And in the west, an almost full moon tosses on cloudy seas

Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart. Psalm 111:1

And I heard a few stories yesterday. From people like me. Who are wrestling with the “Yes, but, LORD, really?” question. “This is it, Your plan for my life?”

“Yep,” He says.

“Yep,” He says in love and power and knowingness.

And in response, I kneel down and give thanks. With a whole heart.

And then, (the hard part for me) I stand up and shout and sing, “Hallelujah.” With my whole heart.

I shall always wait in patience, and shall praise you more and more. Psalm 71:14

Prayer is far from being sweet and easy. Being the expression of our greatest love, it does not keep pain away from us. Instead, it makes us suffer more since our love for God is a love for a suffering God and our entering into God’s intimacy is an entering into the intimacy where all of human suffering is embraced in divine compassion. To the degree that our prayer has become the prayer of our heart we will love more and suffer more, we will see more light and more darkness, more grace and more sin, more of God and more of humanity. To the degree that we have descended into our heart and reached out to God from there, solitude can speak to solitude, deep to deep, and heart to heart. It is there where love and pain are found together. Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

Jesus prayed, saying I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them.’ John 17:26

May I know His love with my whole heart.

And I chose I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever, I will sing over and over as I watched the brilliant morning star fade slowly into the dawning east. And even if I can no longer see its pulsing glory, it is there. 

May I know His love with my whole heart.

He in me and I in Him.  

And what if Jesus just kicked off His sandals when He walked in the front door.

My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody. Psalm 108:1

Yesterday Alan and I went to the Church of Christ down the street. And the stained glass window was certainly a pretty humble version of what I saw in my wanderings, but our worship songs were led by some pretty stellar bluegrass fiddling and the summer offerings went towards helping some poor Vietnamese villagers continue clearing their lands of unexploded ordnance leftover from the war. And the short thoughtful sermon on Jesus sending out the twelve and telling them if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. But mostly, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and spoke Peace to one another and sang the doxology, And were one. And it was good to be reminded that we are His disciples and that we are sent out to preach repentance.

And I know that repent means to re-see.

One of the olde tyme songs was about needing to sing and I was distracted by the idea of singing and my severe lack of it in my heart. Which is indeed a grievous thing reflective of a general attitude of critical analysis rather than childlike gratitude. And taking offense. And Jesus was unable to do mighty works in Nazareth because of the critical analysis attitude of his hometown.

And surely He must marvel at my unbelief as well. So much goodness heaped high onto my plate and I spend my time sorting the colors and sifting for additives or whatever. And pushing away from the table too quickly to scrape and rinse and put the dirty utensils tidily into the dishwasher rather than savoring the moment. It is pretty much the preset button on my machine.

Of this I repent.

And at Pamela’s swearing in ceremony at Calvin Coolidge’s birthplace, the one where she promised to bear arms on behalf of the United States, I noticed the slightly overlong speeches and the fact that no one seemed to be wearing a watch and managing time and really, did they think that we wanted to lay a wreath on the tomb after lunch? Rather than noticing the three-year-old boy in a slicked up navy suit and tie from Bhutan with his father and very pregnant mother sitting right in front of us. And he kept running back to his grandpa next to us and giving him a big hug. Or the very animated Peruvian lady on the other side of Pamela who wanted to make sure that everyone followed the rules exactly so that everything would go off perfectly. But the one I really needed to notice was the first guy from Pakistan with the funny hat who practically did a jig of joy across the stage. And then I needed to notice the backstories of these nineteen people. And remember the over three million refugees from Syria flooding Turkey and Lebanon and Jordan and the almost 1000 illegal immigrants who landed in Italy after threatening to throw babies into the sea if their ship was turned back. And even my ancestors who made their way by ship across that big ocean so many years ago. And no wonder Jon and Pamela were a little teary-eyed.

Of this I repent.

O God, you have taught me to keep all your commandments by loving You and my neighbor: Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody.  

Humble yourself in the sight of the LORD

Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Psalm 111:1

With my whole heart, no qualifiers or second-guessers or distracting accusations. My whole heart. And we are the upright because You are our father, and we are your children. And we have been washed whiter than snow.

And may my heart rejoice and be glad as we congregate together to honor You, our LORD and God. Together, undivided into factions and denominations and red and blue parties and different sides of the (barbed wire) fence.

Then He looked me in the eye and said, "Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: 'I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.' For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners."

And may I offer my sacrifices of praise with a clean heart, holding nothing against my brother or sister. For it is indeed a sobering judgment to ask the LORD God who sees into all of the dark corners and closet spaces of my heart to Forgive me my sins just as I have forgiven those who have sinned against me.

If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary.

Sácianos por la mañana con tu misericordia,

y cantaremos con gozo y nos alegraremos todos nuestros días. Salmos 90:14

Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:14

I will give thanks to You, O LORD, with my whole heart. Psalm 9:1

No, set your hearts on His kingdom, and these other things will be given you as well. Luke 12:31

Lord, make me have perpetual love and reverence for Your holy Name, for You never fail to help and govern those whom You have set upon the sure foundation of Your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

One of Annie Dillard’s themes in For the Time Being is the transitory grandeur of clouds. That and horrific birth defects and the excavation of mass graves in China, as she sorts through the good and evil in the world and beholds seemingly careless haphazard beauty against the stark stake black of pain.

There is that sweet spot, the billowing sunrises moment when the sky shifts from darkness into dawn. Before the weight of the day bears down there is that fresh sweetness of the last gasp chill just after sunrise, and as I watched the pink and orange evaporate this morning I considered another aspect of faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, the balance that Lewis battled between self will and His Omnipotence.

Today’s psalm is a demand that He act, He satisfy with His lovingkindness. My prayer this morning was a Scripture song leftover from the seventies and a sort of Kumbaya My Lord chorus book that captures this balance: He causes, I trust.

Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in Thee do I trust:

Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee. 

Deliver me, O Lord, Teach me to do Thy will; Quicken me, O Lord, I lift up my soul unto Thee.

I cannot do this on my own, this wholeheartedness. I am too transitory, too much a crashing particle. It takes away my breath to consider.

“There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China.
To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply by 1,198,500,000.
See? Nothing to it.”

Jesus spoke clearly: Can any of you, however much you worry, add a single cubit to your span of life? If a very small thing is beyond your powers, why worry about the rest? Think how the flowers grow; they never have to spin or weave; yet, I assure you not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of them. Now if that is how God clothes a flower which is growing wild today and is thrown in the furnace tomorrow, how much more will he look after you, who have so little faith! 

So what then must a man do?

Is there anything beyond Mr. Wisest Man Who Ever Lived Solomon’s observation that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them--for this is their lot?

Last night we had a family over for dinner, the one single family at Desert even willing for a moment to consider opening up their small apartment to just a single one of the 1,198,500,000 people alive in China. And it is hard not to judge my brothers and sisters, to wonder if they have too thoroughly bought into the eat, drink and merry adage, and are unwilling to stand up on tippy-toes to see what this kingdom might really be about. But I cannot live their lives for them. I can only tell stories of the glorious cloud formations that I have seen.

And even if I am wrong-minded and too fixed on tossing sand dollars back into the sea one at a time, my soul sides with Dillard: “There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It is all so self-conscience, so apparently moral...But I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous...more extravagant and bright. We are...raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.” 

Even one instance of lovingkindness bursting through steady clicking of materialism declares His presence. Thus on this foundation I will plant my sandaled feet and lift up my soul, my whole and undivided heart to You.