Peace

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, 

Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?

When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite

To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but

That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows

Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu

Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,

That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house

He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo, 

He comes to brood and sit.

January Day

It had been months since I had seen either of them. So unlike each other, so unlike me.

I could share more--the color of their hair, the clothes they wore, how they've changed since college, what they do every day. It would all be interesting, actually.

But really, what it comes down to in the end is that we could talk about God.

It is a mystery how unlike can navigate unlike until they find the center. And there at the heart, God gives them a common tongue to talk of truth and of hardness and of hope. No, the threads that make us up are not wound the same way; they are not the same hues or textures or types. But in seeking God we find kinship.

One golden moment is captured, a freeze frame in my memory. One girl on the floor, the other in the rocking chair, both singing an old Nazarene song from their growing up in different keys, furnace blazing hot air on their backs.

Two voices singing homespun praise as I listen, humming along to a tune I've never heard but somehow know the sound of.

Child

You're ganglier than you used to be, you whose clumsy feet tromp up my wooden steps. You fumble at the door and come in with a shy grin.

Two years ago is not so long, Boy. I still know your heart, and you know mine. I know the way you joke and the way to help you clamber over the walls in your head, I know that chocolate is a sure way to help you understand algebra, I know the sound of your voice humming off-key and your foot tapping off-beat as your pencil moves to the music coming from my laptop.

And so you sat and hummed and tapped as you nibbled on peppermint bark and found the equations of lines, and in the middle of all the quiet goodness you looked up and grinned.

"This is fun!"

I don't think you realize you said it.

My heart broods over you, Child, you who grow so awkwardly towards being a man.

God go with you--go with you down the steps, go with you next week and next year. Go with you into your full height and your old age.

All the Way

Listen. 

It is good.

James

It is easy to feel as though you've walked far when you're marking progress by time spent moving forward rather than the distance from here to there.

God's been pulling me up short lately, reminding me that I've not walked as far with Him as I thought I had.

It's a good reminder, and a humbling one.

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 

I find myself wondering about patience. How I've asked for it before, and God has brought me through hard things to teach it.

But clearly I'm not done learning that particular lesson.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

It is both a comfort and a challenge. I know I lack wisdom, and I have a generous Father Whose stores overflow.

But asking in faith, nothing wavering?

Ah.

Like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Yes. Wavering and all. Yes.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Is it possible to be too swift to hear, too slow to speak? I suppose if it leads to wrath it's not good in either case.

The surety is that God's righteousness has no part with the wrath of man.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

How do you make sure you're hearing right? I know that when I see Debbie looking at me in a mirror, I don't always see right. How can I have confidence that I am hearing right so that I can do right?

I long to do, not just hear.

But sometimes I get stuck at the hearing part.

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

We are so many sparks, you and I, trusting God that we won't burn the whole place down.

The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

We bless God, our Father; we curse His sons, made in his image. We bless and curse with our sweet bitterness.

I wonder how God changes us so that even the bitter begins to run sweet on our tongues. I know He does change us. But the wait seems long. But again--patience is a lesson I'm not done learning.

Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

Our words matter. Wisdom speaks well. But it also speaks meekly.

What is the meekness of wisdom?

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

This. This is it. It is pure, and peaceable, gentle, and easily intreated. It is full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy.

And peace blooms out of it all somehow.

But He giveth more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

We are to be a subtle alloy of submission and resistance. We are doubleminded, and I sometimes don't know when to submit and when to resist.

Cleanse your hands, sinner, God says.

Purify your heart.

But how?

Draw nigh.

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time,  and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

Sometimes my life feels like a waterfall. But God is the waterfall, and I'm just the barest bit of hazy mist.

If the Lord will, I will live, and do this, or that.

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Teach me to know how to do good. I want to know how to do good.

Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Patience again. And waiting.

Stablish. Root. Ground. God knows hearts are not meant to be tossed about.

But only He can keep them from it.

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

I have many faults. I have pride, and excessive self-concern. I want to control, I want to manage.

And yet God has given us prayer, and a promise of healing. I don't know what healing looks like. It might not look like what we think it does.

But prayer still avails much.

But even that?

It is the prayer of a righteous man that avails much.

Sometimes I am struck silent by how humility is all bound up in taking even one step toward Christ.

Take a step, and thank Christ for being your strength to walk.

The road stretches long, but the strength of God does not wear thin.

And so we walk.