a taste of my week

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Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

On Wednesday my friend and I attended an Ash Wednesday service at a local Episcopal Church. It was my first Ash Wednesday service ever. I couldn't help but be sobered by the liturgy, by the reminder of my fallen and broken nature. I was struck anew with how very dependent I am upon God. All I can say is thanks be to God for the miraculous grace and mercy he grants me who is mere dust. For the duration of Lent I want to ponder the extent of my brokenness. My prayer is that I would be continually reminded of my dependence upon Him and the fact that I do nothing but by His grace. Without His Spirit breathing life into me, all I am is torpid dust. May that reality enter into and lodge deep within my soul.

This week I also discovered a new music artist, or at least one new to me: JJ Heller. With a quiet, folksy/indie sound and theologically sound lyrics, I believe she'll be amongst my top favorites for a while. Songs I especially like...

Only Love Remains

Your Hands

Currently I am rereading A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. It's been at least 5 or so years since I last read it and I am finding myself gleaning so much more this time around from the richness of ideas and insight presented by the Vanaukens. Their opinions and way of life inspire me. I wish I were more like them, with their impulsivity and constant love of life. If they had a dream, they believed it could be accomplished, no matter how crazy or impossible it seemed. Due to that belief, they put action behind those dreams and often brought them to fruition. For an extraordinarily rational person such as myself, that is a difficult task. But their story is encouraging me to think a little more broadly, a little more creatively and imaginatively.

I must confess, too, that the love they shared together is what I hope one day to experience, should God call me to marriage (which I'm not always sure will be the case). Their commitment to each other, their delight in one another, their sharing of everything, their desire and determination to grow closer year by year, their mutual love of art, beauty, and poetry: their unity. That is what I desire.

The intimacy in their relationship also seems to me a model of the intimacy and closeness God desires to have with me, with everyone. I am in relationship with my God, my Creator, the Master of the Universe, and it is, like the Vanauken's marriage, a relationship symbolized by unity, commitment, and delight. For I am one with Christ, hidden in Him, I am in a covenant relationship with my God that cannot be broken, and I know that he delights in me and I pray that I may always grow to delight in Him more and more.
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