watch out for the iconic ones

I have been guided by this way of seeing, now for two years and 8 days. By windows and icons and crystal lenses.

In times like these I so sharply feel Ann Judson (AJ)'s chastening ache and borrow her form to confess:

My heart is bound up there; I felt he was my earthly all, my purest source of light, voice, warmth, protection in these dire straits. But God saw it was necessary of my error and strip me of my little all. Oh may it not be in vain that He has done it.

Ssstill?! Christ have mercy. In Adoniram's words:

O may we not suffer in vain! May this bereavement be sanctified to our souls! and for this I hope we have your prayers . . .

The danger of icons, of course, is idolatry. But how would I see through these stonewalls without a window? I do see You, so clearly through them. The iconic ones. Keep my focus there, let the lens fall away.

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth,

through it pass,

And then the heav'n espy.

// George Herbert, "The Elixir"

give, feed, serve, receive, love, speak, clothe, wait. as unto Thee.

10. Resolved, to love fiercely but loosely: My friends are not my own. If ever I invest in friendship, to do so freely and charitably, not to buy or possess. If ever I embrace, to do so as to make space for, rather than engulf the other. I can love others, and forget myself, I can risk loss, because I am recollected by Love himself. 19 Jan 2015

16. Resolved, not to make idols of icons. Heart, don't turn good things into ultimate things. I will fail at this a thousand times; a thousand times I will fall at clay feet. A thousand times, help me fall, fail, return to kiss and wash Your feet with the truest tears of repentance. 17 July 2017

Prospectus

Remember college viewbooks? Those glossy marketing pitches that schools mailed to you junior and senior year after PSAT's and state tests.

Come and see, they beckon. 

Hear what our own have to say about us!

Join us and this is what you'll become.

Join our mission! Catch our vision!

Ah, enlightenment.

So you apply yourself.

The university prospectus.

* * *

I remember viewbooks. How religiously I read them.

I collected them. Fascinating, pretty things of hope, promise, life, future, and identity to me. Tantalizing.

I was sold. Somewhere in a basement in Naperville, there are still 30 some viewbooks fileboxed away.

* * *

Such appeal.

They were an appeal to your freedom and choice.

An appeal to your wallet. All this bang for your buck! Or 50,000 bucks yearly. Worth it!

An appeal to your time. In just four years, they promise, we'll make you youer than you! A difference of a lifetime!

An appeal to your imagination. To become one of those Brooks Brothers-clad souls, walking, laughing, books in hand, a leather messenger slung cross-body, under towering stately oaks and flying stone buttresses. Imagine! the life! the access! the privilege! Join the aristocracy!

(all images above adapted from apply.jhu.edu)

An appeal to your affections.

* * *

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust destroy...

but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

// Matthew 6.19-21

"It's obvious, isn't it?" says Eugene Peterson. "The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being."

* * *

The prospectus, appealing to your heart, shows you who you'll become.

And in your choice, your priority, it reveals to you who you already are.

Where you aim your heart, where you set your sights,

There. is your reward, your heaven.

It will dominate your vision, hold your imagination,

warp time and experience,pull your whole life to itself.

Yet once more I will shake not only the earth,

but also the heavens...

in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore let us be grateful

for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken...

August 8, 2007

for our God is a consuming fire.

// Hebrews 12.26-29

i was H-bound.
hopkins-bound. hell-bound.

Christ had mercy on me.

He loves me.

Sometimes lost, always found.

Stood up for Alyosha's honor and humanity today but it sucked all of mine right away. I deflated, felt extirpated, like I was just a guilty stain, that he just needed to vomit and flush me out.

Really if he even indicated he misses me or that I was ever worth anything--you know, like a woman preoccupying her mind in search of a lost coin, the shepherd's mindful numbering of that lost sheep, the child retracing her steps to find that lost sticker whose gummy reverse was no longer sticky from her moving it between her hand and her shirt... or a friend lamenting a lost friend... then it wouldn't do such violence to my lost heart.

Instead, he builds so much happiness on my heartbreak. Tosses me aside like litter, drops me carelessly. As it goes with any trash, whether it's just a little wrapper to get at the thing you actually want, in which case you'll hardly even notice it's missing. Or whether it's a big mess and heavy burden, in which case you are relieved and rejoicing to be rid of it. Why am I so easy to part with? Why was I forgotten and overlooked? My evaluation of myself and his of me... So condemning. So suffocating. And I got so lost in those tears and fears.

In the shadows of that steep valley the LORD came after me, He found me. He wrapped His words around me and absorbed my tears with His rod and staff in ways 2-ply tissues couldn't.

I see you, girl, I see you,
and I've got you like none other.
I noticed you'd turned your gaze from Me...
so I came looking for you. 

I'll always find you.
I'll always reach you.
I cast away sins, not sinners.
You have Me, you'll always have Me.

Maybe someday, Alexeichik will not cast me out with my sin.
Maybe someday, but not today.

So I will wait and watch, pray and plead.
So I will wait and hope, not for the maybes and somedays, not for him.

But I will wait for the LORD alone,
Who always comes through.
Who sees AND finds me.
Who knows AND loves me.
Who forgives AND heals me.
He is the Lifter of my head.
He is the Fixer of my gaze.

I will wait and take heart, be hidden in Him, be found through faith--because the lost her is not the true me. Though I lose myself, I am not lost if He makes me, He is no loser; He's a Seeker & Chooser, a Finder & Keeper.

Take care, Esther, til we have faces.

sorrowing i shall be in spirit

til released from flesh and sin

Take care, Agur, learn to walk--it hurts to fall.
Take care when you invest, that you do so as to free, not to buy.
Take care when you embrace, that you do so as to accept, not to engulf.
Take care with that white-knuckled deathgrip, when you cling on for dear "life."
Take care with that deadly, injurious, unduly possessive mimicry of Love.
Take care lest you love something to death--its and yours.
Take care––your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.
Take care––in that desperation, to turn unto Life.
You need a Savior, there is only One.