righteous Indignation. Scott Cairns on Prayer

This "response" of God to my prayers made me laugh, made me think, made me sober.  

"Possible Answers to Prayer"

By Scott Cairns

Your petitions—though they continue to bear   
just the one signature—have been duly recorded.   
Your anxieties—despite their constant,

relatively narrow scope and inadvertent   
entertainment value—nonetheless serve   
to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance—all but obscured beneath   
a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more   
conspicuous resentment—is sufficient.

Your intermittent concern for the sick,   
the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes   
recognizable to me, if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly   
righteous indignation toward the many   
whose habits and sympathies offend you— 
        
these must burn away before you’ll apprehend   
how near I am, with what fervor I adore
precisely these, the several who rouse your passions.

Scott Cairns is a Orthodox poet that I "discovered" a few years ago.  His words are typically close-to-the-bone and oblique, which I have to say, I love.  While I am Presbyterian in my approach to worship and heurmenuetic, I love how Mr. Cairns, from his Orthodox understanding unearths a strata of the love of God's creation that I can sometimes miss. 

He is my favorite poet.  If you happen to like this poem.  Google his name and you might enjoy the ride, as I have.  You might even start buying his books, as I did.

Citation: Cairns, Scott. Compass of Affection. Paraclete Press. 2006. Page 91.

Lest we forget, Dead Poet's Society helps me remember

The difference between "urgent" and "important".  What a great movie.

PHOTO CITATION: <https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/p403x403/1979566_560331330732577_690248050_n.jpg>

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

I'll give this guy the award for moxie, though misdirected.  Talks big, but I doubt he can back it up when the chips are down, as they eventually will be...well, he's dead, so they already are.  I wonder what he is saying now...

Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

Henley, William Ernest. “Invictus” from One Hundred and One Famous Poems, compiled by Roy J. Cook. Contemporary Books, Chicago.1958 Page 95.

The Children’s Hour

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,

When the light is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day’s occupations

That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence;

Yet I know by their merry eyes,

They are plotting and planning together

To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret,

O’er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine.

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,

Because you have scaled my wall,

Such an old mustache as I am

Is not a match for you all?

I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,

Yes, forever and a day,

Till the wall shall crumble in ruin,

And moulder in dust away.

Citation:

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “The Children’s Hour” from One Hundred and One Famous Poems, compiled by Roy J. Cook. Contemporary Books, Chicago.1958 Page 94.

"Trees" and my Grandpa Joe

We named our son after my Grandpa Joe.  Unfortunately, Grandpa's real name was "Joyce".  Fortunately I didn't have to name my son "Joyce" to get the effect of naming him after Grandpa.  And fortunately, there is a good reason that Grandpa was named Joyce: my Great-Grandmother liked a poem, which I also happen to like, about trees, and also fortunately, there is a national forest with some really big trees* named in honor of the poet: Joyce Kilmer. And, also additionally fortunately, he wasn't just any old sissy poet, but rather, he was  Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, a member of the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment, who died in the battle of the Marne, 1918.


"Trees"

"I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree"

Citation:
Kilmer, Joyce. "Trees". from One Hundred and One Famous Poems. Chicago, Illinois: Contemporary Books, 1958.  pg. 39


*

In My Infancy

O God of complexity

And nuance


O lover of commanding

The impossible


Of shrouding Truth

In mystery and simplicity


Bring peace to my startled heart

As you contemporarily reveal
My poverty


My poverty of generosity

And affection
Of understanding
And sight
Bring Peace to my startled heart


I had, in my infancy

(Moments ago)
Thought myself
Wise


Only to have that thought

Swept away
By the flood of
Your Son
The overwhelm of a glimpse past
My View


This epistemological disorientation

Exegetical dullness
Makes coherence impossible


And there You are again

Thanks be to God – You
My Generous, All-Knowing
Poetic
God


You are here, too

When I am
Lost


I can-

Wonderful Peace-
Find my home
In...
You


As I stumble

In this,
Your
Wilderness


You:

Home
Peace
Love
Infinite Applicator of Yourself
Heal
Call
Whisper
Impart


I accept the complexity

And
The nuance


As Long

As You are There

Citation:

Clark, David. David's Journal: Volume Nine. Gurley, Alabama: Dave's Journaling, 21 December 2010.

A glimpse of the goodness of God

I am so grateful for every glimpse of the Gospel that I receive.  Here is one glimmering thought that sheds light for us. 

"...the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God.  We are not, even, condemned by his severity and redeemed by his compassion; what judges us is what redeems us, the love of God.  What is it that will break our hearts on judgement day?  Is it not the vision, suddenly unrolled, of how he has loved the friends we have neglected, of how he has loved us, and we have not loved him in return; how when we came before his alter, he gave us himself, and we gave him half-penitence's, or resolutions too weak to commit our wills?  But while love thus judges us by being what it is, the same love redeems us by effecting what it does.  Love shares flesh and blood with us in this present world, that the eyes which look us through at last may find in us a better substance than our vanity..."

-From Love Came Down - Anglican Readings for Advent and Christmas

That thought reminds me of one of my favorite poems.  Scott Cairns, whose poem I found here, wrote this

Possible Answers to Prayer

"Your petitions—though they continue to bear   

just the one signature—have been duly recorded.   

Your anxieties—despite their constant,

relatively narrow scope and inadvertent   

entertainment value—nonetheless serve   

to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance—all but obscured beneath   

a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more   

conspicuous resentment—is sufficient.

Your intermittent concern for the sick,   

the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes   

recognizable to me, if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly   

righteous indignation toward the many   

whose habits and sympathies offend you—         

these must burn away before you’ll apprehend   

how near I am, with what fervor I adore

precisely these, the several who rouse your passions."