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notpoems
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Gender: Female
Interests: Loving Jesus, relationships, words and language, education, Scripture, baking, chocolate, living in the midst of nature, French, good books, gardens, accountability, South Carolina beaches, garage sales, writing....
Expertise: Making sauces
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/2/2005
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| My aunt died one week before I returned from France. Since then, like before, I've been spending one day a week at my grandparents’ house – where she lived. It is odd, sad, strange, and a bit eerie to be there and know she's not. And know she never will be. Once I read – or, I think, had a conversation or so – about the fact that once a person dies we can see his life in totality; it can be summed up and taken as a whole and seen from every facet; there is nothing more being added, nothing to add. That sobers me. As well as seeing my grandfather so frail (though he’s getting stronger now) and my grandmother’s faithful, gentle, tireless care for him while he’s so weak, and the deep love and dependence they have for each other: the kind of trust, reliance, “cling-to”-ness my college professor conveyed in the picture of leaning on a crutch: if it’s pulled away, you fall.
I cleaned out their pantry a couple weeks ago. I’d done it a while before I left for France, but this time I looked at dates and threw out everything outdated. The oldest thing in there was a can of pineapple from 2003 which had finally burst: the top and bottom were swollen out, and the juice had run out, pooled on the shelf, and turned black and oozy. It made me laugh.
Every week when I go to help clean, I come home with something – usually several things: books, shoes, kitchen utensils, containers, cucumbers, pecans, banana pudding. My grandmother (bless her heart  ) is trying to clean out things they don’t need now that my aunt is gone and she’s starting to prepare for my granddad to go too. It’s a huge undertaking after five and a half decades of marriage, kids, grandkids, collections, yards, gardens, and packrats. But one day we’ll finish it. We did for my other grandmother, though I’m still combing through the sewing supplies, books, papers, and miscellany I inherited from her. (My mom claims that when they cleaned out her house-of-40-years they found cans of food twenty years old.) One day it will be done for me. They will look back with shock, or resignation, or peace the day of my death. They’ll see my whole life defined, reckoned, fixed. Then what?
“What are we holding onto, Sam?” I must hold onto The God Who Is There: the One good, powerful, loving. In seeing my/our need, in mourning my/our lostness, I must hold onto His promise to make me whole. “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:19-20)
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| when men pray, God works.
apart from Me you can do nothing.
cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you.
in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God; the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
the Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.
ask and you will receive; your Father knows that you need these things.
ask and I will give the nations to You as an inheritance.
the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
My word will not return to Me without accomplishing what I sent it to do.
I will guide you with My eye upon you.
the Lord sits enthroned in the heavens; the Lord sits as King forever.
you are the apple of My eye and the jewel of my heart.
abide in Me. | | |
| ....where people sit quietly at the gates (very different from the Memphis airport) and fifty languages can be heard in the span of an hour. I made it here at 12:10 pm local time (my body thought it was 7:00 am) and I'll be leaving again in less than an hour. One more leg of the journey to Marseille! One of these days, I'm going to get out of Schiphol and actually see Amsterdam. But not today...for I have "miles to go before I sleep" (although I plan to sleep *during* some of those miles as well). | | |
| For the few (two?) faithful readers of this humble blog, here is some slight justification of my abandonment of it in recent weeks:
www.bloggingthecanon.blogspot.com
(In which I delight in the musings of a non-scientific, but very intelligent and thoughtful, new reader of "the classics" and, based upon his synopses and subsequent thoughts, make mental notations on which of said "classics" I shall seek out and which I shall henceforth ignore.) | | |
| D Daleth.
25 My soul cleaves to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
26 I have told of my ways, and You have answered me;
Teach me Your statutes.
27 Make me understand the way of Your precepts,
So I will meditate on Your wonders.
28 My soul weeps because of grief;
Strengthen me according to Your word.
29 Remove the false way from me,
And graciously grant me Your law.
30 I have chosen the faithful way;
I have placed Your ordinances before me.
31 I cling to Your testimonies;
O LORD, do not put me to shame!
32 I shall run the way of Your commandments,
For You will enlarge my heart.
This is what I have before (in my own mind) termed "desperation and abundance." The contrast/connection between my desperation and His abundance intrigues me. For lack of a better picture (it is past my bedtime), it's like the humans in The Matrix, who must be hooked into the program for the whole world to open up, and if the power line is disconnected, they drop dead. The moment my thoughts turn to myself, away from Him, my three enemies shove their feet into the door: my flesh with its self-absorption: whining, grasping neediness that never says "Enough!" (because only He is Enough!). The world with its loud, dramatic, mind-numbing lies about the lifeboat it appears we are in and the case I must make for my own survival and okay-ness. The devil with his seductive whispers that it is okay to let my guard down and indulge my flesh for this moment; I've earned some pleasure; I deserve a break from the fight.
Into this He speaks: "Abide in Me, and I in you...Apart from Me you can do nothing." "Abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul." His word is "like mountain water, like fresh air after a dungeon, like sanity after a nightmare," light and firmness and reality. It "pierces everywhere with its strong, clean ardour...searching out all the hiding-places of [my] soul." (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms)
H He.
33 Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes,
And I shall observe it to the end.
34 Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law
And keep it with all my heart.
35 Make me walk in the path of Your commandments,
For I delight in it.
36 Incline my heart to Your testimonies
And not to dishonest gain.
37 Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity,
And revive me in Your ways.
38 Establish Your word to Your servant,
As that which produces reverence for You.
39 Turn away my reproach which I dread,
For Your ordinances are good.
40 Behold, I long for Your precepts;
Revive me through Your righteousness.
"I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain; come quickly and abide, or life's in vain." | | |
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