Posts tagged September 2011

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Elude the illusion.

“From where I sit I can see a redbird.

He is on the roof across from my office.  He has been there for three days.  A splendid sight: deep crimson chest, crown of feathers which stands upon command.  He sings the same song over and over - a long chirp followed by four short ones.  

The rhythm never varies.  The pattern never changes.


He flies to the top of the building and perches on the highest point of the roof.  He opens the feathered fan on the back of his neck, cocks his head back, and calls, “Chiiirrrup, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.”  Then he stands as if looking for the one he called to respond.  

But there is never an answer.


He will repeat the effort.  The feathers will flash and the call will sound and he will wait.  But there is never a reply.

After a few months he will nosedive into the patio.  He will see his reflection in a plate-glass window and fly into it - beak first.  The crash will echo in the patio, and he will retreat.  For just a moment.  He gathers himself, then sees his reflection and off he goes…slap!  Backward he staggers, scrambling to keep control, only to open his eyes and see the reflection and “Pop!” the sad drama is repeated.

But he remains…flying into windows.


Minutes later a young man walks into my office.  Sharp, well-dressed.  Firm handshake, tanned face, flashy smile.  Small talk about basketball, busy work schedules, and airports.  I’m tempted to cut the chatter short here.  We’ve had this talk before.  He has a wife.  He has a lover.  He abandoned the first and lives with the second.

“Have you gone home?” I ask.

“No,” he sighs, looking through the window into the patio.  ”I tried, but I didn’t.”

“Have you spoke to your wife?”

“I haven’t got the nerve.”

“He’s just a kid,” I say to myself.  Underneath the Italian suit and sharp talk, he’s a frightened six-year old who knows he shouldn’t but doesn’t know how to stop.  What is this vacuum within him that can’t be filled by marriage? What is this passion which takes him to other beds?

I look out the window over his shoulder and see the redbird slap his beak against the pane.  I look across my desk and see the man bury his face in his hands. 

“I know what I should do, but I can’t.”


What will it take for both to stop?  

How long will they hurt themselves before they wake up?


The next day I came to the office and the bird was gone.  Soon after I called the man and he was gone.  


I think the bird learned a lesson.  

I’m not sure the man ever did.”  Max Lucado, In the Grip of Grace




Stop.






…the pain of the pane.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to elude the illusion.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Feeling the heat.


“The flames sometime have color without force.  At other times heat without light, burning fiercely.  Sometimes they are only seen and not heard, sometimes felt and feared at a great distance.

Sometimes their heat is felt only in the iron caverns of the heart.”  Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

…only in the iron caverns of the heart.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to feeling the heat.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Get out of jail here.


“We haven’t let anyone take us in.  The dwarfs are for the dwarfs.


“You see,” said Aslan.  

“They will not let us help them.  They have chosen cunning instead of belief.  

Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they can not be taken out.”  C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle







...and so afraid of being taken in that they can not be taken out.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to get out of jail free.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

A trifle not tasting trifle.


“Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the dwarf’s knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand.

But it wasn’t much use.


They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly.


They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable.  One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf.  
And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said, “Ugh!” Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at!  Never thought we’d come to this.”

But very soon every dwarf began suspecting that every other dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarreling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot.”  C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle




“Ugh!”





…the feed of greed.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to a trifle not tasting trifle.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The smell of wild violets.
 

“Lucy led the way and soon they could all see the dwarfs.

They had a very odd look.  

They weren’t strolling about or enjoying themselves (although the cords with which they had been tied seemed to have vanished) nor were they lying down and having a rest.  They were sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another.  They never looked round or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and Tirian were almost near enough to touch them.  Then the dwarfs all cocked their heads as if they couldn’t see any one but were listening hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.


“Look out!” said one of them in a surly voice.  ”Mind where you’re going.  Don’t walk into our faces!”

“All right!” said Eustace indignantly.  ”We’re not blind.  We’ve got eyes in our heads.”

“They must be darn good ones if you can see in here,” said the same dwarf whose name was Diggle.


“In where?” asked Edmund.

“Why you bone-head, in here of course,” said Diggle.  ”In this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.”

“Are you blind?” said Tirian.

“Ain’t we all blind in the dark!” said Diggle.

“But it isn’t dark, you poor stupid dwarfs,” said Lucy.  ”Can’t you see?  Look up!  Look round!  Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers?  Can’t you see me?”

“How in the name of all humbug can I see what ain’t there?  And how can I see you any more than you can see me in this pitch darkness?”

“But I can see you,” said Lucy.  ”I’ll prove I can see you.  You’ve got a pipe in your mouth.”

“Anyone that knows the smell of baccy could tell that,” said Diggle.

“Oh the poor things!  This is dreadful,” said Lucy.  Then she had an idea.  She stooped and picked some wild violets.  

“Listen, Dwarf,” she said.  ”Even if your eyes are wrong, perhaps your nose is all right: Can you smell that.”

She leaned across and held the fresh, damp flowers to Diggle’s ugly nose. But she had to jump back quickly in order to avoid a blow from his hard little fist.

“None of that!” he shouted.  ”How dare you!  What do you mean by shoving a lot of filthy stable-litter in my face?  There was a thistle in it too.  It’s like your sauce!  And who are you anyway?”  C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

What do you mean by shoving a lot of filthy stable-litter in my face?








…can you smell that?

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the smell of wild violets.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Avoid a master disaster.


“Avoid three kinds of master:

Those who esteem only themselves, 
for their self-esteem is blindness;

Those who esteem only innovations,
for their opinions are aimless,
without meaning;

Those who esteem only what is established;
their minds are little cells of ice.”  

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

Those who esteem only...

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to avoid a master disaster.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Knowing that I’m not Mr. Know-It-All.

“I want to know Christ…”  Philippians 3:10

…knowing that I want to know.

…knowing that I want to want to know.


…knowing I’m not Bullwinkle.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to knowing that I’m not Mr. Know-It-All.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Put my eye to the crack.


“Tirian looked and saw the queerest and most ridiculous thing you can imagine.

Only a few yards away, clear to be seen in the sunlight, there stood up a rough wooden door and, round it, the framework of the doorway: nothing else, no walls, no roof.  He walked towards it, bewildered, and the others followed, watching to see what he would do.  

He walked round to the other side of the door.  But it looked just the same from the other side: he was still in the open air, on a summer morning.

The door was simply standing up by itself as if it had grown there like a tree.


“Fair Sir,” said Tirian to the High King, “this is a great marvel.”

“It is the door you came through with that Calormene five minutes ago,” said Peter smiling.

“But did I not come out of the wood into the stable?  Whereas this seems to be a door leading from nowhere to nowhere.”

“It looks like that if you walk round it,” said Peter.  ”But put your eye to that place where there is a crack between two of the planks and look through.”


Tirian put his eye to the hole.  

At first he could see nothing but blackness.

Then, as his eyes grew used to it, he saw the dull red glow of a bonfire that was nearly going out, and above that, in a black sky, stars.  

Then he could see dark figures moving about or standing between him and the fire: he could hear them talking and there voices were like that of the Calormenes.   So he knew that he was looking out thorough the stable door into the darkness of Lantern Waste where he had fought his last battle. 


He looked round again and could hardly believe his eyes.  There was the blue sky overhead, and grassy country spreading as far as he could see in every direction, and his new friends all round him, laughing.

“It seems, then,” said Tirian, smiling himself, “that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.”


“Yes,” said the Lord Digory.

“Its inside is bigger than its outside.”


“Yes,” said Queen Lucy.

“In our world, too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”  C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Look through.

Its inside is bigger than its outside.





…the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to put my eye to the crack.

What do I have the GIVENNESS NOW to?

Unlocking all the doors.

“This of course is the ultimate temptation of Christianity!

To say that Christ has locked all the doors, has given one answer, settled everything and departed, leaving all life enclosed in the frightful consistency of a system outside of which there is seriousness and damnation, inside of which there is the intolerable flippancy of the saved - while nowhere is there any place left for the mystery of the freedom of divine mercy which alone is truly serious, and worthy of being taken seriously.”  

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

…is there any place left for the mystery of the freedom of divine mercy which alone is truly serious, and worthy of being taken seriously?

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to unlocking all the doors.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Mercy’s inconsistency.

“Inexorable consistency.
 
 Is reality the same as consistency?
 
 
 The “reality” of the real world is not consistent.  The world of consistency is the world of justice, but justice is not the final word.
 
 There is, above the consistent and logical world of justice, an inconsistent illogical world where nothing “hangs together,” where justice no longer damns each man to his own darkness.
 
This inconsistent world is the realm of mercy.
 
 
The world can only be “consistent” without God.

His freedom will always threaten it with inconsistency - with unexpected gifts.


A god who is fitted into our world scheme in order to make it serious and consistent is not God.

Such a world is not to be taken seriously, such a god is not to be taken seriously.  If such a god is “absent” then doubtless the absence is a blessing.

To take him seriously is to submit to obsession, to doubt, to magic, and then escape these, or try to escape them, by willfulness, by the determination to stake all on an arbitrary selection of “things to be taken seriously” because they “save,” because they are “his affairs.”

(Note that even atheism takes seriously this god of consistency).


But mercy breaks into the world of magic and justice and overturns its apparent consistency.  

Mercy is inconsistent.  


It is therefore comic.

It liberates us from the tragic seriousness of the obsessive world which we have “made up” for ourselves by yielding to our obsessions.  Only mercy can liberate us from the madness of our determination to be consistent - from the awful patterns of lusts, greeds, angers and hatreds which mix us up together like a mass of dough and thrusts us all together into the oven.


Mercy cannot be contained in the web of obsessions.

Nor is it something one determines to think about - that one resolves to “take seriously,” in the sense of becoming obsessed with it.

You cannot become obsessed with mercy!


This is the inner secret of mercy.

It is totally incompatible with obsession, with compulsion.  It liberates from all the rigid and deterministic structures which magic strives to impose on reality (or which science, the child of magic, tries to impose)!


Mercy is not to be purchased by a set way of acting, by a formal determination to be consistent.

Law is consistent.


Grace is “inconsistent.”  Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

…cannot be contained in the web of obsessions.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to mercy’s inconsistency.