Tag Archives: Malcolm Guite

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The Lingering Gaze that finds Hope

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This picture is on my street. Sunrise. Non-filtered.

I sit outside early in the mornings and read. Lately a lot of George MacDonald and Frederick Buechner.  I love the morning light, and love watching the day begin. The morning I walked outside and saw this sunrise, just a few weeks ago, I had to run back inside and grab my good camera. Not the phone. I needed something able to look a little more deeply, something that could be more true to what I was seeing. The camera phones are great for the quick snaps…but sometimes we need something sturdier. Something that shows depth.

Sometimes life is that way. The wonder around us requires us to look more deeply and not just glance. Requires us to hold our gaze long enough to see that there is hope in the midst of whatever circumstances we have.

Other times, the wonder takes our breath away and we have no choice but to recognize that something remarkable has happened. The birth of children…staggering.  Music that moves you beyond yourself and elevates your gaze, makes you yearn for something more. Paintings and art that capture the Creation in a way that moves your soul immediately, reflexively.

Hope. For me, it is tied to wonder. The fact that God created in a way that inspires us, in a way that stirs us and catches our breath, tells me that He is concerned with more than just practicality. He is concerned with more than efficiency. That means that sometimes He be will hard to figure out. Sometimes it will seem He is not being efficient in solving the issues that plague me.

Sometimes I have to look a little harder to find the hope. Sometimes hope requires faith that there is more happening than what we see.

“For Christians, hope is ultimately hope in Christ. The hope that he really is what for centuries we have been claiming he is. The hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, he somehow conquered them. The hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. The hope that at some unforeseeable time and in some unimaginable way he will return with healing in his wings.” 

Frederick Buechner

He came once. There is promise in that…the fact that He came secures our hope. He came and He made Himself known to us. He humbled Himself…came in a way that we could grasp with even a glance. A baby. Understanding the implications takes a look that finds the depth and all the nuances.

He came, and brought hope and the promise that healing will come.

“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
    his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
    as the spring rains that water the earth.”

Micah 6:3

Advent. The perfect time for seeing a little more deeply, for looking with a lens that allows more color and more reality to come through. Not the glances of business as usual. The lingering gaze that is caught up in wonder. Hope tends to find its way through in those moments.

Malcolm Guite provides wonderful poetry through the Advent season, paired with images and audio. Take some time, if you have not discovered him, to read through his pages. For now, here is one of his sonnets:

O Sapientia

I cannot think unless I have been thought,

Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.

I cannot teach except as I am taught,

Or break the bread except as I am broken.

O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,

O Light within the light by which I see,

O Word beneath the words with which I speak,

O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,

O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,

O Memory of time, reminding me,

My Ground of Being, always grounding me,

My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,

Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,

Come to me now, disguised as everything.

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Be Still. Wait with Anticipation.

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Two more days.  Advent begins on Sunday!

I know that I have been harping on this theme. I have been pestering. I have spent far more time on this this year than ever before, and probably more time on this than any other theme on the blog…at least for writing on one theme over several days. Other than maybe the theme of wonder.

There is a reason.

I need the harping and the pestering myself. Even with all this, I still feel slightly unprepared. I fall into a trap fairly often in my parenting: I want to make things perfect. Pinterest worthy. Picture perfect.

Rarely do they work out that way, and often I become stressed.

So, that is part of the harping as well.  Advent is absolutely, non-negotiably, emphatically NOT about being stressed.

Whatever we do, this season is about stilling ourselves so we can listen and we can wait. Wait with anticipation, and wait with hope. Wait with joy.

Advent is about the awareness of our need for a savior, yes. There is in the history of Advent the element of penitence, but it is more I think about this anticipation of the arrival of the Christ child. And that should be filled with wonder and awe.

In the midst of of struggles with jobs and with life and with raising kids and with being tired and with laundry and with family dynamics and with the turmoil around us in the world…and it is great…we need moments when we focus on wonder and when we focus on hope. When we still ourselves and we wait.

So I pester and I harp and I poke you, and myself, to pause over the next four weeks and pay attention. Do something to make this season stand out.

Light candles. Sing songs. Read poetry.

Be still.

How is this going to look in our family? Steve and I decided we would not ask for the technology to be completely shut off, because that would feel more like punishment to the kids. We are, however, pulling it back. We will only have one tv show a day (and one a week for mom), and the tech time is being cut in half…down to just an hour and half a day. And it has to be off by 6pm.  At 6pm we’ll have dinner and light the Advent candles and we’ll talk and sing and be with each other.

Not drastic, but something to make this season stand out. In the midst of the days there will be other activities that draw our attention toward the coming of the Christ child. We will keep pointing and focusing and making room to think about the wonder of Christmas.

And we will pray that God will meet us in this season. That He will enlarge our imagination and He will infuse this season with His Spirit. I hope you will come along with us!

Here are a few more links with ideas and resources…

Ideas for Adults:

I posted a few links Wednesday  here which will help the adults with some devotionals and focus, and I will be posting poetry each day through Advent here on the blog.

Poet and musician Malcolm Guite  last year posted sonnets from his book Sounding the Seasons. Each of the seven sonnets is accompanied by art.

SimpleLiving has a fantastic list of ideas on ways to make your Advent season and Christmas stand out from the commercialized season it has become.

Ideas for Families:

Baby Steps for Celebrating Advent

No Panic Advent – with a bunch of great book suggestions

Simple Kids – Great ideas on how to make Advent simple and kid-friendly

Homeschooled-kids has an $8 printable packet with activities and crafts and lots of ideas.

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No Soft God…

the-expulsion-from-the-temple-1

 

 

“Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.”

My “Temple” is filled with unclean things. Distractions, motivations that are impure.

Sin.

Clutter.

My imagination is caught up so often in things that draw me away from God rather than toward Him. I am, frankly, weak and lacking in discipline and in focus. I am in need. I am broken by a sinful nature that does me in, and by an enemy who would rejoice in my defeat.

I need not a soft God who is only love and who demands little. A God who would simply bless me in my choices and my way.

I need a God who demands holiness and who knows true justice. I need a God who will clean this temple, and I, in my lack of imagination, need a God I can “see”.  I need something more than a God of wood or stone that I can gaze upon…I need a God who walks and talks and surprises me.

I need Jesus. I need Jesus who touched lepers with tenderness, who wept at His friend’s death. I need Jesus who knows loneliness and pain and suffering, and yet who knows wonder and imagination and love and joy.

This week I am following the posts of Malcolm Guite, and I am thankful for the poet and the artist and the musicians who bring to life the emotions and the words that fail me. Today his post is about the cleansing of the Temple. This is the God in whom I put my faith and my trust…and my need. The God who is willing and able to act justly and to save and to redeem and to cleanse.

The God who will break the barriers.

Cleansing the Temple

 

 

Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.

Come as you came, an infant with your mother,

That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground

Come as you came, a boy who sought his father

With questions asked and certain answers found,

Come as you came this day, a man in anger

Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through

Face down for me the fear the shame the danger

Teach me again to whom my love is due.

Break down in me the barricades of death

And tear the veil in two with your last breath.

 

 

As I was writing this I was thinking of the strength of our God, and I came across Steve Green singing A Mighty Fortress. Put on your headphones and turn this up loudly. This is not a soft God who gives us up to our ways. This is a God who faces down the fear the shame and the danger. This is the God who tears the veil in two.

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The Grasping of Palm Sunday….

Palm Sunday

 

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,

The seething holy city of my heart,

The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,

And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find

The challenge, the reversal he is bringing

Changes their tune. I know what lies behind

The surface flourish that so quickly fades;

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,

The hardness of the heart, its barricades,

And at the core, the dreadful emptiness

Of a perverted temple. Jesus come

Break my resistance and make me your home.

This poem is from Malcolm Guite, part of his book Sounding the Seasons. This was just what I needed to hear this morning.

I said the other day that I felt unprepared for the Lenten Season this year. In the past I have been more intentional about giving something up, even just FaceBook, in an attempt to focus on the season. The intentional abstaining is not an attempt to gain the merit of God, it is instead an attempt to discipline this flesh of mine to focus on the reality of a God who became man, who conquered all through the ultimate humbling and sacrifice. The God who redeemed. Redeemed all…but also me.

Sometimes that is still difficult to contain in this brain of mine.

This hardness of heart and fickleness that mark me, more than faithfulness and tender heartedness. These barriers that I continue to let stand.

I needed to hear a soft word today that recognizes that following Jesus is not simple, although there are moments of great praise and worship…there is also the moment of confusion and of reversal. The moment when God does the unexpected and does not simply ride in and conquer all the enemies.

The moment when we wonder what God is doing.

Palm Sunday is that day when we grasp hold of the idea of a Messiah who rides in and understands all our pain and suffering and fears and hopes…and we cling to the idea that He will change everything. We cheer and we hope and grasp.

He does change everything, but it won’t be the way we expect. He broke all the expectations in His death and in His Resurrection…and He continues to break my expectations.

It is good to grasp hold of Him and to cheer and to hope….but to do so with caution and with understanding that His plan may completely reverse what we think should happen. His plan, though….it will utterly change everything.

I have not had an intentional season of Lent…but my focus is clearing this week. Even this morning as I wait to attend church tonight…my heart is longing for the reality of the Incarnation to take deeper root. Waiting anew for Jesus to break my resistance and make me His home. Waiting with an awareness that the darkness of Good Friday, the confusion of God surprising us in His path to victory, will come before the celebration of Easter. Thankful for poets and musicians to lead us in this week through the culmination of Lent…