To know you only
my soul disappears.
I tire of glimpsing you
in dusty mirrors.
The beauty in the world I know
is only ugliness to me
if you I cannot see.
pregnant with your love,
I climb.
But on this narrow stair,
I recall how fair,
the vanities of this world are.
And I find the path too steep,
the pain too deep—
to keep on looking for you.
I tear my hands—clutching
at blossoms—truly,
only—thorns in my side.
My pride
woos me to stay,
while fears
—heavy iron spurs—
slacken my steps,
protecting me from truth,
making my cup—a pulsing star—
overflowing with your joys,
bitter and black,
—gall and tar.
Drop!
Drop!
Your blood in my cup.
Shine
Shine
(your light in my eyes).
The water of life rushing
in my ears
the currents rise,
and carry me along,
so strong your rivers are.
Your song now
palatable—I float
my ascent, swallowing
mouthfuls of your words.
As the earth revolves
so I spin, turned by you
the One who moves.
Sugar and sadness in
my hymn, I begin to tune
my lips to your unchanging
symphony.
Clutching to the drifting sun,
I wash up on your
golden shore—
and I can't remember anymore
anything brighter than your face.
Sunday 11 March 2012
Monday 27 February 2012
I'm feeling very happy about this
If you can't tell from the photograph, one of those people is wearing a very fancy ring. But I won't tell you which one. HOORAY!
Thursday 23 February 2012
Lent: Oh! The Sweetness of Reality!
I am moved to blog about Lent. Though I didn't attend an official Ash Wednesday service, I had my own little inaugural ceremony a few nights ago. I'm trying to spend Lent understanding its purpose, and what it means to be in the desert. But, today, I realized that I've recently left my own wilderness. The last seven months were spent wandering through my own wasteland.
Now, with a new apartment, a new job, and a life that matches my own wishes with startling exactness, I find the terrain wooded and green. This has forced me to rethink my Lenten practices. I've decided to keep the fast by giving up things that distract or deaden; I'm taking a break from movies, TV (no Downton Abbey), and fictional narrative. I've given up these things because sometimes I use them as an opiate; I use them when I want to be removed from the Real, and in those moments I lose awareness. I'm resisting the urge to curl up with a good book and shut out the obvious.
I'm trying to learn to focus and to notice: primarily with poetry and the Bible. Poetry is important to this process because I can't read it in a hurry, and though I do get lost in a poem, it's not an inattentive absence.
This week, I've been reading Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud. I'm going to read it over and over again, though it's a 55 page poem, until I absorb it wholly. It's a helpful piece, so far, because in it Oliver roves through the glories of existence.
This Lent I'm working on two things: 1) Thankfulness, and 2) An awareness of the Real. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the world is. The Leaf and the Cloud has been helpful because it reminds me that there are things like swans, grass, and foxes. Oliver reminds me that there are, even on this broken planet, wonders like the "first egg with a tapping from inside."
A Lenten devotional I recently read said that after desert wandering comes thanksgiving. Therefore, one should either be holding on to God in the desert, or bursting with praise for being brought safely to the oasis on the other side. It's time for me to say thank you.
When I think of reality, I think of sad, prosaic things. No one ever says, "you need to face reality, come and look at this sweet little bird chirping on this branch." We use the word reality to represent the harshness of life. All is bitter, acerbic, acidity. But do you know what? Today I waited for the bus underneath a beautiful tree. It had a smooth trunk, curvy branches, and bunches of pink blossoms. Huge, black bumblebees were drinking its nectar, and the sky above it was so blue. That's reality.
Most importantly, if God is the Fount of Existence, and he is, then I need to be most aware of him. Most of my consciousness is spent on things that are not real, things that do not matter, things that don't push me to abide in God. Work, and public transportation, and grocery shopping, and checking my email, and filing my taxes, and getting up early every morning, and taking out the trash is not real. Clothes shopping, and grading papers and, balancing my checkbook, and reading Charles Dickens is not real. God is real. I don't think it's wrong to escape into film or literature, but the Beautiful is always in the room. What if, sometimes, I was more hospitable?
This is where I am, I choose Lent because I want to see ministering angels and birds newly hatched. I want to be familiar with the vigorous habits of bumblebees. I want to see it all and say thank you.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.
Now, with a new apartment, a new job, and a life that matches my own wishes with startling exactness, I find the terrain wooded and green. This has forced me to rethink my Lenten practices. I've decided to keep the fast by giving up things that distract or deaden; I'm taking a break from movies, TV (no Downton Abbey), and fictional narrative. I've given up these things because sometimes I use them as an opiate; I use them when I want to be removed from the Real, and in those moments I lose awareness. I'm resisting the urge to curl up with a good book and shut out the obvious.
I'm trying to learn to focus and to notice: primarily with poetry and the Bible. Poetry is important to this process because I can't read it in a hurry, and though I do get lost in a poem, it's not an inattentive absence.
This week, I've been reading Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud. I'm going to read it over and over again, though it's a 55 page poem, until I absorb it wholly. It's a helpful piece, so far, because in it Oliver roves through the glories of existence.
This Lent I'm working on two things: 1) Thankfulness, and 2) An awareness of the Real. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the world is. The Leaf and the Cloud has been helpful because it reminds me that there are things like swans, grass, and foxes. Oliver reminds me that there are, even on this broken planet, wonders like the "first egg with a tapping from inside."
A Lenten devotional I recently read said that after desert wandering comes thanksgiving. Therefore, one should either be holding on to God in the desert, or bursting with praise for being brought safely to the oasis on the other side. It's time for me to say thank you.
When I think of reality, I think of sad, prosaic things. No one ever says, "you need to face reality, come and look at this sweet little bird chirping on this branch." We use the word reality to represent the harshness of life. All is bitter, acerbic, acidity. But do you know what? Today I waited for the bus underneath a beautiful tree. It had a smooth trunk, curvy branches, and bunches of pink blossoms. Huge, black bumblebees were drinking its nectar, and the sky above it was so blue. That's reality.
Most importantly, if God is the Fount of Existence, and he is, then I need to be most aware of him. Most of my consciousness is spent on things that are not real, things that do not matter, things that don't push me to abide in God. Work, and public transportation, and grocery shopping, and checking my email, and filing my taxes, and getting up early every morning, and taking out the trash is not real. Clothes shopping, and grading papers and, balancing my checkbook, and reading Charles Dickens is not real. God is real. I don't think it's wrong to escape into film or literature, but the Beautiful is always in the room. What if, sometimes, I was more hospitable?
“Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”
This is where I am, I choose Lent because I want to see ministering angels and birds newly hatched. I want to be familiar with the vigorous habits of bumblebees. I want to see it all and say thank you.
THANKS
W.S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.
Saturday 11 February 2012
Lenten Preparations
I'm trying to decide what I should give up for Lent. This will be my second year actually observing all forty days. It's so strange to consider giving up something I'd rather keep. It's also strange because I remember how very endless Lent felt last year, and how the best part of that experience, was growing in an awareness of my own wickedness. It's terrible to contemplate one's faults. But, this is the point I think. I want to give up an unnecessary thing that I have come to believe is necessary. Something I turn to for comfort, entertainment, or solace instead of turning to God, or simply sitting in the presence of my own emptiness. There are some options spinning around in my head right now, but I sometimes find it hard to choose wise self-denial over masochism. I also learned last year that fasts really reconfigure human relationships. If I give up, say, going to the movies, or eating out, then I'm denying pleasures for other human beings besides myself. Lent is great, I tell you, because it also made me aware that my actions happen in community. Maybe I should just decide to do everything more slowly. I want this year to be about slowing down in meaningful ways. I want to calmly savor life, instead of swallowing it whole and running for the door.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.
Tuesday 3 January 2012
Saturday 31 December 2011
The Best Books of 2011: as told by Me
Please note that these books are arranged in no important order, and that exactly 0 of them were published in 2011. Well, ahem:
Best Books of 2011
Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
Autobiography of a Reformed Jewish girl turned Orthodox Jew turned Episcopalian. It's beautifully written, intelligent, meaningful, and hilarious. As a friend described it, "I kind of hate her. It's like, I love her, but I want to be her at the same time".
Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
All of these are autobiographical non-fiction. These books I group together because it took reading through the first two of them before I loved Anne Lamott. At first, I passionately hated her. Though I disagree with some of the things she says, I've ultimately learned a lot from her. Anne Lamott stretched my understanding of sin, love, and faith. She's also hilarious and a very good writer. The third book, Bird by Bird, is primarily advice for beginning writers.
Housekeeping and Home by Marilynne Robinson
Two lovely texts by the patron saint of creative writing. I love this woman. The only problem with her writing is that I love all of it completely. It's a mystical experience every time. Her stories are all slow moving, and I love this, because she writes at the pace of my own soul. Home is the sequel to Gilead, an epistolary novel and one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I cried through both of them. Housekeeping is a simply exquisite work of fiction. It's beautiful language, image, and narrative.
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
This fall I tried to read more plays and this is what came of it. I mean, this is my favorite out of the dozen or so that I read. This is the play from which we get the more familiar film, My Fair Lady. I have to say that George Bernard Shaw is generally heavily political and long-winded. I liked Pygmalion because I think he was more focused on real human interaction: Eliza, Prof. Higgins, and the relationship between them. It was entirely enjoyable, if enjoyable includes both the hilarious and the heart-wrenching.
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
Another epistolary novel. It's perfect fall reading, as it's a book about school. Everybody knows that books about school and orphans make for good reading. It's humorous, sweet and makes me want to go to an all-girls college.
Phantastes and At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
George MacDonald is the patron saint of everything. I love this man. This year, I re-read Phantastes after reading At the Back of the North Wind. He's just so good at what he does. What does he do? He takes gigantic, universal themes and gives them to you in beautiful, gloriously-simple fairy tales. He's bursting with truth, light, and beauty. It's like carrying a star in your pocket. It's wonderful.
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O' Connor
Another book largely about writing. I have a secret delight in reading writers talking about the craft of writing. It makes me feel better about my own lack of discipline in that area. In this book, Flannery mockingly and helpfully presents the writing life and the purpose of writing.
Revelation by St. John & the Holy Spirit
Not a first read, but this year Revelation suddenly made sense. I think I made it past all of the bewildering discussions of "pre vs. post-trib" and finally came to see the drama of the book itself. I love it; it's well written, mystical, prophetic, and, as I've recently discovered, unbelievably straightforward. God wins! Revelation is a new favorite.
Pensées by Pascal
Read this for school, back in the early days of 2011 when I was still a student. I loved this because it's like philosophy for the literary. It is beautifully written and has a heart. I don't know how else to say it.
Emma by Jane Austen
Of course I've seen the movies 12,000 times. But, I've somehow never made it through the book before. I'm amazed upon this read to see aspects of myself in Emma Woodhouse. I, too, fall prey to my own imaginative speculations. Shocking, I know.
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
I didn't like Henry James before I read it, and I didn't even like this work until I was about 150 pages in, but I did really enjoy it. I was surprised, which is the main thing. The characters feel like real people. Good work, Henry.
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
Hard to categorize, but harder to read. Boethius sort of socks you in the belly and makes you consider life's hardest questions. Why is there suffering? Boethius can tell you. Read him.
I don't generally like "best of" lists. But now I've posted for the last time in 2011. Ha!
Let's all choose to believe that I'll post more frequently in 2012. Bonne Année!
Best Books of 2011
Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
Autobiography of a Reformed Jewish girl turned Orthodox Jew turned Episcopalian. It's beautifully written, intelligent, meaningful, and hilarious. As a friend described it, "I kind of hate her. It's like, I love her, but I want to be her at the same time".
Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
All of these are autobiographical non-fiction. These books I group together because it took reading through the first two of them before I loved Anne Lamott. At first, I passionately hated her. Though I disagree with some of the things she says, I've ultimately learned a lot from her. Anne Lamott stretched my understanding of sin, love, and faith. She's also hilarious and a very good writer. The third book, Bird by Bird, is primarily advice for beginning writers.
Housekeeping and Home by Marilynne Robinson
Two lovely texts by the patron saint of creative writing. I love this woman. The only problem with her writing is that I love all of it completely. It's a mystical experience every time. Her stories are all slow moving, and I love this, because she writes at the pace of my own soul. Home is the sequel to Gilead, an epistolary novel and one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I cried through both of them. Housekeeping is a simply exquisite work of fiction. It's beautiful language, image, and narrative.
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
This fall I tried to read more plays and this is what came of it. I mean, this is my favorite out of the dozen or so that I read. This is the play from which we get the more familiar film, My Fair Lady. I have to say that George Bernard Shaw is generally heavily political and long-winded. I liked Pygmalion because I think he was more focused on real human interaction: Eliza, Prof. Higgins, and the relationship between them. It was entirely enjoyable, if enjoyable includes both the hilarious and the heart-wrenching.
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
Another epistolary novel. It's perfect fall reading, as it's a book about school. Everybody knows that books about school and orphans make for good reading. It's humorous, sweet and makes me want to go to an all-girls college.
Phantastes and At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
George MacDonald is the patron saint of everything. I love this man. This year, I re-read Phantastes after reading At the Back of the North Wind. He's just so good at what he does. What does he do? He takes gigantic, universal themes and gives them to you in beautiful, gloriously-simple fairy tales. He's bursting with truth, light, and beauty. It's like carrying a star in your pocket. It's wonderful.
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O' Connor
Another book largely about writing. I have a secret delight in reading writers talking about the craft of writing. It makes me feel better about my own lack of discipline in that area. In this book, Flannery mockingly and helpfully presents the writing life and the purpose of writing.
Revelation by St. John & the Holy Spirit
Not a first read, but this year Revelation suddenly made sense. I think I made it past all of the bewildering discussions of "pre vs. post-trib" and finally came to see the drama of the book itself. I love it; it's well written, mystical, prophetic, and, as I've recently discovered, unbelievably straightforward. God wins! Revelation is a new favorite.
Pensées by Pascal
Read this for school, back in the early days of 2011 when I was still a student. I loved this because it's like philosophy for the literary. It is beautifully written and has a heart. I don't know how else to say it.
Emma by Jane Austen
Of course I've seen the movies 12,000 times. But, I've somehow never made it through the book before. I'm amazed upon this read to see aspects of myself in Emma Woodhouse. I, too, fall prey to my own imaginative speculations. Shocking, I know.
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
I didn't like Henry James before I read it, and I didn't even like this work until I was about 150 pages in, but I did really enjoy it. I was surprised, which is the main thing. The characters feel like real people. Good work, Henry.
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
Hard to categorize, but harder to read. Boethius sort of socks you in the belly and makes you consider life's hardest questions. Why is there suffering? Boethius can tell you. Read him.
I don't generally like "best of" lists. But now I've posted for the last time in 2011. Ha!
Let's all choose to believe that I'll post more frequently in 2012. Bonne Année!
Saturday 30 July 2011
Vision of The Grotesque & The Beautiful
I hate ugliness. I hate ugliness so much that I try not to see it, to hear it, to smell it, or to conceive of it in any way that reveals its presence to me. I look at the world through a lens that denies the presence of what is ugly. No, not a vision of denial, but a vision of discontent. I look at things only to wish them more beautiful. I see wilting roses and picture them whole, full, devoid of brownish edges or insect perforations. It extends to all my senses. I attempt to keep out of my ears the noises of the world--television, radio stations, muzak in grocery stores--noise being its own kind of ugliness. There is a large medical building in my city painted a tawdry muddy-orange color. It makes me angry, it might have been prettier.
This vision of discontent, of continual demand for perfection from an imperfect world, may be a gift. Otherwise, it is my own ugliness. An ugliness that wants always to deny the imperfections of real things. It's not a blindness, it's a judging vision. It's been said that prophets are afflicted with divine discontent, and I like to believe that it is this affliction I bear. This kind of affliction made people like Amy Carmichael and George Mueller take in hundreds of street children, it's the kind that fuels abolition movements and unreasonable demands for justice--because these people were dissatisfied with what is. Lately though, I am in doubt.
This week I finished Mystery and Manners, a posthumous collection of prose by Flannery O' Connor. I love St. Flannery for so many reasons. First, because she is an excellent writer. Second, because she is right about everything. Third, because her own spiritual and artistic vision is so perfectly shaped and presented. She has left nothing out. This being said, it is disconcerting to be at odds with Flannery in my own way of looking at the world. But then, maybe I am not. Flannery is all about observation: she is concerned with looking at and recognizing what is present in the natural world in order to faithfully reveal its link to supernature. Nature pairs with grace & mystery with manners, Flannery tells us. Thus, her vision of the world involves judgment, because she sees the ultimate reality of the Triune God making himself known to us. And, along with this, she sees the rebellion and misery of humanity in fighting against this, its own perfect end. But what strikes me most is that Flannery concerns herself so much with seeing what is there and presenting exactly this to the reader. Her characters are often people who are physically ugly, as well as being spiritually so. Perhaps this is where our vision differs. I see what is there and in my own mind's eye strive to correct, to improve, to soften it's garishness. Flannery even extols the benefits of drawing classes for young novelists, drawing being an activity that helps you to see what is there. Flannery's thorough perception recognizes what is there and serves it to you raw and unedited--grotesque humanity on a silver platter of truth.
Do I shun the grotesque? Or do I, like Flannery, see the world and human nature in it's impoverished state and yearn for what it ought to be? For what it may be? In my view of the world do I miss something? Am I ignoring the downtrodden? The broken-hearted? The least of these?
The smelly, filthy, homeless, disabled man on the bus is grotesque. I sit with him in a vehicle with large, glassy windows that let in the light. Together we travel, our lives drowned out under the roar of the engine. But I sit there because I can't escape. I politely breathe through my mouth instead of covering my nose so that he will not realize the smell of him makes me afraid. I look at him and think detached, philosophical thoughts about humanity and its depravity. Is that the way to look at the grotesque? I sit there with him and think about other things, with my nose stuck in a book, ignoring the present scents of disaster and decay to picture clean skin, beds of lavender, rain-washed air.
To see the grotesque do I have to love it? Or merely embrace its presence? Are loving and embracing one act?
Am I looking for the good beneath the ugliness? Or am I simply trying to recognize and greet the presence of the ugly?
I know it is wrong to only love what is beautiful. Or rather, is it wrong to love what only appears beautiful? Love is not concerned, perhaps, with the goodness of the thing loved; but with willing and bringing good to the object of the love.
And what am I to think of my own grotesqueness? God does not love me because I am beautiful. He loves me even though I am ugly. And in this love his beauty is communicated to me. If the call is merely to love, then my response ought to be constant, loving, attentiveness.
Yes! This is it, attention well paid, a certain homage performed. A recognition of presence. The presence of the grotesque.
and the real always trumps the imagined
as the invisible transcends the perceived
Are perfection, beauty, & goodness the result of that loving attentiveness? Do I look at what is and love it because it ought to be higher? Love it for what it could be? Love it to make it rise?
I am on a quest to use my imaginative faculty for good. I want to know how to see what is there, but not in a dull complacency that makes me wring my hands. Nor in a zeal for perfection that makes me sweep over any good concealed. Rather, I want to cultivate a welcoming attentiveness that helps me to see the good that is present--for what is good is better than what is beautiful. I think.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.
This vision of discontent, of continual demand for perfection from an imperfect world, may be a gift. Otherwise, it is my own ugliness. An ugliness that wants always to deny the imperfections of real things. It's not a blindness, it's a judging vision. It's been said that prophets are afflicted with divine discontent, and I like to believe that it is this affliction I bear. This kind of affliction made people like Amy Carmichael and George Mueller take in hundreds of street children, it's the kind that fuels abolition movements and unreasonable demands for justice--because these people were dissatisfied with what is. Lately though, I am in doubt.
This week I finished Mystery and Manners, a posthumous collection of prose by Flannery O' Connor. I love St. Flannery for so many reasons. First, because she is an excellent writer. Second, because she is right about everything. Third, because her own spiritual and artistic vision is so perfectly shaped and presented. She has left nothing out. This being said, it is disconcerting to be at odds with Flannery in my own way of looking at the world. But then, maybe I am not. Flannery is all about observation: she is concerned with looking at and recognizing what is present in the natural world in order to faithfully reveal its link to supernature. Nature pairs with grace & mystery with manners, Flannery tells us. Thus, her vision of the world involves judgment, because she sees the ultimate reality of the Triune God making himself known to us. And, along with this, she sees the rebellion and misery of humanity in fighting against this, its own perfect end. But what strikes me most is that Flannery concerns herself so much with seeing what is there and presenting exactly this to the reader. Her characters are often people who are physically ugly, as well as being spiritually so. Perhaps this is where our vision differs. I see what is there and in my own mind's eye strive to correct, to improve, to soften it's garishness. Flannery even extols the benefits of drawing classes for young novelists, drawing being an activity that helps you to see what is there. Flannery's thorough perception recognizes what is there and serves it to you raw and unedited--grotesque humanity on a silver platter of truth.
Do I shun the grotesque? Or do I, like Flannery, see the world and human nature in it's impoverished state and yearn for what it ought to be? For what it may be? In my view of the world do I miss something? Am I ignoring the downtrodden? The broken-hearted? The least of these?
The smelly, filthy, homeless, disabled man on the bus is grotesque. I sit with him in a vehicle with large, glassy windows that let in the light. Together we travel, our lives drowned out under the roar of the engine. But I sit there because I can't escape. I politely breathe through my mouth instead of covering my nose so that he will not realize the smell of him makes me afraid. I look at him and think detached, philosophical thoughts about humanity and its depravity. Is that the way to look at the grotesque? I sit there with him and think about other things, with my nose stuck in a book, ignoring the present scents of disaster and decay to picture clean skin, beds of lavender, rain-washed air.
To see the grotesque do I have to love it? Or merely embrace its presence? Are loving and embracing one act?
Am I looking for the good beneath the ugliness? Or am I simply trying to recognize and greet the presence of the ugly?
I know it is wrong to only love what is beautiful. Or rather, is it wrong to love what only appears beautiful? Love is not concerned, perhaps, with the goodness of the thing loved; but with willing and bringing good to the object of the love.
And what am I to think of my own grotesqueness? God does not love me because I am beautiful. He loves me even though I am ugly. And in this love his beauty is communicated to me. If the call is merely to love, then my response ought to be constant, loving, attentiveness.
Yes! This is it, attention well paid, a certain homage performed. A recognition of presence. The presence of the grotesque.
and the real always trumps the imagined
as the invisible transcends the perceived
Are perfection, beauty, & goodness the result of that loving attentiveness? Do I look at what is and love it because it ought to be higher? Love it for what it could be? Love it to make it rise?
I am on a quest to use my imaginative faculty for good. I want to know how to see what is there, but not in a dull complacency that makes me wring my hands. Nor in a zeal for perfection that makes me sweep over any good concealed. Rather, I want to cultivate a welcoming attentiveness that helps me to see the good that is present--for what is good is better than what is beautiful. I think.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways.
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