It has been a very quiet day, an atypical day. I have had the unusual luxury of free time, time to read through my friends' blogs, to sit and chat with my wife, to play a quiet game of Scrabble with my beautiful She.
And, of course, I have been able to set up this blog and post to it. I won't have as many opportunities to post in the future, and I have been reveling in this unlooked-for chance to write - to rant - about some themes that have haunted me for the past year.
And then I look at my friends' blogs, and I see such beauty, such luminescent transcendence caught in a few words of joy or praise. I don't see that in my writings, nor even in my inclinations.
Inclinations: The "prophetic voice", the barbaric yawp, the inarticulate cry of the one who sees so much yet who can do so little...
But the Apostle says that he who is without love is a clanging cymbal. Have I been posting in love? Do I want to? I fear that my preferences are still to rail against the falling Night, to rage, rage against the dying of the Light. Not to lift up the beautiful, the seemly, or even to attempt an inchoate genesis of the heavenly.
I fear lest my vox clamanti be naught but a vox cymbali.
Clang!
- V.
Watercolors of the Unexamined Life
1 week ago
2 comments:
The fact that you worry about this says more about your heart perhaps than you realize.
Certainly, it is a temptation to ride in where error abounds with the sword of truth and shield of reason, laying about in all directions, our banner flapping in the breeze and our armour flashing in the sun. It is for me at least.
However, when the Apostle mentions armour in Ephesians he speaks of;
Loins girded in truth,
Breastplate of righteousness,
Feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace,
Faith as a shield,
Helmet of salvation,
Sword of the Spirit.
But most of all he says that our enemy is not other human beings but principalities and powers. Our Lord himself asked for forgiveness for those who were crucifying him for "they know not what they are doing."
So I guess that giving a good account of the hope that is within us, as you say must be tempered by love.
Much of the time, our presentation is not directed at an opponent per se, but for the benefit of a bystander.
And in that circumstance, it is the love that we show, the patience and forbearance that marks us in the eyes of the uncertain. Long before what we say has an impact, how we say it has its own impact.
Therefore, it is our creative challenge, you may say, to present the truth as we know it, yet without becoming that clanging cymbol.
A blogger's prayer, "Lord make me a Harp, not a Harpie."
Thank you for your kind words, Les.
I laughed aloud at the blogger's prayer. Too funny, but too true.
+ Bless you.
- V.
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