Volunteering

 

During this COVID time, we are limiting our travelling and exposure. We did take some time to do some socially distanced, responsible  volunteer painting.  (My husband held the ladder while I got up into the pinnacle!)

Perspectives

"Rain" means something other
If you're not from Arizona:
"Into every life..."*
(Twist you here the knife)
"A little rain must fall..."*
(Unmitigated gall).

At last God sent us rain
To ease this climate's pain
Elsewhere they have floods--

Nature's twisted torsades.**

I pray You come again,
Far moreso than the rain;
I want to see Your Face:
Lord, Jesus, come with haste.

---c.m.b.  (c), 2020

(a summer of record breaking 110+ days in Phoenix; no rain; high ozone)

*A paraphrase from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Rainy Day"  (see link below)

**Torsades:  an irregular heart rhythm

"The Rainy Day", by Longfellow

Lilies on My Table

 Flowers I bought to off-set the wicked heat and drought outdoors. Set on our bird themed tablecloth, a gift to ourselves for our last anniversary.  They opened over a couple of days, just as the store promised.

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[Joy & Peace in Believing]

(from the Olney Hymns)

Sometimes a light surprises
     The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
     With healing on His wings;*
When comforts are declining,
     He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
     To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation
     We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation,
     And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
     We cheerfully can say,
E'en let the unknown to-morrow
     Bring with it what it may!

It can bring with it nothing,
     But He will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing,**
     Will clothe His people too;
Beneath the spreading heavens
     No creature but is fed;
And He who feeds the ravens
     Will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither***
     Their wonted fruit shall bear,
Though all the field should wither,
     Nor flocks nor herds be there:
Yet God the same abiding,
     His praise shall tune my voice;
For, while in Him confiding,
     I cannot but rejoice.

 --William Cowper [pronounced "Cooper"], 1779; part of Olney 

hymns, written alongside his friend, John Newton, author of 

"Amazing Grace" 

*Malchi 4:2--  the Sun of Righteousness [Christ] will rise with 

healing  in His wings. This idea is also found in a verse of "Hark 

the Herald Angels Sing"

**Matthew 6 & Luke 12--  Jesus told His followers that God

clothes the grasses in beautiful lilies that outshine wealthy King 

Solomon's best clothing.  He feeds the birds, specifically ravens, 

though they don't work and plan as the farmer does.  Jesus tells His 

followers that His Father will certainly take care of them, also, and 

that they shouldn't worry. 

***Habakkuk 3:17-19, a paraphrase.  If all else goes badly, rejoice. 

This is not idle, wishful thinking, nor pie in the sky optimism.  

Cowper suffered from crippling, pitch black depression at a time

before there were psychiatric medications. 

(Habakkuk is one of my favorite books of the Bible.) 

Nature is Never Spent (*)

"For all this, nature is never spent."*
As unto urban wastelands sent
Was this poetic English gent
Ourselves are now to parched lands lent,
Absorbing well what Hopkins meant.

I see no British Isles lush~
I look on desert city rush~
Adapting as that orange-breast thrush**
I find my own internal hush.  

"There lives the dearest freshness deep-down things,"*
As I admire our flowerings
And still the robin gamely sings.**

"For all this, nature is never spent."
On earth, this comes as form of rent
Until we dwell in Christ's new tent.***
--C. Marie Byars, 2020 (c) 
[during covid and unrest times, but not in direct response] 

*From Gerard Manley Hopkins', SJ, 1877 poem
God's Grandeur

**A U.S. robin is a type of thrush. Per various field guides, its wide range suggests it's adaptable.

***Tent/tabernacle/dwelling.  The Old Testament Tabernacle was a durable, highly ornate tent with a special purpose for worship. There, God's visible presence on earth could be found.  In John 1: 14, "The Word [Christ] became flesh and 'tabernacled' among us."  The Greek word for 'dwelling' means more literally 'tented.'

You Have Searched Me

(Psalm 139:1-10; 14. An original translation.)

Yahweh, You searched me;
Thus You know me.
My sitting down and my rising up You know.
My disposition You discern from a distance.
My path and lying down you sort out,
And my entire way You make useful.
A word is not yet formed on my tongue,
And, yet You, O Yahweh, already know it.
Behind me and in front of me You close me in,
And upon me have You placed the palm of Your Hand.
Too wonderful for me is this Knowledge!
She is high: I cannot reach her!
Where could I go from Your Spirit?
And where might I flee from Your Face?
Were I to ascend to the skies,
You would be there.
And were I to make my bed in the depths of the earth,
Indeed, You would be there.

Alamosa, Colorado KOA
(photo by my husband)

Were I to rise on the wings of the dawn
And were I to dwell at the edge of the sea,
Even there your Hand would hold and guide me,
And your strength would sustain me. . .
I praise You,
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
How rightly I realize this!

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
--Robert Frost, 1923 (1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner)

Cardinal, Sunflower and Violet
watercolor by my daughter when age 12
copyright held by artist

Ferreting out exactly what Robert Frost's religious beliefs were are difficult. Things are compounded by the losses in his life. However, as this poem alludes to the Garden of Eden, the first creation by God, and how it was sunk by the first sin (Genesis 3), it is being incorporated on this Christian site.
Although this poem seems bleak, it does speak of cycles of life that will continue to come about in this imperfect world: there will be new flowers or leaves on the tree next year; there will be a dawn tomorrow; people will die but leave their descendants after them.