Quotations of the day
- Thread starter FineLinen
- Start date
Beholding the Unseen
Beholding the Unseen
Sometime the melodies of God begin discordantly,
Like symphonies that first must tune to find their harmony.
Pure and sure His overtures still waft to waiting ones,
Calling, choosing, reserving His daughters and His sons.
Hidden to all eyes but His, like seed a farmer sows
First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain grows.
His processes progressing to His goals.
Faith to faith, glory to glory, God veils while He unfolds.
Earthtime is framed in irksome flesh of banal, boring days.
Like Israel, some know His acts; like Moses, some His ways.
What obscure school of silence taught Moses forty years?
Reduced from zeal without knowledge to godly sorrow’s tears
That have no confidence in flesh nor their initiatives
Who know their thoughts and ways are death, but, thank God, not so His.
How was Naomi’s elegy to Bethlehem addressed?
“I went out full, came back empty”, her dirge of bitterness.
Yet far above Judean hills where eagle has not soared
The Great Conductor orchestrates earth songs from heaven’s score.
From ashes He brings beauty; from mourning oil of joy.
A female choir raised heaven’s ode about this Obed boy.
“Redeem…restore…renown…nourish” new songs for newborn’s name.
Garments of praise clothed latter days – her lap, his nurse, the same.
She could not know those years ago when graves gobbled her dreams
That David’s grandfather would come and grow up at her knees.
So lift your voice, you grandmothers, great grandmothers rejoice.
God’s metamorphic music lifts lamentation’s voice
Into the Lord’s high praises training kingdom minstrels
His first love poet warrior sweet psalmists of Israel.
O may we fear, with hearing ear and seeing eye a heart listens!
Your kingdom come; Your will be done, in earth as in heaven.
These stormy souls with ruining rains, these oyster rhapsody refrains
Produce glory beyond compare of temporary strains and pains.
May no wind steer except Christ’s breath. Let nothing rise but from His death
From fratricide appointed sons? Cains kill Abels; God sends Seths.
He compensates for hated sons who give their lives for truth
And Enochs declare our frail, decaying mortal root.
His poor in spirit increase as I AM anthems grow,
From sotto voice preludes to crashing crescendos
From brokenness and weakness His children sing His Name,
The Aria of the Ages, Jesus Christ the same.
Be still or sent. Learn contentment. Glory differs star to star.
As we fulfill – become His will – heaven’s treasures, earthen jars.
The mighty God of Jacob pondered His anxious son.
When facing light affliction Jacob was prone to run.
God’s wounds may cripple worshippers, on pilgrim staffs they lean
And limping on they watch so keen fixing their gaze on the unseen.
And limping on they watch so keen fixing their gaze on the unseen.
-Will Duke
Beholding the Unseen
Sometime the melodies of God begin discordantly,
Like symphonies that first must tune to find their harmony.
Pure and sure His overtures still waft to waiting ones,
Calling, choosing, reserving His daughters and His sons.
Hidden to all eyes but His, like seed a farmer sows
First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain grows.
His processes progressing to His goals.
Faith to faith, glory to glory, God veils while He unfolds.
Earthtime is framed in irksome flesh of banal, boring days.
Like Israel, some know His acts; like Moses, some His ways.
What obscure school of silence taught Moses forty years?
Reduced from zeal without knowledge to godly sorrow’s tears
That have no confidence in flesh nor their initiatives
Who know their thoughts and ways are death, but, thank God, not so His.
How was Naomi’s elegy to Bethlehem addressed?
“I went out full, came back empty”, her dirge of bitterness.
Yet far above Judean hills where eagle has not soared
The Great Conductor orchestrates earth songs from heaven’s score.
From ashes He brings beauty; from mourning oil of joy.
A female choir raised heaven’s ode about this Obed boy.
“Redeem…restore…renown…nourish” new songs for newborn’s name.
Garments of praise clothed latter days – her lap, his nurse, the same.
She could not know those years ago when graves gobbled her dreams
That David’s grandfather would come and grow up at her knees.
So lift your voice, you grandmothers, great grandmothers rejoice.
God’s metamorphic music lifts lamentation’s voice
Into the Lord’s high praises training kingdom minstrels
His first love poet warrior sweet psalmists of Israel.
O may we fear, with hearing ear and seeing eye a heart listens!
Your kingdom come; Your will be done, in earth as in heaven.
These stormy souls with ruining rains, these oyster rhapsody refrains
Produce glory beyond compare of temporary strains and pains.
May no wind steer except Christ’s breath. Let nothing rise but from His death
From fratricide appointed sons? Cains kill Abels; God sends Seths.
He compensates for hated sons who give their lives for truth
And Enochs declare our frail, decaying mortal root.
His poor in spirit increase as I AM anthems grow,
From sotto voice preludes to crashing crescendos
From brokenness and weakness His children sing His Name,
The Aria of the Ages, Jesus Christ the same.
Be still or sent. Learn contentment. Glory differs star to star.
As we fulfill – become His will – heaven’s treasures, earthen jars.
The mighty God of Jacob pondered His anxious son.
When facing light affliction Jacob was prone to run.
God’s wounds may cripple worshippers, on pilgrim staffs they lean
And limping on they watch so keen fixing their gaze on the unseen.
And limping on they watch so keen fixing their gaze on the unseen.
-Will Duke
Trust Him.
"Trust him. And when you have done that, you are living the life of grace. No matter what happens to you in the course of that trusting - no matter how many wavering's you may have, no matter how many suspicions that you have bought a poke with no pig in it, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, indispositions, and bratty whining may cause you - you believe simply that Somebody Else, by his death and resurrection, has made it all right, and you just say thank you and shut up. The whole slop-closet full of mildewed performances (which is all you have to offer) is simply your death; it is Jesus who is your life. If he refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, he certainly isn't going to flunk you because your faith isn't so hot. You can fail utterly, therefore, and still live the life of grace. You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe. Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead - and for him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you his cup of tea." - Robert Farrar Capon
"Trust him. And when you have done that, you are living the life of grace. No matter what happens to you in the course of that trusting - no matter how many wavering's you may have, no matter how many suspicions that you have bought a poke with no pig in it, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, indispositions, and bratty whining may cause you - you believe simply that Somebody Else, by his death and resurrection, has made it all right, and you just say thank you and shut up. The whole slop-closet full of mildewed performances (which is all you have to offer) is simply your death; it is Jesus who is your life. If he refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, he certainly isn't going to flunk you because your faith isn't so hot. You can fail utterly, therefore, and still live the life of grace. You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe. Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead - and for him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you his cup of tea." - Robert Farrar Capon
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"Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works. -Robert F. Capon
"He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing." ~Robert Farrar Capon
"He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing." ~Robert Farrar Capon
NO HELP WANTED
“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly.
The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.” ~ Robert Farrar Capon
“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly.
The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.” ~ Robert Farrar Capon
"What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn." ~Madeleine L'Engle
"You are heir to a heavenly fortune, the sole beneficiary of an infinite spiritual trust fund, a proverbial goldmine of sacred abundance beyond all common measure or human comprehension. But until you assert your rightful inheritance of this blessed gift, it will remain unclaimed and forever beyond your reach.” ~ Anthon St. Maarten
“Never mind what is. Imagine it the way you want it to be so that your vibration is a match to your desire. When your vibration is a match to your desire, all things in your experience will gravitate to meet that match every time.” ~Abraham Hicks
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.” ~Nikola Tesla
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.” ~Nikola Tesla
“But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory.” ~ Robert Farrar Capon