Matthew

by Elanor

Today in church, we tend to emphasize God's inclusivity: He loves the entire world, "I will go down any path to find you." These things are true. However, as I read the book of Matthew, the attitude that jumps out at me is one of selection. Jesus' parables--the four soils, the tares and the wheat--emphasize that, while some people will become His disciples, many will not. I used to think of this issue of the wide and narrow gates as motivation for me to share the Gospel more or better, or to love people in a different way. I would often look with regret on relationships, thinking that if only I had done something different, perhaps that person would be closer to God than they are. Jesus did not think that way. Rather than try to coddle His followers for fear of losing them, rather than allowing each one to go "at his own pace," Jesus would purposely try to get rid of the unmotivated: He told confusing stories; He assigned people difficult tasks; He asked for total devotion above all else. He was not afraid to let people go if they were not driven to come to Him out of their own conviction.

I've always seen my job as being that of persuading people to follow Jesus. Jesus did not try to persuade; that is the job of the Holy Spirit. Instead, He confronted people with the truth and allowed them to choose.

The New Year's Resolution

by Elanor

As far as I can remember, I have never made a New Year's Resolution before, mostly because I am too afraid of failure to willingly set myself up for it. But this year, while I was driving home from a party on New Year's Eve, I thought of something I would like to do this year.

In 2009, I learned that Jesus is the dividing point of the world. Where some people, intentionally or not, want to mush Christianity together with a general theory of tolerance towards all people and all religions, Jesus comes with a sword and cuts through to mark a distinct boundary between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. If you ever want to find out for sure where someone stands, get them to tell you what they believe about Jesus, and you will know.

Since He is the difference, He is what changes everything, I want my spiritual focus this year to be on Jesus, and Jesus specifically. I intend to read one of the Gospels every week and share 200 to 250 words about something I learn from them. When Jesus was on earth, His disciples followed Him around for three years, so maybe I will somehow find the discipline (disciple-ness) to follow Him for one.

Merry Christmas!!

“At this point everything becomes clear or unclear, bright or dark. For here we are standing at the centre. And however high and mysterious and difficult everything we want to know might seem to us, yet we may also say that this is just where everything becomes quite simple, quite straightforward, quite childlike. Right here in this centre, in which as a Professor of Systematic Theology I must call to you, ‘Look! This is the point now! Either knowledge, or the greatest folly!’—here I am in front of you, like a teacher in Sunday school facing his kiddies, who has something to say which a mere four-year-old can really understand. ‘The world was lost, but Christ was born, rejoice, O Christendom!’… ‘God became man for thy good, O man. ‘Tis God’s own Child that binds Himself to thine own blood.’”

- Karl Barth (via More Than 95 Theses)

Perishable

by Elanor

When my husband and I moved into our apartment,
I found in his old room a string of rose-lights,
pink buds, green leaves, all wispy-veined,
that we hung up around the kitchen window.
Their vine was an electrical cord that plugged
into the wall and made the flowers glow red
and made the place look like a ten-year-old girl’s bedroom.
They lasted, evergreen-and-pink, for four seasons.
This morning I found a few fragments of fake leaf,
brown and brittle, on the kitchen table.
They reminded me of the bulldozers on our street last week
ripping up pockmarked pavement to put in new
smooth black stuff that steamed in piles
before it was steamrollered level,
and of Roman roads that lasted a long time but not forever.
Then I thought of how indignant I was to learn that
when you buy yourself a house, expect
to have work done on it every ten years or so—
retiling, recarpeting, reroofing.
When I buy something, especially at so great a price,
I don’t want to have to pay for it again.

Christmas Art

I just discovered a Christian artist the other day named Daniel Bonnell. His work is incredible. Take a look here.


Seeing Shepherds

Another poem about poetry...

This poem is about itself
and how it cannot speak.
It might as well be Danish or
a dialect of ancient Greek.

Its words lift off like air balloons,
each basket all aflame
with revelation's flickering tongues
contained within each lettered frame.

Before these baubles reach the heart
they mean to kindle, each
one's lines snap, baskets drop,
the motive force behind their speech

is lost. The poet even now
while writing feels despair
deflate her. "Mediocre," hiss
infernal whispers in the air,

"expendable, inferior,"
and with a downward gust,
they snuff out truth flames fluttering
until there's nothing left but dust.

I wrote a poem.

I haven't written one since I started dating Edwin, which is more than a year. Therefore, the poem is about trying to write poetry and not being able to, and the process of self-doubt, etc.


I am going to write a poem.
Idon'thavethewisdomforitIdon't
thinkit'sgoingtobeanygoodandwhoamI
tobewritingthisanywaywhoamIanyway,
the words clunk at my feet.
Where is the wind to carry them
heartwards where they might be lodged
like guests or bent nails in a fencepost
to mark that I have made a difference like
the sunset, for now the sky is velvet
where it was fire and there is no going back?

I am a carbon-based organism, nucleotides dancing.
I am a soul blown through with Trinity.
I am a daughter, sister, wife, warming
house, husband, and children someday. I am
a teacher to open ears and tongues. I am a member
of this glorious squalor of a species that
in less than half a century birthed and killed
its Creator. I am, and I have the right to write a poem.

Yes, I have the right, as I stretch out my fist
to seize it like a Berkeley protester. Shall I
clasp it to my chest and say "Mine, mine, no
one shall take it from me!" as they do? I become
a shallow ditch in Palestine, where many years
ago a frightened man buried his gift. Take the earth
of my hole, mold it into a jar of clay that I might not
fester but break, spilling sweet myrrh at your feet.