dear artist, don't be surfaceishal

If you like poetry, seek the Master Poet

If you like art, don’t you want to know the Master Artist?

If you like beauty, seek to know the Mind that can contain it, the Eye that can see it.

If you are a kind person, seek to gaze upon the Sun of righteousness.

If you are overburdened by now, and feel nothing for nothing, then ask to be relieved. Ask for a breath of Fresh Air. Ask and it will be given you.

Art by someone else

Today's entry is a piece by the artist Marta Hamplova.

It is a statement using someone else's imagery.
For a change...

http://martahamplova.wordpress.com/

oxygen!

"When we turn away from someone, or offend someone, then it is as though a stone were placed inside our heart."

It is.

And I don't want a heart full of stones ever again.

Like a sack full of stones I would sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Like a sack full of stones I would drown. 

I would suffocate.

I need to pray like I need to breathe, for God is the breath of life.

And a heart full of stones would drown me.

Let me explain: we need kindness in our hearts in order to breathe.

.

You are like a date.
A unique instance in time and history.
A particular moment of being.
A piece of reality.
What you do matters.
What you waste is lost.

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.

Manna

The Jews in the desert groaned against the Lord, even as the manna was still in their mouths.

Even as God nourished them in a barren land, they complained.

I am in a barren land.

I complain.

At every free moment I turn to God and I complain.

But had it not been for God’s sustenance I would be now dead.

Long dead.

I would have died already a thousand times.

And more.

I look around me and see the barren land and become faint

I loose hope, and like Peter I begin to sink.

Keep your eye on the Lord, do His work, and despair not. (even if the statistics are right)

A prayer for the morning

God, help me to know my talents, and to use them.

That I do not waste them away like the barren fig tree.

What can I do well and what am I good at? Do I do it?

Do I use what you have given me for the sake of all your people,

And to Your glory?

Or do I sit on it?

Because what you have given me is not mine to keep.

What I am is not for myself alone.

Am I a good steward? Do I use what you gave me to the benefit of your people?

Or am I wasting away, already withered, like the barren fig tree that bore no fruit?

Like the barren fig tree to which You had given life and nourishment,

But which gave nothing back?

God grant to me to give something back.

Something excellent

- that is - to express that which You have given,
like the moon reflects the light of the sun and is like a light in the darkness.

Amen.

Enough of me for a day

My dear readers,

Today I want to introduce you to one of my favorite poets. Enough about me for a day ;) Let's hear someone else do the talking. Let's see the world from another's eyes.
This is her blog:

http://backbeatlili.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/life-is-not-all-fun-and-games.html


Enjoy!

E,

(or, the lukewarm)

If you cannot do it with love you cannot do it at all.

If you cannot do it with your heart, then you cannot do it.

Because it is a motion of love, a movement of the heart. That is all it is.

That is all that anything and everything significant is.

A movement of the heart; an act of love.

If you cannot do it so, you cannot do it.

(Some necessary things are written into our bodies and we cannot avoid doing them, even if we do them begrudgingly.)

(only the very basic things. God wrote them so, because otherwise we would self-eliminate and cease to exist.)

But otherwise you must approach life with your heart,

And it won’t happen to you.

Don’t think you are getting anything done on the side,

if you are not involved with your heart,

you are not getting anything done.

I thought that.

What I thought was wrong.

Life is high-maintenance.

It is demanding.

It wants you whole.

Otherwise it spits you out of her mouth: because you are neither cold nor warm.

Life is a heavy box, and you need all of your strength to lift it.

If you think you can do it without the strength of love,

You are wrong.

You will drop it.

I drop things.

I drop so many things that I am surrounded by shattered stuff, by broken things.

They are spread about like heaps all around me.

It is time to clean up.

The good news is you can clean up.

It is time to toughen up.

The good news is you will always have the strength of love when you want it.

It is there if you want it.

the grapes

I need I desire I want I am.

God, can anyone love but You?

Can anyone keep me but You?

Can anyone support me but You?

Will anyone love me but You?

God, if I do not hope in You, if I do not desire You, if I do not hope for an ideal, I die a boring death. I die a total death. I am depleted of life.

Life is only a communion with the Good and nothing more.

Nothing else.

Life is only hope in You.

Otherwise I die a total death, a mundane death. I am in hell and my soul laments to no end. Without hope, there is only a burning fire that never ends. Without the Good, there is only the deepest coldest darkness; a darkness so cold that it burns like a fire and the two are no different.

Without You, God, I cannot lament loudly enough.

That is the truth.

I need to be. I need to be.

And only Your love creates me.

I don’t think anyone can hear me but You

I don’t think anyone can see me but You

I don’t think anyone can fill the gap in the center of my heart and my soul, but You.

I don’t think an ocean can fit my tears if you didn’t stop them with Your comfort.

I don’t think I would have any tears to cry as I dried up and shriveled away, if it hadn’t been for Your Beauty, upon which I can look, and become hydrated.

I will shrivel up like a dried fig if you turn Your gaze from me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart is brought very low. I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land.

Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.