Te Lucius Ante Terminum

Here is a beautiful 16th century nighttime prayer
and lullaby composed by Thomas Tallis
and performed by Stile Antico. 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

"Can a woman forget her nursing
child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you."

Isaiah 49:15

Tuesday's Art: Drop Your Ugly Accusation

"When you are terrified by the Law, therefore, say: 'Lady Law, you are not the only thing, and you are not everything! Besides you, there is something greater and better, namely grace, faith, blessing. These do not accuse me; they do not terrify and condemn me. But they comfort me, command me to have hope, and promise me victory and salvation in Christ. Therefore, there is no reason to despair." -- Martin Luther (AE 26, pg. 342)

Here is one of the best baptismal hymns of all time, "God's Own Child, I Gladly Say It." It was written in the 18th century by Erdmann Neumeister. Memorize it and sing it whenever Lady Law won't let you sleep for her continual tormenting of "that powerful jackass," your flesh. (The best place to memorize hymns? In the shower. I'm serious. Get a plastic sleeve and stick it to the shower wall, and insert a copy of a new hymn every week or so. It's edifying and a great way to start the day in prayer).

Tuesday's Art: Light of light

Here's another piece from 16th century English composer William Byrd, entitled "Christe, Qui Lux Es et Dies" or "Christ, Who Art the Light and the Day," performed by Stile Antico in 2007 and loosely translated by me. It's a beautiful prayer for undisturbed rest, for protection from evil, and for remembering that our LORD, too, was once burdened with this mortal form. Enjoy.

For more classical hymns and chants by William Byrd and other composers, visit my YouTube channel.
*
Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is Psalm 4:8a
PRC buddies, remember to breathe!
"In peace, -------> 5 count inhale
I will both lie down and sleep." -------> 5 count exhale

Tuesday's Art: I Am Tired

I Am Tired
by Fernando Pessoa
1935

Salvador Dali
The Persistence of Memory, 1931

I am tired, that is clear,
Because, at certain stage, people have to be tired.
Of what I am tired, I don't know:
It would not serve me at all to know
Since the tiredness stays just the same.
The wound hurts as it hurts
And not in function of the cause that produced it.
Yes, I am tired,
And ever so slightly smiling
At the tiredness being only this -
In the body a wish for sleep,
In the soul a desire for not thinking
And, to crown all, a luminous transparency
Of the retrospective understanding…
And the one luxury of not now having hopes?
I am intelligent: that's all.
I have seen much and understood much of what I
have seen.
And there is a certain pleasure even in tiredness
this brings us,
That in the end the head does still serve for
something.

Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is from Psalm 4:8

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"In peace; -------> 5 count inhale

I will both lie down and sleep." -------> 5 count exhale

Tuesday's Art: All I Need

Grace, 1918
Eric Enstrom

Do you ever get angry with God for not giving you what you need, only to realize that you really didn't need what you thought you needed? God's funny like that. One thing Jesus teaches us continually throughout His time in the world is that we don't need anything apart from Himself: the Love of God incarnate. We don't need money, family, friends, health, work, a home, or even the air we breathe. Those are all gifts from God, and every single one of them is temporary: bound to pass away eventually. Treasures on earth, you might say. Or Jesus did say in Matthew 6:19. We like them, we even love them, but we don't need them, although Satan tries his best to tell us otherwise.

Here's Eric Enstrom's 1918 photograph of Minnesota man Charles Wilden, called "Grace," to remind us that the next time we thank God for our daily bread, we thank Him above all for the gift of His Son, who died that we all might live. This particular print hung in my parent's kitchen, and that of my grandparents', for decades.

Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is from Philippians 4:6

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"By prayer and supplication, -------> 5 count inhale

with thanksgiving." -------> 5 count exhale

Tuesday's Art: My Soul Waits

Tuesday's Art: Judgement Day Therapy

Here's a somber rendition of the children's classic "I've Got the Joy" by the band Page CXVI. You may remember the traditional, upbeat version from Vacation Bible Study when you were in 3rd grade. This is not that version. This version is about the joy that persists despite all manner of tragedy; the real joy of knowing that God is God and we are not. The video is based on Romans 8:18-39.

There was something about this latest American tragedy, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and all the hate following it, that pushed my feelings for this world past any possibility of optimism and into bitter disappointment. As a result, I am currently in what is sometimes called "Judgement Day Therapy." I'm looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, amen, and that is ALL I am looking for because these headlining tragedies keep shoving themselves in my face and I am just sick of it. Clearly, I need more work.

What then do we say to these things? These random acts of violence and other disasters that have become everyday occurrences. We say, "Jesus died for that." And then we pray. Fervently. We pray for the victims, and their families, we pray for the perpetrators (yes, the perpetrators) and their families (yes, those who raised the perpetrators) that they might come to God, we give thanks that we and those we love are not among either party, we ask for the strength to forgive those who have done wrong as God has forgiven us, and we pray that this resulting tidal wave of bitterness will find us with our heads well above the diseased waters, clinging to the only foundation that can ever weather such a storm: Christ crucified for us.

Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is from Romans 8:26

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"The Spirit intercedes for us -------> 5 count inhale

with groanings too deep for words." -------> 5 count exhale

See The Peace He Left with Me for more on happiness in times of trouble.

Happy Birthday, Ella!

Still blessing the Lord with her voice.

Ella Fitzgerald
April 25th, 1917 - June 15th, 1996

Tuesday's Art: The Thinker

The Thinker
Auguste Rodin, ca. 1880

Every once in a while, I like to look at the infamous art pieces of old and ponder what it is that makes them so infamous. Here's a good example: The Thinker. We've all seen it even if we can't guess who created it. This well-known sculpture was first cast by Parisian artist Auguste Rodin in the 1880s. It was meant as a depiction of Italian poet Dante Alighieri, b. 1265. The piece has since come to represent all writers and creators musing over their next work.

As I gaze upon The Thinker today, I see a modern man who is lost in his modern worries: a man wondering how he'll pay his bills now that he's lost his job, how he'll maintain his balloon payment mortgage, how he'll take care of his sick wife, fight the cancer he was just diagnosed with, say goodbye to his dying father, visit his son in prison... As I look at this man, nothing could be further from his mind than flowery poems and pretty pictures.

 

Of course, my perception says a lot more about me that it does the artist's intent. But perhaps the fact that I can see something so different from what the artist intended over a 130 years later speaks to the timelessness of this particular sculpture.

Suggested verse to repeat when, like me, all you see in this piece is trouble is from Matthew 6:34

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"Do not be anxious about tomorrow. -------> 5 count inhale

Tomorrow will be anxious for itself." -------> 5 count exhale

The Grey

Who says we can't find anything good in our sin-a-minute pop culture?

Here's "The Grey" by Icon for Hire with lyrics. When you listen to it, thing of having fallen away from the Church. Then capitalize the "you's." Beautiful, and so so true.

Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is from 2 Corinthians 12:10

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"For when I am weak, -------> 5 count inhale

then I am strong." -------> 5 count exhale

Tuesday's Art: In Peace, In True Peace

"Peace, I leave with you; My PEACE, I give to you. 
Not as the world gives do I give to you. 
Let not your hearts be troubled, 
neither let them be afraid."
(John 14:27)
*

The world doesn't understand the peace that Christ left us with. True peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding, is with us even when the pain doesn't go away. It's a gift given to us by God, won for us by Christ. It's not earned by how nicely the world happens to treat us on a given day. The true peace of God allows us to be at peace DESPITE the fact that everything around us is going wrong because True Peace has nothing to do with what's going on around us or inside us or because of us. True Peace is about what Jesus did for us, and because of that it remains with us long after the peace of the world has given in to chaos.

I'm presenting two works of art in one today. Here is the hymn "In Pace, In Idipsum" translated, "In Peace, In True Peace," composed in the 1500s and performed by Stile Antico with text I've translated from Latin. I've also included pictures of stained glass windows from churches all over the world. Stained glass is a remarkable art form, and appropriate to churches in the way it lets the created light of God shine through even the darkest of scenes, like the begotten Light of God shines through even our darkest of days. A literal metaphor, if you will. And truly peaceful. Enjoy.

Suggested verse to repeat to yourself if it's a difficult day is from John 14:27a

Mayo Clinic Pain Rehab buddies, remember to breathe!

"Peace I leave with you, -------> 5 count inhale

My peace I give to you." -------> 5 count exhale

For more on the Peace of God, CLICK HERE.

Tuesday's Art: The Depression Line

Depression Bread Line
George Segal, 1991

This sculpture by George Segal is in Washington D.C. and was erected as part of the FDR memorial. Five men cast in bronze, frozen forever in need, knowing they can't provide for their families without help. When we're hungry or sick or homeless, when we feel like God won't give us a way to  even feed our children, it's easy to doubt His love. According to the world, He doesn't love us. If we lived by the world's definition of love, we would only be loved when our bellies are full, and when we're safe and warm and happy and strong and breathing for as long as humanly possible. But the reality is very few people have all these things at once, even in these great United States as this sculpture memorializes.

This fact could mean either one of two things: God hates pretty much everyone, or His blessings reach past our physical needs. Christ was poor. He knew hunger, grief and physical pain, rejection and abandonment unto death, but He never doubted the love of His Father. Our faith is far less perfect, and so we doubt. But don't give in to that doubt so easily. God is with us in our need, even when those needs go unmet, because in truth, He's already given us all that we need. Our salvation.

So why memorialize something as depressing as a Depression bread line for posterity? Because instead of despising the fact that we need help, we ought to be thankful for the help that we have.

"And He said to His disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing."

(Luke 12:22-23)

Tuesday's Art: Spring Is (Not Quite) in the Air

"The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever."

Isaiah 40:8

If you happen to live in an area where winter has been going full blast since October, you're itching to get outside the second April hits no matter what, desperate for a glimpse of anything that isn't brown or covered in white. Although South Dakota won't look like any of the pictures here for at least another month (it's currently 17 degrees outside), I thought I'd share some random internet pictures of the great outdoors and our idealized notion of spring. Keep in mind that, although nothing in this fallen world is ever as perfect as we picture it in our God-given minds, we can still confidently and faithfully hold on to the idea of perfection so long as we understand we won't find it outside our doors or anywhere within ourselves, but in God alone. Click on the images below for full sized wallpaper to springyfy your computer. At least this way, we can see a breath of fresh air even if we can't actually inhale one.

Tuesday's Art: Stock Photo

This is a stock photo I stumbled upon a while ago. I don't know where it originates or to whom I should give credit. You can find it all over the internet, just google "helplessness." Generic though this image is, I find it to be a remarkably fitting picture of how I sometimes feel, a feeling that isn't explained adequately in words. It's a feeling that encompasses being trapped, the threat of suffocation, complete powerlessness, and the knowledge that people and corporations and whatever-else-have-you are out to get you and that you are at their mercy like this fish is at the mercy of whatever jerk is holding the stick pin. 

It's a commercialized stock photo for a reason: we can all relate to this poor fish. But don't despair. Even if our bags run completely out of water--and they sometimes will--we have heaven, the love of God, won for us: secure, peaceful, and worry free because there is one "fish" who chose to be in that bag until it ran dry even though He could have chosen to do otherwise. Thanks be to God.

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Tuesday's Art: 3 Poems About 1 Thing

Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

and then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back

of the wind and floats downstream

till the current ends and dips his wing

in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage

can seldom see through his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

of things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill

for the caged bird sings of freedom.

hospital

Pain Has But One Acquaintance by Emily Dickinson

Pain has but one Acquaintance

and that is Death --

Each one unto the other

society enough.

Pain is the Junior Party

by just a Second's right --

Death tenderly assists Him

and then absconds from Sight.

Discouraged

Have we trials and temptations? 

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged,

take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a Friend so faithful?

Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our ev'ry weakness, 

take it to the Lord in prayer.

"What a Friend We Have in Jesus"

by Joseph Scriven
1820-1886

I don't know about you, but I've said more than one prayer that's gone unanswered, or at least I didn't get what I wanted. Bad circumstances find us every now and again no matter how hard we pray. Sometimes trouble is brought on by our own mistakes, sometimes by a fault of nature, and sometimes we are sinned against.

Go ahead and be discouraged—that's one of many good reasons to pray. Comfort doesn't come from thinking you'll get what you want: God isn’t a vending machine. True comfort comes from knowing that God is God. He hears you, and He loves you. In the end, everything is in His hands. Sometimes that fact scares us, and other times it’s the only reason we can sleep at night.

"Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

The LORD has heard my plea;

the LORD accepts my prayer."

Psalm 6:8-9

For more on the power of prayer, click here.

Tuesday's Art: Gulag

Nikolai Getman
Gnats, 1990

Nikola Getman (1917-2004) was a Ukrainian artist who spent 8 years in a Russian gulag. [Source]. Here is his explanation of the above painting.

"Deadly torture is depicted in this painting, called "Gnats." Even for a minor infraction, such as a rough conversation with the guard, the prisoner could strip naked, hanging in the pose of the crucified Christ on the pine tree and left to be eaten by mosquitoes. After thirty minutes or an hour, the prisoner was removed from the tree. By this time, the prisoner has usually lost so much blood that he was waiting for inevitable slow and painful death. Prisoners were executed in this way outside the camp in front of everybody. In some camps, the victims do not hang on the trees but are cast into the pits." [Source].

Though the guards clearly meant it for evil, one cannot help but see Christ in this painting of gruesome and all-too-real torture. Each of us takes on the pose of the crucified Christ in our suffering: crying at Lazarus' side, praying desperately in Gethsemane, rejected at Nazareth, ridiculed unto death, left to die... He shared in our suffering, and we share in His. It is never in vain, even at the hands of unjustified, pointless cruelty.

"For the death He died He died to sin, once for all,

but the life He lives He lives to God."

(Romans 6:10)

How Sweet the Sound

Amazing Grace!
How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost 
but now am found,

was blind, but now I see.

"Amazing Grace"

by John Newton
1779

When God promised He would send someone to give sight to the blind, He didn't only mean literally. Certainly, Jesus gave people physical sight on more than one occasion, and He'll restore everyone's sight one day. But He also opened our eyes that were once closed to God by sin. As far as sin goes, there's no separation between the physical and the spiritual realms. Our souls are just as corrupt as our bodies: prone to sickness and pain. When Jesus died on the cross at Calvary and rose three days later, He solidified the healing of both realms for us by that one perfect sacrifice.

We will be raised one day with perfect bodies and perfect souls focused on God. That's what the people who saw Jesus' miracles got a taste of: calming a storm with a word, feeding a crowd of thousands with a handful of loaves and fishes, healing a paralytic so that he could walk home, and of course the forgiveness of sins. Those were all glimpses of the New Creation yet to come where everything is finally as it was always meant to be. Thanks be to God.

(NOTE: It's not grace that teaches our hearts to fear. That would be the Law).

"The crowd wondered when they saw
the mute speaking, the crippled healthy,

the lame walking, and the blind seeing. 
And they glorified the God of Israel."

(Matthew 15:31)

Tuesday's Art: A Mother of Seven Children

Dorothea Lange
A Mother of Seven Children
1936

"Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." (Hebrews 12:3-4)

It seems a small comfort to be told our suffering could be so much worse. But it's not. Our struggle against sin isn't only a fight against our baser desires for pleasure and personal gain. It's a fight against all that's wrong with the world, as personified in this iconic photograph by Dorothea Lange of a mother during the Great Depression. Worry is etched so plainly on this woman's face that the image has become a poster for suffering the world heaps upon us even in these great United States. Worry about feeding her children, about where they'll sleep, about how they will survive, if they will. How endless her struggling must have seemed, perhaps even futile, how tired she must have felt.

Rest assured, our struggle against sin--even when we must resist to the point of shedding blood--is never in vain. When you look at this photo, consider Him who endured all... for her. For you. Our suffering, as bad as it is, could be so, so much worse, but it never will be. Jesus saw to that on the cross.

Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is from Psalm 28:7a

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"In Him my heart trusts, -------> 5 count inhale

and I am helped." -------> 5 count exhale
*

Tuesday's Art: A Change Is Gonna Come

The blues: the Psalms of the secular. It's not the Word of God, but songs of the blues genre often capture a lamenting hopefulness reminiscent of the musical prayers David penned through the Holy Spirit (see Psalm 6 for an example). Here's "A Change Is Gonna Come" written and performed by R&B legend Sam Cooke. While Cooke, a black man suffering through 1960s America, laments injustices and frustration I can only imagine, we can all relate to a time in our own lives when the hope of change is the only thing that gets us up in the morning. This song is truly a work of art in every way. Scroll down for lyrics.

Suggested verse to repeat if it's a difficult day is Psalm 6:9

PRC buddies, remember to breathe!

"The Lord has heard my plea; -------> 5 count inhale

the Lord accepts my prayer." -------> 5 count exhale

"A Change Is Gonna Come"

by Sam Cooke, 1964

I was born by the river in a little tent,

and just like that river I've been running ever since.

It's been a long time coming,

but I know a change is gonna come. 

O yes it will.

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die

because I don't know what's out there beyond the sky.

It's been a long time coming,

but I know a change is gonna come. 

O yes it will.

I go to the movie,

and I go down town.

Somebody keep telling me don't hang around.

It's been a long time coming,

but I know a change is gonna come. 

O yes it will.

Then I go to my brother,

and I say, "Brother, help me please."

But he winds up knockin' me

back down on my knees.

There were times when I thought I couldn't last for long,

but now I think I'm able to carry on

It's been a long time coming,

but I know a change is gonna come. 

O yes it will.