...the place of your abiding

Lovely is the place of your abiding,
God of the stars!
The deep places in me respond 
with longing 
for the place you are;
the joyful song I offer is 
the gift of my heart and my body,
my all echoes your all.
The tiniest bird, least of all,
finds home, and sure security
for raising her young,
in the shadow of your altars,
my Own.
To dwell in your presence,
my being reverberating with praise of you,
wraps me in happiness.
---Psalm 84:1-4 (para. laca)

...borne safe

When ends life’s transient dream,

When death’s cold, sullen stream shall o’er me roll,

Blest Savior, then, in love,

Fear and distrust remove;

O bear me safe above, a ransomed soul.

---Ray Palmer, 1830

There are some days inspiration flows easily. There are others when I sit and stare at the screen (or the composition book page if I’m rocking it old school) and it stares back at me. Then there are days when the text bounces back to me, twisted fantastically, as if by a funhouse mirror, distortions and warps making it hard to grasp meaning.

Guess which afternoon it’s been? This verse from the beloved mid-19^th century hymn pulled me toward it, then reflected back at me: “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily, merrily merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” Yep. Talk about a brain freeze.

So, I scrolled down on my page, past those first two lines of the verse (out of sight, sort of out of mind). And got to something I could hold onto, something that would hold onto me. In love Jesus, in the midst of our fear, ransoms our souls. In love the Savior, our distrust notwithstanding, bears us safe through the transient dream of this life.

Let me be wholly Yours.

Where Is God?

How could this happen? How could we let this happen? Didn't his mother know he was ill, know that a home with mental illness inside is not a place for guns? Were security procedures followed? Was he seeing a therapist or counselor who should have known he was a danger? How will shattered families be made whole? Will the world ever feel safe again? Where is peace?

In all of these questions, we really just ask this one: Where is God? Where is God when innocents are slaughtered, when madness goes unnoticed until it is too late, when the world turns upside down? Where in God's name is God?

Immortal Babe, who this dear day
Didst change thine heaven for our clay,
And didst with flesh thy godhead veil,
Eternal Son of God, all hail!

The answer, whether in verse (this one from the Bishop of Exeter in the 1600's), or in a word (Emmanuel) is...God with us. When we suffer, when we mourn, when we give in to despair --- somehow, someway, God with us. There may be unanswered questions, and asking them may rend our hearts. But the answer to THE question, the one that vanishes our loneliness and fears, is just this: God is with us, in the middle of our mess, our sorrow, our anguish.

Emmanuel --- God with us.