Giving Thanks

His Steadfast Love Endures Forever

A Psalm for giving thanks.

Psalm 100 

 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

2   Serve the Lord with gladness!

  Come into His presence with singing!

3  Know that the Lord, He is God!

It is He who made us, and we are His;

we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

4  Enter His gates with thanksgiving,

and His courts with praise!

Give thanks to Him; bless His name!

5  For the Lord is good;

  His steadfast love endures forever,

and His faithfulness to all generations.

 

Rejoice, serve, come, know, enter, give thanks, and bless - the seven commands of Psalm 100.

 

Make a joyful noise

     Serve

          Come

                 KNOW

           Enter

     Give Thanks

Bless

 

Whom do we know?

What does He tell us about Himself?

 

Know that the Lord, He is God!

 

For the Lord is good;

  His steadfast love endures forever,

and His faithfulness to all generations.

 

 

There is so much to be thankful for...

but before that -

HE is God; there is no other.

 

Thanks be to God.  Today is a good day to give thanks.

Son of God, hear us, and since Thou
By taking our blood, owest it us again,
Gain to Thyself, or us allow ;
And let not both us and Thyself be slain ;
O Lamb of God, which took'st our sin,
Which could not stick to Thee,
O let it not return to us again ;
But Patient and Physician being free,
As sin is nothing, let it nowhere be.                

- J. Donne

Life is full of ends and beginnings-and in the middle it is mostly- a mess of full stops, muck, and restarts. 

This is the end of John Donne's "Litany". 

It's a shadow of life's True End.

• Sin the once- "here Now"-- is at once - "no Where"
• That's a flip.

Shadows are finders, they remind us that there is... a really real.
Shadows also whisper that this little slice of time and space is not it; it is not the one true thing.  It's just a sloshy, little step on the really real roadmap.


Was it the end God had in mind, or was it the road- when He began..."In the beginning..."?  
Is that a false dichotomy?

And in the end, isn't the real end,  just the Beginning anyway?
 

Happy Birthday, Christa!

The Writer

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

-Richard Wilbur

In your book were written every one of them;
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
How precious are your thoughts, O God!
How vast the sum of them!
...They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Search me, O God, know my heart.
Lead me in the way everlasting.
-Psalm 139

Another year, a big one, 21 today!  Dinner at Chili's ,a picnic at the cliffs, reading, and listened to one of Dr. Grant's Rome lectures together. A great day, and great week and another year under the sun.

Twenty one things to remember from your 21st year-

1. Lists - were there more than 21? ahhh...yeah. You can bank on that.
2. A pre-LSAT score of 164. Amazing.
3. Aquinas College - Summa Cum Laude
4. Lunch with Dr. Smith
5. National Golden Gloves Championship Fight
6. The week by Nana's side
7. Chats with your cousins
8. Moving back home to California
9. Son tres amigos meet again over pints
10. Route 66 - what happens in the car stays in the car
11. The Grand Canyon
12. The Big Texan
13. A Real Grown-Up Job
14. Rodizo Grill
15. A plane ride with Roro
16. Standing on the Edge of the Santa Cruz Cliffs
17. Suit shopping for the Capitol
18. Rodizo Grill (Yes. it's listed twice foodie!)
19. the work that went into your dissertation -and publication
20. Saying goodbye to friends
21. Hanging out with old friends again

All these days were written - what a joy it is to be a part of playing them out with you.




 

From My Favorite Poet

It tolls for thee, the leaden pall
Cathedral-bound today.
I-Fichten-I, your tomb you wall,
By your own hand bury.

She tolls for Thee, the brazen belle
Cathedral-bound today.
Three-Personed God her groom, she will
Soon take your hand, marry.

It rings for Thee, the golden bell-
Cathedral crown etern'.
Three Personed Love, your children fell
But by your hand returned.
KCN 3/26/15 Hartford Home

My daughter Kelsey wrote this, we had an hour and a half discussion on it. I am philosophy challenged so she tutored me on Fichten.
Some things worth noting:

• The verses sound the same but have vastly different meaning. The progression is from self (humanism) to the Church in the world, to the Music of the Spheres and Eternal truth.
• The path from lead to bronze to gold
• Trinity personage - self - Fichten was the predecessor to Freud; seeing ourself in Christ as we are in the World; The Holy Trinity sovereign and acting in love over Creation for all time.
• Hand - self, giving ourselves to God, The Divine Hand of Sovereignty and Love. Depending on the volition of the hand it brings death, or unity and salvation.

This is not a feely, flowy kind of poem. It is all bones and structure.  I like that. A young woman of few words and deep thought, her poetry is reflective of her personality and gifting.  It is always amazing to me how God has made her. We are very different. In the space between I find respect and joy and thanksgiving to Our Lord who creates spance for navigating this poor, fallen world in a muddle. The mess is part of the joy, it is where HE reveals himself, and grants us hope in what we, all too often are blind to see.