He loves me?

pink petals fall
a drift of pink on the floorboard
till only a stalk stands
with one or two petals clinging

I will leave them there till they disintegrate
and then breathe the dust

The Kiss of God

Last night I spent a short period of time in imaginatio divina. The Christian fitness program that DiDi and I are attending concluded with 10 minutes of stillness, so I used the time to go back to the waterfall.

My time there showed me just how much healing has taken place in this last, grueling year, despite the pain and loss that continues. Or more likely, through it.

Normally when I step under the deluge, the water is so cold it snatches my breath. It pounds and rips my clothes away, along with the crust of accumulated sin. Once through, the air is warm and I catch my breath and go to Him, primarily as a child, to crawl on His lap.

Last night was different.

I approached the waterfall across the same stone bridge (strange to see a bridge leading into a river rather than crossing it...) and began bracing myself for the impact. But as my foot first touched the downrushing water I felt the difference. I stepped in fully, and instead of the icy shock that I expected, the water flowed soft and warm over my body. It was more viscous than normal water, and scented. I stood beneath and breathed, watching as it poured all around me. Flower buds coursed down as if growing within it like water lilies.

Knowing I didn't have a lot of time, I walked out of the beautiful water into the cavern behind. The air was warm and scented with its usual mix of perfume and incense. And He waited there, as always.

He waits on an elevated stone seat. This time I approached Him standing tall, perfumed from the stream. I walked, not rushing, luxuriant as he watched, waiting. I climbed the steps. His arms reached out for me and I stepped in to His embrace.

Skin to skin.

Thank you, Lord, for teaching me what the kiss of God is like.

.

.

.

What a difference this was from the cold, huddling child who first climbed on His lap. What a difference a long, hard year can make. What a difference to go through such a year with a friend and encourager who speaks God's love into your heart.

Thank you Lord. Thank you DiDi.

La Sacre de la femme -- Eve

I stumbled upon part of the poem below in a book on Rodin at a friend's home recently, and have had trouble finding it in English. The translated text below is a mix of a partial English version I found online, and a translation provided by iGoogle. (The robo-translated piece is the second section, in case you can't tell.) The original French follows for those who can read it.

Eve offered the blue sky of the holy nakedness;
Eve blonde admired the dawn, her sister rosy.

Flesh of woman! clay ideal! O wonder!
Sublime penetration of the spirit
In the silt that ineffable Being kneaded!
Matter where the soul shines through his shroud!
Mud where we see the fingers of the divine sculptor!
August dust drawing kisses and the heart of man
So holy that no one knows, as love triumphs,
As the core is thrust into this mysterious bed,
If this pleasure is not a thought,
And we can not, at which the senses are on fire
Hold beauty without embracing God!
Eve let his eyes wander over nature.

And beneath the green palms to tall,
Eve around above his head, the eye
Seemed to think, the blue lotus is collected,
The fresh forget-me remembered; roses
Sought his feet with their lips half-closed;
A breath came out of brotherly gilt lilies;
As if that would have been sweet to be like them,
As if those flowers, all with a soul
The most beautiful woman in flourished.

###

Ève offrait au ciel bleu la sainte nudité ;
Ève blonde admirait l'aube, sa soeur vermeille.

Chair de la femme ! argile idéale ! ô merveille !
Pénétration sublime de l'esprit
Dans le limon que l'Être ineffable pétrit !
Matière où l'âme brille à travers son suaire !
Boue où l'on voit les doigts du divin statuaire !
Fange auguste appelant le baiser et le coeur,
Si sainte, qu'on ne sait, tant l'amour est vainqueur,
Tant l'âme est vers ce lit mystérieux poussée,
Si cette volupté n'est pas une pensée,
Et qu'on ne peut, à l'heure où les sens sont en feu,
Étreindre la beauté sans croire embrasser Dieu !
Ève laissait errer ses yeux sur la nature.

Et, sous les verts palmiers à la haute stature,
Autour d'Ève, au-dessus de sa tête, l'oeillet
Semblait songer, le bleu lotus se recueillait,
Le frais myosotis se souvenait ; les roses
Cherchaient ses pieds avec leurs lèvres demi-closes ;
Un souffle fraternel sortait du lys vermeil ;
Comme si ce doux être eût été leur pareil,
Comme si de ces fleurs, ayant toutes une âme,
La plus belle s'était épanouie en femme.

Beauty for another

From That Hideous Strength:

At the very moment when her mind was most filled with another man there arose, clouded with some undefined emotion, a resolution to give Mark much more than she had ever given him before, and a feeling that in doing so she would be really giving it to the Director. And this produced in her such a confusion of sensations that the whole inner debate became indistinct and flowed over into the larger experience... she was in the sphere of Jove, amid light and music and festal pomp, brimmed with life and radiant in health, jocund and clothed in shining garments. ... And she rejoiced also in the consciousness of her own beauty; for she had the sensation--it may have been false in fact, but it had nothing to do with vanity--that it was growing and expanding like a magic flower with every minute that passed. In such a mood it was only natural, after the old countryman had got out at Cure Hardy, to stand up and look at herself in the mirror which confronted her on the wall of the compartment. Certainly she was looking well: she was looking unusually well. And once more, there was little vanity in this. For beauty was made for others. Her beauty belonged to the Director. It belonged to him so completely that he could even decide not to keep it for himself but to order that it be given to another, by an act of obedience lower, and therefore higher, more unconditional and therefore more delighting, than if he had demanded it for himself."

How can I keep from singing?

I continue to be amazed and awed at the wonder of love as it has unfolded over the past few weeks. My deep, soul deep friendship with DiDi, Bella Dolce, is watering and nurturing me, and I am unfolding and stretching and reaching for the sunshine...

I didn't realize that I had been like a dormant seed, waiting for a lightning strike to set a blaze and release me into fruitfulness at her care.

I didn't know that I so needed the love of a woman. I always thought the healing would come through a man.

It is beautiful, and our joy is infectious. We are watching other women in our congregation begin to unfold as well, touching and hugging eachother more, laughing and seeking eachother out.

Yeshua is doing a mighty mighty work through this gift of friendship.

His mercy and caring and generosity are beyond comprehension, beyond all imagining.

How can I keep from singing?

Flower lined

While reading a Psalm I realized that sometimes the pit you need to be rescued from is beautiful and lined with flowers.

He's built perfection out of hunger

The Rumi poem in the previous post from this morning echoes the theme of a separation between truth and love.

It reminds me of an exhibit I saw a few years ago at the Corning Museum of Glass; a collection of unbelievably lifelike plants, flowers, and fruit all made of glass.

They were in cases and could not be touched but were so incredibly real that in many cases you could not tell that they were not.

So there they were, these creations of man, mimicking the wonder of God's creative power, but lacking the softness, the scent, and the fruition of His work.

Beautiful imitations. Brittle and fragile and forced, like facts without love.

The poem below says it well (and even mentions peaches).

The Ware Collection of Glass Flowers and Fruit, Harvard Museum
by Mark Doty

Strange paradise, complete with worms,
monument of an obsessive will to fix forms;
every apricot or yellow spot's seen so closely,
in these blown blooms and fruit, that exactitude
is not quite imitation. Leaf and root,
the sweet flag's flaring bud already,
at the tip, blackened; it's hard to remember
these were ballooned and shaped by breath
they're lovely because they seem
to decay; blue spots on bluer plums,
mold tarring a striped rose. I don't want to admire
the glassblower's academic replica,
his copies correct only to a single sense.
And why did a god so invested in permanence
choose so fragile a medium, the last material
he might expect to last? Better prose
to tell the forms of things, or illustration.
Though there's something seductive in this impossibility:
transparent color telling the live mottle of peach,
the blush or tint of crab, englobed,
gorgeous, edible. How else match that flush?
He's built a perfection out of hunger,
fused layer upon layer, swirled until
what can't be swallowed, won't yield
almost satisfies, an art
mouthed to the shape of how soft things are,
how good, before they disappear

How delicate yesterday

So delicate yesterday,
the night-singing birds by the creek.
Their words were:
You may make a jewelery flower
out of gold and rubies and emeralds,
but it will have not fragrance.

-- Rumi

More on blood and roses

On Wednesday my BP asked me to listen to a brilliant talk by Dr. Peter Kreeft (one of my uber-heroes, from whom I may be taking a class in October!) called The Culture War.

He finished the talk with a connection to my recent strange dream on blood and roses.

The whole talk concentrated on the fact that we are at war, and reminded us of our weapons.

Christ's weapons.

The weapon of the cross.

He talked about our nation needing to be spiritually pruned, as ancient Israel was so often pruned. He said that we -will- bleed, but that a second spring will come, bringing new buds. But that it would not be without blood.

It never happens without blood. Without suffering.

So... I'm not sure what our Lord's message is to me through this. I don't have a direct correlation between the blood and roses of my dream and the spiritual battles that I am engaging in. But I do accept the consolation and the encouragement that they provide.

And I thank you, Lord.

Day 22: Rose on the ash heap

Yesterday my BP pointed me at Owen Barfield's reflections on the Christian imagination, and thank goodness he did. I've been gradually losing myself over the past weeks, and reading a few papers on this subject brought me back to who I am.

Thank God for him. I needed rescue.

One of Barfield's fictional pieces is called The Rose on the Ash-Heap. Here is a segment from that piece which I found compelling:

"'...among the sooty weeds struggling up out of the refuse on the Ash-Heap', a garden Rose is growing. Like imagination and love in the modern world, this Rose was 'a sad and spindly-looking object with one dull red knob at the top, yet there was some magic in the twilight which attracted Sultan's attention to it. It was now nearly dark, and many stars had already appeared in the sky. Sultan looked at the flower again. Yes, it was glowing! It seemed to be giving forth a light of its own into the dusk!... And at last Sultan realized that it was not merely glowing but also singing to him. It was singing something like this:

Earth despairs not, though her Spark
Underground is gone--
Roses whisper after dark
Secrets of the Sun.

That got me thinking about how Seal's song Kissed by a Rose echoes this theme. Probably disconnected, but perhaps not.

Either way, it got me to try something new; I bought my first iTunes song, despite having had an iPod for several years.

And it rescued me from the doldrums in which I'd been wallowing.

Christ in the howling wilderness

You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm.

-- Robert Murray M'Cheyne