Come Thou Dayspring

the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

// Zechariah

where before there was only guilty silence: a new song

without him i hide my lips in trembling shame;
in him i open my mouth in petition and praise.

// Valley of Vision

grace, grace

sin and despair like the sea waves cold threaten the soul with infinite loss;
grace that is greater—yes, grace untold!—points to the refuge: the mighty cross.

// julia johnston

Sandusky Sunday. Tebow & Tiger.

Love watching athletes who play with heart. Knock his game if you want but he's seriously vocational about football and that image is... anxious sometimes. Too good... Another Tiger Woods would make us feel better, Larry Taunton wrote in USAToday:

"When it comes right down to it, we don't want heroes who are truly good. We want them to fail the occasional drug test or start a bar fight from time to time... When Tebow say that glory goes to God and the credit for a victory goes to his teammates, coaches, and family, we are suspicious... we don't believe that anyone can say such things and really mean them. So we wait... In the meantime, we always have Penn State's Jerry Sandusky..."

Happy 61st Anniversary to Gram & Paw!

:o) & (o:

celebrating them here with words from my bro Jonathan's proposal poem from this weekend:

this is an invitation to interdependence,

as two become one and all Glory goes to the Son.

praise due, not to us but to the Lamb who cried, "it is done!"

– because of love.

not an only-for-this-season love,

or a he-bought-this-for-me type love,

not a we’re-both-from-the-barrio,

or here’s-the-prenup type of love,

but an excessive affection that sees

future, present and retrospective.

patient, kind, protective, common and elective,

ever-pushing and pursuing,

ever drawing the same conclusion:

that He is the ultimate bridegroom

who died for me, and for you.

and though He couldn’t bend his knee

because of the nails in His feet,

he dropped His head and proposed –

will you marry me?

and today in this way

miss pan, i humbly do the same:

will you marry me?

and with MJ & MJ's very different weekend

remembering that we are still all a part of the same story,

the same invitation to celebrate to feast to be one with the One.

i believe in happily ever after.

Learning to be a child, 5.

Lovely Thanksgiving at Ave Z, where the sidewalk ends in Brooklyn. It was a PCA dinner, the liquor poured freely. Kept getting summoned by Orli to the kids' table with her big brother and five of their cousins. Miss Esther can you please open this bottle for me? or to carve some turkey or reach the high shelf or to tag Noah because he was too fast and kept declaring no tag-backs or to pull some cransauce out of her hair... Delightful.

So it is I think with childlike prayerfulness. Not manipulating the Father into obliging the request by way of puppy eyes and pouty whines...

But please Daddy! I have no power to do this on my own. It's help! I am not big enough!

not capable enough? for what?

i fall to my knees and pray to the Father...

i pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources

he will empower you with inner strength...

may you have the power to understand

how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is...

then you will be made complete

with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

// Eph 3, NLT

not able enough to grasp His great love for me.

no child knows.

the King's Table is His Kids' Table--and there is joy! much joy.
in basking in Love we are too small and frail on our own to know.
too unknowing to feel how established, rooted, moored, secure we are.

Love we are too much His children to thwart.
Love that will not let us go.
there's power and help here, gifts for the asking,
to begin tasting, seeing, sensing what "surpasses knowledge":
the love of Christ. the filling with fullness.
how He loves us. the King, He loves me.

Daddy, do more. do more than all we ask or imagine.

when i forget my name, remind me.

God dignifies us with our True Identity.

Especially when the only images we can see are the veiled corrupt mimicries. 

Especially when wrestling the self and facing sin--both my own and those done unto me, and all the things that persist on earth to steal, kill, and destroy... The loss, death, ruins... oh they could crush our hearts.

Especially in real warfare, the darkness threatens to overtake the light by which the image of God is perceived.

God dignifies us with our True Identity.

Unless I glance at my sin and gaze upon my Savior, in whom my true self holds and is hidden--engraved on His heart that calls and draws me by name. My real name, it is written on His hands, in His wounds that heal me. When I forget my name, remind me.

Your sins do not define you.

Your identity is as a redeemed,

reconciled, justified, cleansed

son or daughter of our loving Father.

//The Resurgence

dearest MJ & MJ, who remind me my name. i'll remind you too.

so be that, in faith.