dual personalities

Well, leaf blower season officially started this week. That sound is one thing that makes winter not so bad by its absence.

This short word from Sinclair Ferguson is great:

It struck me how right he is about Jesus and how He was willing to pause for the kind of people who don’t think anyone cares or notices them. That is something we could all do more often–just pause and take a moment. Our mother was the kind of person people did not notice or pay attention to. But the rector of the largest Episcopal church in our diocese knew who she was and he had even been to her house. It made a huge difference in the last years of her life. He made a point of knowing everyone in his parish and visiting them at home. I often think of that when clergy complain that they are too busy. He had 1000 members in his church. It was his joy to know them. He knew that was his job. Later he became a bishop and passed into glory years ago and I doubt if he would recognize his church these days. But Sinclair hits the nail on the head.

This is a really important reminder that we should never be scared of a little discomfort. “When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give you—a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build, ¹¹ houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied, ¹² be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.” (Deuteronomy 6:10-13)

Today, of course, is St. Patrick’s Day so that means it’s time to watch The Quiet Man (1952)…

…and read a little George Bernard Shaw and Billy Collins.

What scene would I want to be enveloped in

more than this one,

an ordinary night at the kitchen table,

floral wallpaper pressing in,

white cabinets full of glass,

the telephone silent,

a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think

about all that is going on outside–

leaves gathering in corners,

lichen greening the high grey rocks,

while over the dunes the world sails on,

huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table

there is nothing that I need,

not even a job that would allow me to row to work,

or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4

with cracked green leather seats.

No, it’s all here,

the clear ovals of a glass of water,

a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,

not to mention the odd snarling fish

in a frame on the wall,

and the way these three candles–

each a different height–

are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me

if I lower my head now and listen

to the short bass candle as he takes a solo

while my heart

thrums under my shirt–

frog at the edge of a pond–

and my thoughts fly off to a province

made of one enormous sky

and about a million empty branches.

Take a moment, a pause. Think outside yourself.

The wind blows as it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.