Christmas declares the glory of the flesh

Lilias Trotter (1853-1928), a sketch in her journal

Christmas declares the glory of the flesh:
And therefore a European might wish
To celebrate it not at mid winter but in spring,
When physical life is strong,
When the consent to live is forced even on the young,
Juice is in the soil, the leaf, the vein,
Sugar flows to movement in limbs and brain.
Also before a birth, nourishing the child
We turn again to the earth
With unusual longing – to what is rich, wild,
Substantial: scents that have been stored and strengthened
In apple lofts, the underwash of woods, and in barns;
Drawn through the lengthened root; pungent in cones
(While the fir wood stands waiting; the beechwood aspiring,
(Each in a different silence), and breaking out in spring
With scent sight sound indivisible in song.

Yet if you think again
It is good that Christmas comes at the dark dream of the year
That might wish to sleep ever,
For birth is awaking, birth is effort and pain;
And now at midwinter are the hints, inklings
(Sodden primrose, honeysuckle greening)
That sleep must be broken.
To bear new life or learn to live is an exacting joy;
The whole self must waken; you cannot predict the way
It will happen, or master the responses beforehand.
For any birth makes an inconvenient demand;
Like all holy things
It is frequently a nuisance, and its needs never end;
Freedom it brings: We should welcome release
From its long merciless rehearsal of peace.

So Christ comes
At the iron senseless time, comes
To force the glory into frozen veins:
His warmth wakes green life glazed in the pool, wakes
All calm and crystal trance with the living pains.

And each year
In seasonal growth is good – year
That lacking love is a stale story at best
By God's birth
Our common birth is holy; birth
Is all at Christmas time and wholly blest.

Anne Ridler (1912-2001), "Christmas and the Common Birth"

Love that loves unto death

Lilias Trotter (1853-1928), a sketch in her journal

 

 Our family has been waiting upon the Lord for our next steps. As we pray over hundreds of job postings and application forms, I am reminded of how Amy Carmichael responded to those who expressed a desire to serve with her in her home for orphans in India.

 

In one correspondence, she bluntly stated, "Not a word of attraction can I write to [you]. It will be desperately hard work, iron would snap under the strain of it. I ask for steel, that quality which is at the back of all going on, patience which cannot be tired out, and love that loves in every deed, unto death."

 

To those who apply, she asked them this list of questions:

• Do you truly desire to live a crucified life? ("Ditch-digging," she warned, "gives no dignity.")
• Does the thought of hardness draw you or repel you?
• Do you realize that we are a family, not an institution? Are you willing to do whatever helps most?
• Apart from the Bible, can you name three or four books which have been of vital help to you?
• Apart from books, what refreshes you most when tired?
• Have you ever learned any classical or continental language?
• Have you ever had opportunity to prove our Lord's promise to supply temporal as well as spiritual needs?
• Can you mention any experience you have passed through in your Christian life which brought you into a new discovery of your union with the crucified, risen, and enthroned Lord?

"Do not come," she emphasized again, "unless you can say to your Lord and to us, The Cross is the attraction." I am amaze that the Lord continued to provide workers who labored with her in the field!

Praise be to God. My faith is strengthened.

 

Christ our Captain, hear our prayer,

Warriors we ask of Thee,

Comrades who shall everywhere

Stand for love and loyalty;

Servants who with souls aflame,

Kindled from Thine altar-fire,

Live to magnify Thy Name,

Live to meet Thy least desire.

 

Lovers who in love abide

In the Secret Place of rest,

Yielded to be crucified

That Thy life be manifest;

Labourers who joyfully

Choose rewards unseen today.

Cause us, O our Lord, to be 

Like to these for whom we pray.

Fires, alive

Lilias Trotter (1853-1928), a sketch in her journal

His earnest love, His infinite desires,
His living, endless, and devouring fires,
Do rage in thirst, and fervently require
  A love 'tis strange it should desire.

We cold and careless are, and scarcely think
Upon the glorious spring whereat we drink,
Did He not love us we could be content:
  We wretches are indifferent.

'Tis death, my soul, to be indifferent;
Set forth thyself unto thy whole extent,
And all the glory of His passion prize,
  Who for thee lives, Who for thee dies.

Traherne, 17th century