Not Sheer Suffering

I'm on enforced light blogging while I struggle against some freelance deadlines. In the meantime, I want to recommend a blog written by a friend of mine. 

The author of Followed By Glory is not only one of the bravest women I know, but also a rare instance of a Christian truly striving to live her life in radical surrender to God's will. She illustrates Anne Morrow Lindbergh's axiom that "sheer suffering" is not a teacher, for "[if] suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable."

In addition, she is someone I admire.


I will have more to say here in a couple of weeks if I make my deadlines. In the meantime, all my readers are in my prayers.

The Gift

Lord, You may not recognize me
speaking for someone else.
I have a son.  He is
so little, so ignorant.
He likes to stand
at the screen door, calling
oggie, oggie, entering
language, and sometimes
a dog will stop and come up
the walk, perhaps
accidentally.  May he believe
this is not an accident?
At the screen
welcoming each beast
in love's name, Your emissary.
-- Louise Glück

Happy Easter

A Prayer for the Self

Who am I worthless that You spent such pains
and take may pains again?

I do not understand; but I believe.
Jonquils respond with wit to the teasing breeze.

Induct me down my secrets. Stiffen this heart
to stand their horrifying cries, O cushion
the first the second shocks, will to a halt
in mid-air there demons who would be at me.

May fade before, sweet morning on sweet morning,
I wake my dreams, my fan-mail go astray,
and do me little goods I have not thought of,
ingenious & beneficial Father.

Ease in their passing my beloved friends,
all others too I have cared for in a travelling life,
anyone anywhere indeed. Lift up
sober toward truth a scared self-estimate.

-- John Berryman, from "Eleven Addresses to the Lord." Collected Poems 1937-1971. © Noonday Press, 1989.

H/T: The Writer's Almanac