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November 30, 2005
generally cruddy
when my blog began, many of the entries consisted of sections of an old manuscript of poems and meditations I put together in the early nineties called Ache for Eternity: A Journey in Verse. my writing from this time tends to be more naively sincere and less nuanced than my current writing, but still, nonetheless, often serves to encourage me with truth.
here is one of the few as yet unposted poems, which is quite appropriate as the past week or so I have been both body and soul sick, feeling sinful and ill and generally cruddy.
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Grace
On high mountain breezes or lowland gusts,
Even lowly crows can soar.
And these denied, the eagles are bust
And but weary pedestrians in the sky.
And so it must be with God's grace and love
And birdbrains like you and me.
Perhaps nothing is more graceful and beautiful than an eagle soaring on an updraft of crisp, clean alpine air with a backdrop of pristine snow covered peaks. It glides and dips and curves all with a smooth twist of its tail. A crow in such rarefied climes doesn't present nearly as much grace, but glides and dives with all the jerkiness and enthusiasm of whitewater rafters. Wheee!!! But for all its clumsiness and awkwardness, it soars nonetheless. Put both birds in the middle of a windless desert and the odds are even, each can only rise with the ungainly flapping of wings
When Isaiah wrote "Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles," the message is not that we will become eagles, but that hoping in the Lord will make us soar like eagles. Earlier in the passage he writes, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Several analogies spring to mind. I seldom feel like an eagle, my life seems more crow-like, with its many failures and shortcomings. Also, in the Church we are called to different service. Few are called to be the eagles, most are called simply to faithfully fulfill less glorious roles. In either case, in the arena of our personal lives with our struggles, or in the separate callings in the Church, the emphasis must always be on the sustaining wind of God's grace. We can choose to fly wearily in our own strength or choose to soar in the wondrous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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p.s. i have seen the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe...yeah, the new one. 
Personal Growth or Lack Thereof | By jackdas | 5:18 PM
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