keeping company

1.

From Beauty and the Beast we can learn, said Chesterton, that the beloved becomes loveable after he is loved. You love the beloved and this allows them to be loveable.

We all need the integrity of being loved.

It lets us flourish.

Ο μάρανθος μαρένεται μόνος του χωρίς το χώμα.

Ο μάρανθος μαρένεται χωρίς τον ήλιο.

2.

I reach up. I reach up to heaven because it can hold me.

I lift up mine eyes, because I want to see.

I am alone in the valley, I reach up to You and I need You to BE.

You have made me poor, so very poor, so that there will be nothing between us.

You have made me despair, so fully despair in the world, so that I trust in nothing but You.

You have made me to become a deep hole;

A deep yearning;

A full surrender;

A space that is not full;

A waiting room with no guests.

You have taken everything out of my hand.

I have nothing: but a definite, palpable need to be filled by Your grace.

You have made me a hole so big that nothing else can fill it.

You have made me so desolate that nothing but Your utter joy can lift me up.

3.

I don’t know what everyone else is doing, I am out here alone.

I don’t know how they spend their time because I spend mine looking to You.

I look into a void.

I stand at an edge.

But I came out here for the peace, for to hear You speak.

I have let go of everything, because my need is too big.

My need is so large.

It is so large the world falls in it and becomes a nothing.

I need.

I need to be out here looking for You.

Either I will find You, and in Your light I will see life,

Or I will die from this vast never-ending need.

So it is worth looking don’t you think?

4.

I looked under rocks and between cars, and all the silly places I could think.

But I cannot think.

So I have come out here,

In this desert,

On the top of this hill,

And I am standing here, so that you might see me.

I have got rid of everything so that you might see me.

5.

blessed are they who mourn, but who does not mourn?

Who can ‘not mourn?’

When they have a hole so much bigger than the skies, a tear in their soul that only becomes more and more vast,

That they cannot stop.

We need. We need nothing but You.

I am expecting You.

When you come into your kingdom, remember me o Lord, when you come into your kingdom.

Do not leave me with the need.

For if You will not fill me with Your grace, then nothing is worse than the day on which I was born.

Nothing is darker than the clouds that should have covered that day and never let it be.

Nothing is longer than the distance between me and the fulfillment of my soul.