Birds in Scripture

My soul longed, even yearned
For the courts of Yahweh.
My mind* and my flesh
Cry out to the Living God.
Even the songbird** has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself
Where she may lay her young---
Your altars, Oh Yahweh of Armies,
My King and my God! (Psalm 84:2-3)

(Yahweh says)
"I know every bird in the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the forest are Mine." (Ps. 50:11)

In Yahweh have I trusted:
How do you [plural: "y'all"] say to my soul,
"Flee as a bird to your [plural] mountain"?? (Ps. 11:1)

(O, Yahweh),
Keep me as the apple of Your eye:
In the shadow of Your wings hide me. (Ps. 17:8)

"As birds flying around,
Thus will Yahweh of Armies protect Jerusalem.
Defending, he will deliver.
He will 'pass over' and protect." (Isaiah 31:5)

Mighty Yahweh,
You have made yourself known in your Son, Jesus.
Through His crucifixion,
You have established for us a "New Passover"
Where You "pass over" the wrongs we do
And the failures to do right.

As Jesus said, make us to trust
The way the ravens do
"Which niether sow (grain) nor reap
Nor gather (food) into barns"
And are yet fed by our Heavenly Father.
(Matthew 6:25-27 & Luke 12:22-24)

We are worth so much more to You
And, yet, we fill up our lives
With things that are worthless.
Forgive us, love us, and keep working in us
To give us the simple trust of your little birds.

Detail from a tablecloth sold by Vermont Country Store

[original Bible translations & explanatory verses]

*Literally "heart", which ancient Hebrews considered the seat of the intellect.
**"Sparrow" in some translations

Joy to the World

(A paraphrase of Psalm 98)

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love.
---Isaac Watts, 1719

The Dirty Floor

[This is technically an analogy. Like all, it has its limitations.]

Somtimes people ask me, "Why do you consider Christianity so special or unique? After all, most of the world's great religions have fine moral codes." (Of course, these people are either not Christians at all or very loose or lapsed in their relationship to Him.) So I agree with them that that is true, but the primary thing about Christianity is not the fine moral code.

I give them this to think on:"When you were very young and tracked dirt in on the nice, clean kitchen floor, how did your mom react? Did she say, 'That's okay, honey, I love you so much that I'll ignore the dirt. We'll all just get along fine ignoring it.'???" Of course not!" [No one's ever said "Yes" to this---what a dump you'd live in if your mom were like that.] "

"And your mom knew you couldn't clean up the mess on your own. So, what did your mom do? She rolled up her sleeves* and cleaned up your mess on her own.""That's how it is with God and sin. God can even less stand to live with the dirt of sinfulness than your mom could with that dirty floor. [Old Testament: 'unclean' was how they often expressed sin or sinfulness.] God is so holy He can't even stand one speck of dirt in His presence---not the tiniest thing. And we're not capable of cleaning our mess up, either. So, God 'rolled up His sleeves'*, became one of us (Jesus Christ) and cleaned up that mess (dying on the cross to pay back Himself for the cost of our sins). "If you grasp this idea first, then nature really properly can become a teaching tool for you. Because then you will know what is real, and you can relate what you take in with your senses back to the truth of Jesus Christ.

*"[Yahweh] saw that there was no one. . . to intercede; so His own arm worked salvation for Him." (Isaiah 60:16)

Moonrise

I awoke in the Midsummer not-to-call night,
in the white and the walk of the morning*:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe
of a fingernail** held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaical fruit,***
lovely in waning but lustreless. . .
This was the prized, the desirable sight,
unsought, presented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf****, divided me,
eyelid and eyelid of slumber.
---Gerard Manley Hopkins; June, 1876

*A moon just before the new moon will come up just before sun up
**Slim crescent moon, seeming as translucent as a fingernail held up in front of a candle in a dark room (a waning moon)
***Fruit parings also seem translucent; reminds one of the "waning" of the fruit of paradise after sin
****The "magic" of this night cut right through the poet, as if leaves of a book or of a tree parting from each other, then his eyelids were parted from his eyes as he could no longer sleep with such a "spell" on his room


Technorati Labels Gerard Manley Hopkins moon night summer change nature religion Catholic poetry literature poetry

The Bible's Trees

The trees of Yahweh are full,
The cedars of Lebanon which He planted,
Where the birds make their nests:
The stork has her home in the cypress trees. 
[Psalm 104: 16-17]

"The stump of Jesse shall grow anew, " [promised Yahweh]
"And a Sprout [Jesus] from the root shall bear fruit.
And upon Him shall rest the Spirit of Yahweh:
The Spirit of Wisdom and of Understanding,
The Spirit of Counsel and of Might,
The Spirit of Knowledge and of the Fear of Yahweh." 
[Isaiah 11:1-3a]

"Cursed be any man who hangs on a tree." 
[Deuteronomy 21:22; Galatians 3:13]
"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
I, Jesus, shall draw all people unto myself." [John 12:32]

(The righteous man) is like a tree,
Which has been planted by streams of water,
Which gives its fruit in its proper time.
Its leaf does not wither:
Whatever it does will prosper. [Ps. 1:3]

The trees of the forest will sing for joy before Yahweh,
For He comes to judge the earth. [I Chronicles 16:33]

"You will go forth in joy," [promises Yahweh]
And be lead forth in peace. . .
The trees of the fields will clap their hands.
Rather than the thorn, the cypress will come up;
Rather than the brier, the myrtle will come up.
And all this will be for the sake of Yahweh's Name,
An everlasting sign which will not be destroyed." [fr. Is. 55:12-13]
(original translations)

Clouds & Scripture

"See, [Jesus] comes with the clouds,
And every eye shall see Him,
even as many as pierced Him;
And all the tribes of the earth shall mourn." (Revelation 1:7)
"See, He will advance like the clouds,
And His chariots like a whirlwind,
His horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are plundered!" (Jeremiah 4:13)
"You have clothed Yourself with a cloud
So that prayer cannot get through." (Lamentations 3:44)
"'I [God] have swept away as a cumulus cloud your offenses
And as a cloud your sins.
Return to Me,
For I have redeemed you.'" (Isaiah 44:22)
---original translations

From Sea to Dark Dead Sea

[This poem is about the modern American mindset and its influence upon the Church. It does not reflect a crushing depression on the part of the poetess.]

The Jordan in but never out,
So knowledge takes in me such route
In brackish waters to brood about
The suppression of true freedom's shout---
The Dead Sea.

At lowest point, then, here I sit.
The deepest depression of deep'ning rift.
The deep'ning gloom---and shall it lift?
Integrity's shroud, hides Holy Writ. . .
Apathy.

As just-hatched bird by Nature bred
Lives just to squawk and so be fed
I now by histr'y do so defend
By justified means I reach this end:
The Bland Me.

I lived through day, I lived through night;
I lived through love, I lived through fright;
I turned inside to put to flight
The hopeless failures from crueller sight:
The Dead Me.

Whether by mindless shallowness
Or endless, stale analysis,
In Sophist and in Hedonist
The fear of Feeling here exists:
The fear "to be."

On me they float but can't dive in:
Cannot drown but cannot swim.
Advance in skills. . .Retreat within. . .
A merry-go-round with fatal spin. . .
Technology?!?!

Oh, to be that other sea,
Parted to let young Israel free,
Closed to drown out cruelty,
Fluid with fresh-faced vitality:
The Red Sea!!!

-----C. Marie Byars, 1987

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