Monday

An unploughed field, with clear blue skies overhead. And then you start digging and there are stones buried just below the surface; there are unexpected clots of clay to shift; and then the sun goes behind clouds that appeared as if from nowhere and a chill falls and the rains begin...Yep, it's Monday.

(Metaphorically-speaking of course...)

Shoreline

Two men along the
shore;
one broken; one whole,
having been broken,
to pieces,
set in stone,
then breaking into
day.
Two men

talking along the
shore
of being broken,
of being loved
into being

whole.
Whole in love,
whole in peace,
whole in being

held
and led
and situated
along a

shoreline
of peace.

Horatius Bonar on the Lord's Table

We sit here as at our eastern window to watch the first rays of coming day; to see star after star fading from the heavens as the dawn approaches, and the sun prepares to rise, “the sun of a morning without clouds,” bringing in the splendour of the everlasting day.

Christ is All: The Piety of Horatius Bonar

Into the valley (He carries me)

So I was thinking some days ago about songs of lament and hope and thought I'd try my hand at writing one. A friend has kindly agreed to see if he can write a tune for it, either for solo or congregational use. I'm not sure it actually merits too much of his time (it still feels somewhat unfinished) but fwiw this is it (the italicised verse can either be sung as a chorus after each verse, after verses 2 and 3 or only after verse 3, no decision yet)

Into the valley (He carries me)

Into the valley of pain I go
And yes I am afraid;
The shadows are deep, the sky is dark
My hopes all seem betrayed.
Into the valley of pain I go
But I am not alone.

Into the valley of shame I go
And yes I am undone;
My sins all crimson, my guilt aflame,
The slanderer has won.
Into the valley of shame I go
But I am not alone

Into the valley of fear I go
And yes I tremble hard;
The struggle was long, the fighting fierce,
My soul is battle-scarred.
Into the valley of fear I go
But I am not alone

For

He walks with me, he talks with me,
He shelters me from harm,
He draws the sting of guilt and shame,
Of pain and all alarm,
And carries me, yes carries me
And tells me all his name.

(Alternative last line(s): And in his name is calm/And all his name is calm)

ps. Please also see this post for these words set to music.

Sympathy for the fallen

Commenting on Peter and John being together on Easter day, HCG Moule writes,

Many a 'saint' of later day would, I fear, have thrust Peter away from all fellowship with himself. But not so John. At once, before the Resurrection, before the hope of it, while there was yet no joy in his own heart, John has joined himself to Peter...
If for us, in our day, the sense of our Redeemer's love, our rest upon the bosom of His forgiving friendship, does anything, it will make us condemn and renounce the spiritual self-righteousness which shuts up sympathy. It will make us feel how wonderfully welcome to the Lord is 'whosoever cometh', even if he comes fresh from some grievous fall, some denial of the Blessed name. It will make us so far like Him who loved us, that while we shall see and feel sin, as sin, more and more keenly and painfully (and not least, the sin of not loving the Lord Christ, and submitting the whole being to him), we shall more and yet more truly love, and seek to help, others for whom our aid may avail, however strange the case, however great the fall.

Jesus and the Resurrection, p.18f, Seeley & Co, 1898