Satisfied Unsatisfaction

Like one captive too long, seated at a banquet;

Like one lost in a waterless waste, stumbling upon an oasis;

Like one trapped in water granted a breath of air;

Like a lover long absent from the beloved, reunited;

So You are to me, Lord Jesus.

Though all longings are satisfied:

air,

water,

food

love

I will need again

to breathe,

to drink,

to eat,

to be with my beloved

so it is infinitely more with You, Lord Jesus.

You satisfy my deepest heart’s desire. Yet, sufficient though you are for today, tomorrow I will again

breathe you in;

drink deeply of You;

eat from your table;

fellowship with You-

an eternal cycle of ever increasing joy in the satisfied unsatisfaction that is You.

Oh Lord Jesus, I, one of Your gracefully satisfied unsatisfied ones come now and ever to You, my satisfaction and You my passionate hunger.

6 24 07

Grammar 2

Like many Christians, I have found prayer to be a puzzle. How much, when, where, what position, what words, what language, what form, what formula,? I’ve read a number of excellent books and attended seminars devoted to prayer. I find myself no wiser and even less a pray-er than before. For a year, a small group met in our home studying With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray. The book has much to commend it, coming as it does from one of the great Christian thinkers of the nineteenth century. But after all that thought and effort, I found myself no closer to God in prayer than before.

Quite by accident, I stumbled on a “method” which seems to “work.” I have put those two words in quotation marks because there is no method and no work in prayer. Prayer is, at heart, all in the heart, not in a method or in hard work. Prayer is a relationship, prayer is a two-way conversation with a beloved Other. So, when reading what I say below, please hear and recognize this first: without a relationship, this method, this process is just as dry and tedious, just as empty as any other method if used to talk with a friend. The heart must be engaged before the “method” will “work.”

Much of the New Testament, especially Paul's epistles are written in the third person: "He is” “He did,” “He said,” “He went." They are powerful, complex declarative statements about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Their work for and through us. Statements like:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us, in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons, through Jesus Christ. To the praise of His glorious grace which He freely gave us, in the One He loves.

(Eph. 1:3-6)

 He Himself is our peace.

(Eph. 2:13?)

In Him, through Him, to Him are all things; to Him be the glory, forever, amen.

(Rom 11:36)

These statements, written by Paul to various ecclesia, and to us, are his statements about God. They describe, they declare, they teach; wonderful words, but words about. I am not belittling these clear statements opening our the mind to the reality of our great Father and His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. But there is another layer, another “use” of the very same words. With one grammatical sleight of hand, declarative and descriptive statements are transformed into prayers:

Praise be to You, the god and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ who blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For You chose us, in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in Your sight. In love, You predestined us to be adopted as your children through Jesus Christ. To the praise of Your glorious grace which you freely gave us in the One You love.

(Ephesians 1:3-6)

 You Yourself are our peace.

(Eph. 2:13)

In You, through You, to You are all things; to You be the glory, forev

(Rom 11:36)

No longer is the author addressing a fellow human. We are instantly addressing God directly with His own inspired words. Now, instead of information we are entering into communication, a relationship. Implicit in the change is the acknowledgement that the statement is true and that we are approaching God with His truth on our lips.

After praying this way for a number of years, I discovered that I was not the first. It has been a "method" of praying from the earliest church Fathers. It is still practiced in some monasteries in both the Roman and Greek Orthodox Catholic communions. In theological terms it is called "Lectio Divina" (Divine Reading). Like all theology, however, definitions of things divine are mere empty shadows of the reality. It is in the living breathing experience of entering into the very thoughts of God,  that these words become an intimate merging with the divine purpose and will. Static words, black on white type, live and breathe by His Spirit in us. His words become ours, then again His -we enter into His thoughts, intents and purposes-truly heart meeting heart,

Mind meeting mind, spirit meeting spirit-the essence of relationship-the essence of prayer.

6 21 07

Miss Townsend

It was 1958; the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The cold war was near its height. Khrushchev was the Premier of the Soviet Union. Eisenhower was President of the United States. The following year Khrushchev would visit the US and Iowa field of corn and nearly ruin the Soviet Union by demanding that wheat be plowed under and corn be planted instead. Three years later he would visit the United Nations and, taking off his shoe, would pound the podium shouting "We will bury you." (Since writing this, I have since discovered that this UN episode was not a real event. I don’t know how it got started, but it is a part of the legend of the Cold War.) It was a dramatic time. Over backyard fences we listened to our parents talking of nuclear war and satellites delivering atomic bombs. We watched the tiny dot of sputnik silently streaking across the night sky and listened to its beep-beep message to the radio world.

But for all the drama of the time, life was ordinary. I attended a parochial school located just a few feet from my back yard. My seventh-grade home room teacher was Miss Townsend. Now Miss Townsend probably should not have been a junior high teacher. Middle aged, single and not very worldly-wise, she was the target of much early-adolescent humor. One classmate, a gifted cartoonist, drew an unflattering caricature of her on the chalk board in her absence. Another time, during recess (in those days we had recess up through the eighth grade), we boys snuck back into the classroom and stuck a tack on her chair. We could not figure out her lack of response, until later, when we found the tack bent over under the impenetrable barrier of her girdle. Yet she never complained nor scolded, but she must have gone home at night and wept at our cruelty.

Now, looking back with a bit more insight, I remember her more as the one teacher who paid attention to me as an individual. The reason was grammar. I hated it. She tried every teaching method known to pedagogical science to ingrain into me parts of speech, gerunds and diagramming of sentences. She spent her breaks with me, trying to help me understand the verbs of being. She succeeded to some small degree. I know what a gerund is and I know what the verbs of being are; though I still don't know how to diagram a sentence.

The verbs of being are: I am, you are, she/he/it is.

The three verbs startled me one day when I was reading Exodus 3:14: God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’

I AM-what God says about himself. I exist, always did exist and always will exist. Therefore My Name is, I-AM.

My response to Him is: You are. You did, do and always will, be. I acknowledge Your existence by saying "You are."

Then I turn to the world and confess: "He is." We, together, as a part of the church confess this corporately to those whom He is saving. It is the Great Commission in two words-thesourcewellspring of all that motivates Christians to act in this world.

I AM, You are, He is; three two-word declarations but so pregnant withmeaning that all theology, all belief and all Christian action flows from them.

I AM, You are, He is-six words worthy of an eternity of meditation and action.

6 21 07

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