Like the Moon We Borrow Our Light: On Vows

"Lots of churches take the celebration of Jesus' baptism as an occasion for congregants to renew their own baptismal vows. I find this hard. I remember what I pledged at my baptism and how badly I've done at keeping those pledges and I wonder if I dare make them again." 

--Lauren Winner, Girl Meets God

 Lauren Winner, who is one of my favorite living authors, seems to think that every believer is bound by vows made to God during their conversion and baptism. I never think of my relationship with God in this way, and I'm beginning to think that it would be helpful if I did. I often think it would be good for me to either marry or join a monastic order because I love the idea of being bound by a lifelong vow. I think making eternal commitments is easier somehow, because one must simply form one's life around that promise, instead of living committed to something for a time and then beginning over again. 

But when I gave God my heart, I made a vow that was not only lifelong, but everlasting. When I accepted his promises to me, I made promises to him: promises to love, trust, and obey him, no matter what happens. It's shocking to think of my relationship with God this way, because it means that I have broken my vows so many times. It reminds me of Dante's Paradise, and the way he organizes heaven, with the moon as the lowest realm, assigned to nuns who broke their vows. They are shades, scarcely visible because of the unsubstantial nature of their own wills. Hahaha. The irony of this is overwhelming.

One of the best poems I read in college was Donne's "A Hymn to Christ, at the Author's Last Going into Germany." I repeat it to myself sometimes because it reminds me of the total allegiance I have made to God, and of my own need to ensure that my love is well-ordered, with God as the center of my affections. Here are the last two stanzas of the poem:

Seal then this bill of my divorce to all,
On whom those fainter beams of love did fall ;
Marry those loves, which in youth scatter'd be
On fame, wit, hopes—false mistresses—to Thee.
Churches are best for prayer, that have least light ;
To see God only, I go out of sight ;
    And to escape stormy days, I choose
        An everlasting night.

I sacrifice this island unto Thee,
And all whom I love there, and who loved me ;
When I have put our seas 'twixt them and me,
Put thou Thy seas betwixt my sins and Thee.
As the tree's sap doth seek the root below
In winter, in my winter now I go,
    Where none but Thee, the eternal root
        Of true love, I may know.

Right now I'm struggling with obedience. It's amazing how convoluted my desires can be. Some days, I genuinely want to obey God. And other days, I only want to want to be obedient. I spend a lot of time asking myself if obedience is actually worthwhile. This is hard. Today I'm feeling like it would just be easier if I had no will of my own, because then I wouldn't have to be so concerned with the state of my affections all the time. I'm deeply concerned with the order of my loves right now: do I really love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? Sometimes, I feel like I can't obey God because I don't really trust him all that much, but, if my vows mean anything, then I have promised to obey him even when I don't understand what he's asking or why.

Abraham obeyed right up to the point of killing Isaac, only stopping because God intervened. Does my heart align to the will of God so completely? I will tell you right now: it does not. But how do I come to this place of perfect surrender? How do I stop questioning whether what God wants me to do, or not do, is really the right thing or the best thing or the thing that I am actually going to do? How do I just pursue obedience regardless of the circumstances? Micah 6: 8 fell on my head the other day like an anvil . .it makes me feel, O, so convicted about the way I've been thinking about life.

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

I think a lot of obedience comes down to trusting God, to walking with him in humility. If I trust that God is entirely holy, then I trust that doing what he opposes is inherently disgusting and dangerous. If I trust that God loves me utterly, then I can trust that what he asks is for my own good. If I trust that God punishes sin, then I can trust that God will hold me accountable for the sins that I commit. 

"Trust and obey/there is no better way/to be happy in Jesus/than to trust and obey."

That refrain is stuck in my head right now, it's so blessedly simple to sing and ponder, but so hard to practice. This post is full of music. Here is another song I'm wrestling with right now.

"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior"

Do you ever find it hard to trust, dear Reader? I can't sing those words glibly. I can't sing them without picturing myself in the ocean frantically trying to swim with the depths of the sea falling far below my scrambling toes. Obedience is scary, I tell you. But the reason we obey is because submission to the will of God is our greatest good. Apart from grace, all is lost. Charles Spurgeon says: 

"Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. Therefore let us cry to God never to leave us."

The problem with those moony nuns in La Divina Comedia is that they believed something else could be better than obeying God. All thoughts on monastic vows aside, I understand their complaint. But I don't want to be a nun on the moon, I want to trust that God is who he says he is, that my life contains meaning and substance only when I cling to him, and that there is nothing offered by the world that can compete with the great good I find in Jesus. So I guess I had better endeavor to keep my promises. 

Winner, speaking to her priest, before being baptized: "This is ridiculous, I can't promise these things. Half the time I don't trust God one iota. I can't stand up there and promise that I will trust Him forever and ever. Who on earth makes these promises?"

The priest replied: "You don't just answer all these questions in the affirmative. You say, 'I will, with God's help'." 

Not my will, O Lord, but yours be done.  

The Giving Tree

Listening to the Pride & Prejudice soundtrack at the day's end with my hairpins removed makes me feel so spiritual. I'm sitting here, trying to write honestly. Right now,  I feel the lack of God's presence in my life. This week I've felt so. . .heavy laden. My soul feels as though it has been tied up in knots, twisted and gnarled, my psyche is suffering from Indian burn.

In moments like these, days like these, I see how hard it is for me to be even superficially pleasant. I don't know what makes me feel so badly, and I am aware, almost every moment, of my own inability to live a life of love. At work, one of the instructors read the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. She asked all of the students, and some of the staff, to choose one thing they would like to give others throughout the school year. I decided that I would give love, because that is the best gift I could think of, and the most costly. That gift mocks me every day, as I sit in my classroom looking at the Mother Theresa prayer for those serving the sick pinned to the bottom left corner of my bulletin board. It's hard to love, I tell you! But sometimes it's hard merely to want to love.

Today I feel full of despair again. It's so hard, sometimes, to believe that righteousness is possible. It's very easy to believe that the road to happiness is getting my own way, or the removal of every difficulty: it isn't though. When I pray, it feels like I'm begging an indifferent passerby on the street for sacks of gems. I don't expect anything, because I feel like a) I don't deserve it, and b) giving is not in the nature of the one I am beseeching. This is a lie of course, well, not the first part. I don't deserve anything beautiful, true, or good, but I'm expected to expect these things anyway. It's so hard to pray for joy when I feel like it never comes. It's so hard to pray for faith when you don't believe anything. It's impossible to believe that God is happy when I am so miserable. Or is it?

I need to be re-taught that God is a giving tree, that he hears us, hears me, when we pray, that he gives benevolently out of the overflowing goodness of his own excellent nature. But I doubt it; I doubt.

God is a giving tree. He gives conditionally, in that he gives us what is good even when this is not what we have desired. He gives conditionally, in that he gives when he ask according to his will. Is God deaf to my prayers? Have I sinned against him in a way that would cause him to stop-up his ears? Oh, God, grant what you command, and command what you will.

I have been thinking a lot about St. Augustine, Dante, George MacDonald, John Donne, Plato--everyone who writes about ordinate love and the beatific vision. It is so easy to love inordinately. 

"If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee." 

It's hard to be good. Part of the difficulty of being good is believing that God will make you good when you ask.

But God is a giving tree, he loves to give, to bless. He gives pain and he gives great joy.

Oh, I wanted to relate this back to George MacDonald. I'm re-reading At the Back of the North Wind, and I'm re-remembering (again) all that MacDonald says about being at the still point. Do you remember the still point? The still point harkens back to Boethius, to Dante, to lots of people. The point is this: at the center of the universe is God, a Being supremely perfect and happy. Evil happens around him, and he uses the good and the bad to shape human events while he himself remains wholly uncontaminated and unchanged. If I keep myself at the still point, where God is, I will not be shaken by the things in this life, small or great, that threaten to tie knots in my soul. I need to understand this because it is so easy to tie a knot in my soul. I am derailed by weather changes.

But God is a giving tree. He is a giving tree, and he loves us. He loves us. O! How he loves us!




Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

What Are All These Fragments For (Why Aren't You Writing, Ayodele)?

Working makes me feel good and responsible, but not working makes me feel amazing. This week, and probably next week, business is slow, so I'm enjoying lots of time off. The problem with time off  is that it feels so entirely natural--the way I expect Heaven to feel--fantastically new and sweetly familiar. With time off, my creative side takes over. Usually, I spend a great deal of time whining about how I'm bad at choosing creativity, but at times like this I know that I only forsake creativity because I'm tired. I don't feel that my profession demands very much creative spirit, so why does it still suck me dry?

This week a few of my best loved activities have come back. Well, not writing. I'm not counting blog posts as creative expression in written form. But time off this summer has meant indulging in culinary arts and paper crafts. Want to see? Ahem.

First, Art Project 1 of 2

OK, so the picture quality isn't great, but it's a quotation from M. Robinson, my favorite. I've been trying to read through some of her non-fiction this week, but it's too hot for intellectual activity, apparently. This quotation is from Housekeeping, which is my favorite book of hers, next to Gilead. I painted the frame gold because it was originally supposed to gird my $3.50 print of "St. Joseph and the Infant Christ" (see previous post); it turns out that St. Joe and our Young Redeemer look really kitschy in a painted gold frame. Lucky for me, this is not true of anything penned by Marilynne Robinson (or stamped by me). Do you like my color scheme? I'm going to hang it somewhere.



Art Project: 2 of 2

I should have done this one a while ago. This is from the last 3 lines of The Divine Comedy, translated into English of course. I added some black dots to the top left side because it seemed out of balance. I just don't know what to do with it now. I can't frame it, like the other one, and if hang it I'm afraid it won't stay flat. I had to pile books on top of it to keep the edges from curling through the entire process.  Oh!  I added punctuation marks, too (this is so not the final draft). I really need to buy punctuation stamps.

Iced Lollies: 1 of 2
Green tea with lavender. Aromatic, sweet, but not worth the thousand words.

Gratuitous Lavender Field

Iced Lollies: 2 of 2

Watermelon Rosemary Popsicles

These popsicle sticks have wee blue hearts on them because I have another flavor of popsicles in the freezer (in the same mold).

Rosemary

Imagine me using this to make simple syrup. This is the actual rosemary I used.

Lemons

Watermelon

And these, the actual lemons.














Note the swirly lines in the watermelon.

Everything all mixed up

Avant garde iced lolly molds

Here they are, the finished product. More pinkish now, than reddish.

My name is Ayodele, and I enjoy cutting, stirring, and pasting as an excuse for not writing. Next week, I'll write while looking at my art projects and eating popsicles. I won't have any excuses then--there won't be anything left for me to do.