Thoughts on a subway train..

A face even a mother could love.

Even a mother. Because mothers (capital 'M', in my opinion)love their own even if no one else does. You can bank on the love of a Mother. Once again, language serves as an aid in pointing out the 'poverties and perks' of the human condition. C.S. Lewis sparked this up-and-coming thought in his book "The Four Loves", which I wholeheartedly recommend (and fall just short of paying) for you to read.

If we obliterate the most certain of loves; that is, unconditional love; the love upon which one can always count, then one can count on a complete societal collapse: a crisis of love.

To sever the love of a mother, to disrupt or to unnaturally dissolve it is to wreak havoc upon human love as a whole. If we cannot love those whom nature has set up that we love by default, how can we even think about loving those whom we have never met, or even our friends, for that matter.


and of course:

“If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people to not kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.” -Mother Teresa

houses on sand

I was at the beach and I was drifting off to sleep in the warm sun when it came-
we cannot build permanence here.
The rocks, being more at home here than we are, belong-but we do not.
The only thing that holds us here is time.
When our time is no more, nothing can keep us here.
We are not meant to build up kingdoms of security and comfort here below,
We are meant to love Him with all of our heart with all of our soul and with all of our minds. In doing this, we store up treasure for ourselves in heaven-not here where moths will eat and destroy.
The one who tries to secure his place here, who does not acknowledge his own mortality or the path that twists and eventually ends- man who lives for wealth alone: he has been deceived. He has been seduced to build his house on sand.
Like a flower that springs up in the morning and by the evening withers and fades-this is our reality.

Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear

Fact: You lose nothing by reckless abandon or by unhindered devotion.

Your brother is in a car accident and you spend the rest of his life (and yours) day-in, day-out reading to him as he lay in a vegetative state without a single response.
Undeterred by the apparent lack of acknowledgement or awareness on his part, you read novel after novel. You are ridiculed for your "neurotic" time investment; and your commitment costs you much, In fact, your leisure time-your time spent reading aloud in a hospital room- is viewed as lost time and you are held in contempt for scheduling it in each evening on the way home from work.

Then one day everything changes.

You enter your brother's hospital room for what must be the thousandth time. Your brother is awake. There he sits. Incredulous nurses stand all around waiting for your reaction.

You are so shocked that your legs give out and you break into sweat and tears immediately.

Suddenly everything fits together, all becomes just.
"Thank you brother, for your faithfulness- I heard every word you read to me. you were my light in the darkness of my mind; you were hope made manifest."

Everything was worth it. Nothing was lost.

"Not only did you choose to sustain my apparently meaningless life but you became the visible sign that it had inherent value.

Thank you for choosing love over convenience, for choosing life over death. All is choice on the surface, but look below and you will see that only love is truth,and love does not compromise. Love necessitates necessity.

Yes, I have learned much in my silence. I have learned in the prison cell that was my suffering body. They will never understand what they hasten to snuff out. If they knew, they would have no such desires."

All is made simple in love.
Dig deeper, deeper and deeper still- if you are hindered by human reason, you have not dug deep enough; if you are still heavily influenced by the voices of the world, you have not dug deep enough. If you have reached darkness and there is nothing but profound silence, you are right where you need to be. Be attentive and real love will come for you. Love will guide you through swollen bouts of darkness; through hope's long draughts ...without a glimpse of daylight you will be carried to the Son.
Faith is like this.
Invest in love.

And just because this needs to be addressed...

Please read this article with regards to Morgentaler's recent reception of the Order of Canada.
(an article by Stephanie Gray for the Calgary Herald)

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=6409f554-5ef8-4dbd-bc89-f8514903cb6f

Summer stop-over in Yarmouth

It is kind of ridiculous how long it has been...but for everything there is a season- and I will be faithful to the ebb and flow that is laid out for me.

I have not had the chance to write because of the busy-ness of life and because of the difficulty in making my head meet my heart so that they could collaborate in the production of a truthful entry.

I guess I could begin by saying that it is so good to be home, but there is a bittersweet aftertaste, most certainly. There is something so captivating about this little ocean town, it plants something in your heart that entangles your whole being if you allow it.

There is a reason why captivating is the perfect word for Yarmouth because when you fall in love with this place, it takes you captive. There are so many sweet, sweet childhood memories that surface on the shores surrounding my home and it is difficult to tear my identity and my sense of personhood away from it's natural gravitation...that is, to all things foggy but also to all things sun-and-salt-kissed; to all things Maritimes. I think it is a hopeless situation and one that cannot be dwelt upon for too long or else all will be lost as all that is within me becomes captive to this place...never happy or satisfied anywhere else.
Life calls us forward but love calls us home. And although this is fair, and it is to be desired, it is a painful experience because we are forever strangers and sojourners longing for a constancy and for a home that no longer exists or if it did, its existence was primarily found in the aftermath of a good book or a single beach day's residue. This rose-tinted perception of the past is conveniently (and mercifully) only composed of the first fruits of our past, the restless days are left in the fog where they had their beginnings.
So there you have it...the past is largely illusion but it is preserved in our minds and hearts in such a way that there is no place we would rather live...the tug is forever noticeable and it is just enough of a pull to get us home with a broken heart.
Thank you Yarmouth, thank you childhood, thank you Jesus: for going before us always with a broken heart.

Breakfast in Galilee

Green of the countryside, wind in the trees
Dew on the roses, spring in the breeze
March of His soldier beating his drum
Source of sea's waves as swiftly they come

Washing and buffing our outermost shore
Where no power of man has ever before
Created and breathed life in the midst of the dead
Where water springs eternal- as so You have said
My eyes You have opened
On Your water I sputter
My mind You have cleared from the noise and the clutter
You call me to shore from the boat where I toil
Like Peter I swim from my world to dry soil

'It's the Lord!' It was said by him whom You love

I swim to You madly, my need for You grows
I want You to love me with that love that John knows
But yet I know firmly it is already mine
It is and it was from the dawn of all time

Because even today…

You catch all the fish and you give us the merit
You've purchased our souls that we may inherit
This intimate moment we share as fish fries
As dawn breaks above us in opal crisp skies
This moment is ours on Tiberias' shore
This one, Beloved, and so many more

As family you've bid that we share in Your feast,

With an eternity of chances to fix what we've damaged
As we look to our brother, as thrice he did manage
To remind us all gently that yes, we shall fall
But faithfully, surely, You follow and call
You bid us to shore to share in your meal
Like Peter I swim, and like Peter I'm healed.

The Hidden Kingdom

Just as your majesty is veiled by a small white Host;
Just as your mother’s pure and spotless beauty was clothed in humility;
So do I wish to be veiled
So do I wish to be hidden
It is not in earthly pleasures I shall seek my comfort
For I have found my only treasure in You.
I did not find my treasure in the place where I saw the crowds trample before me;
I looked in barns and stables
I looked among the poor and the lost
And there I found You;
Encased in dirt,
And in the downtrodden baggage of human misery
I was looking with the wrong eyes before
But how quietly and knowingly I now gaze upon You;
Enamored,
In awe. Because:
You have hidden these things from the world’s nobles
And You have revealed all this to only the simplest of hearts.