Earnest Enough

Our wilderness experience doesn’t simply tell us how badly we’ve offended God, it’s also a measure of his earnestness when he says, “I will redeem you, I will save you!” How earnest is God in his purpose to redeem us from sin? Earnest enough to subject us to pain that purges us. Earnest enough to put us to grief to open our eyes. Earnest enough to burn into our souls that we aren’t self-sufficient, that we’re totally dependent on him for everything. The wilderness, if we have the heart to bear it and the trust to live in hope there, is another of God’s ways of taking us seriously. So anxious is he to live with and love us that he subjects us to the curse of the wilderness, subjects himself to it as well, and finally, in Jesus Christ, he experiences the curse to the full, drinking the cup, and experiencing in the Son the full meaning of abandonment. That God bothers to do any of that should make us stagger, not only at what it says about him but us. Who are we and who does God intend us to be that he engages with us in these ways?

-- Jim McGuiggan

Bo & Woody

Woody on Bo:

"If 'Bo' is not a winner, I never saw one and I should know. He beat me the last three games we played. We've fought and quarreled for years but we're great friends." [Quoted in The Lantern February 10, 1986.]

Bo on Woody:
"There was plenty to criticize about Woody Hayes. His methods were tough, his temper was, at times, unforgivable. And, unless you knew him or played for him, it is hard to explain why you liked being around the guy. But you didn't just like it, you loved it. He was simply fascinating." [From Bo by "Bo" Schembechler and Mitch Albom.]

UM vs OSU 1934

Beauty is the Salve for Its Own Wound

I feel a strong need to write this morning. A feeling of pent-up-ness surrounds me, daring me to burst towards its suffocation. Expression is demanding my voice.

I so regularly encounter an ache within myself. An ache from incomplete-relating with others, an ache from beauty, an ache for something never quite reached, a ache for something never fully tapped. I think I recognize some of the categories for this ache, but at times when the ache is more overwhelming, I wonder whether or not I know much of anything about it.

I want to respond internally to a tumultuous week of a few highs and what seems like many more lows. At the same time, I feel compelled to watch for today’s sunrise, even as I try to to stay in bed past 6am on a Saturday morning. Beauty calls out to me, piercing the yet dark morning. I woke wondering about the tragedy and power depicted in the film Grand Torino, which I watched last night. So much greatness and beauty in a description of living and dying. As a middle-aged man, I want every young and every old man to see this movie, but I feel a sadness that such truth has to come with such a price tag – through the tragedies of this world.

The horizon is on fire now, with what seems like again unprecedented color. I feel the urge to try to capture just the smallest elements of it with my camera, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately. The pictures are OK, at least in terms of capturing the colors and contrasts of these late fall mornings. But they don’t get enough of what the eye can see, and of what the brain processes for the soul. I stare intently anyway, searching for a frame on it all. It feels too alive to hold, and too free-ranging to fit in to anything square. I am inexplicably drawn in by both the richness and magnitude of its beauty and realize that today’s attempt to frame it is with these words. Much like a lens, though, I feel more of the inadequacy of words than anything else. …another reflection of my oh so common ache.

I love, however, the replenishment such effort brings to my soul, even as it leaves me wounded in its panting for more. What a wonderous beauty God does each day, whether I notice it or not. Whether clouds hide it or not. I can no more capture it than I can get my hands around the sky, but I can enjoy it for its momentary transforming giving-ness to me.

I long to give it (or show it) to someone else. But all those around me slumber on. I feel I would be an imposition by even attempting to share something so sacred. I must almost trust that the giving of it must be as unique to each person around me as it is to me. For all giving comes from God. This must be a part of what glory is. …something I can only join, not create.

I have noticed lately, though, that my own children now rush to bring my attention to sunrises and sunsets. Something must be being transferred. But, I suspect it is largely my own unfettered enjoyment of it that is the magnet to such things in their own souls. I feel an internal smile and I am grateful for the mystery beauty calls forth.

…and this causes something in me to relax over the friendship my ache is becoming.

Beauty is the Salve for Its Own Wound.

Unmitigated Morning

Which part?

Some of what I think and say isn’t really true, I just don’t know which part.

The Range of Nature

...yes, more morning glory here.

Morning...Glory

...yes, more morning glory here.