St Patrick's Breastplate

Every time I read this hymn, commonly attributed to St. Patrick (but probably written later, in the 8th Century), I get shivers. The language is so fierce, so aware of wind, earth, darkness and strangers. It's a prayer for preparation on a journey, copying the Druidic style of an incantation.

It's been put to music and here's a nice version.

(NB: A long hymn, but worth the effort!)

I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever,
By power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan River;
His death on cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the Cherubim;
The sweet 'Well done' in judgment hour;
The service of the Seraphim,
Confessors' faith, Apostles' word,
The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, his shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart's idolatry,
Against the wizard's evil craft,
Against the death-wound and the burning
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the name,
The strong name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Bones to Philosophy, Milk to Faith

Today the Western Christian church celebrates the doctrine of the Trinity: that God is three, yet one. Distinct, yet united, co-eternal, and co-equal.

We've been studying the Trinity in class all semester, but its inner workings still does my head in. Yet we cannot do without it, else our faith falls flat. It scaffolds our understanding of the unique relational Christian God. But it's so confusing, something luminous that is beyond our reason, tho' not irrational.

So I rejoiced in hearing these serpentine lines being read in church today. I echo something of dear ol' John's sentiments: even if I am too stupid to fathom the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit nevertheless surround me, and invites me to enter into their eternal dance of love, power and joy.

O Blessed glorious Trinity,
Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith,
Which, as wise serpents, diversely
Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,
As you distinguished undistinct
By power, love, knowledge be,
Give me such a self different instinct,
Of these let all me elemented be,
Of power, to love, to know, you unnumbered three.

- John Donne.

Are you ready?

I've been preparing like mad for impending ... doom? No, not quite. for an theological exam, actually. Which is about the closest thing to doom, at this stage! (So life is really very good, in my first-world life).

In the process, Herr Karl Barth reminds me to prepare for joy: the mystery, wonder, radiance, refreshment and consolation in the gift of life that God gives us. And to be ready for joy, even when it presents itself, as Barth puts it, "in its alien form":

"We think we should seek pleasure here or there because this thing or that appears as light or alleviation, as warm, benefit, refreshment, consolation and encouragement, promising us renewal and the attainment of what which hovers before us as the true goal of all that we do and refrain from doing. But do we really know this true goal and therefore our true joy?

God knows it. God decides it. But this means that our will for joy, our preparedness for it, must be wide open in this direction, In the direction of His unknown and even obscure disposing, if it is to be the right and good preparedness commanded in this matter. It should not be limited by the suffering of life, because even life's suffering (or what we regard as such) comes from God, the very One who summons us to rejoice. He has given to the cosmos and therefore to our life an aspect of night as well as day, and we have to remember that His goodness as Lord and Creator is the same and no less in the one than the other."

- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3/4, p377.

Stargazing

I'm not much of a details person, and generally very disorderly. I've come to accept that, for the most part, but the last little while has seen me very frustrated at my inability to organise and plan properly. I've been making costly mistakes at work, operating out of the chaos of my room (usually pleasant madness; but it's gotten to be a black hole of late - things just disappear!), and generally being forgetful and scatterbrained.

It's a comfort to know that God isn't so! That, amidst the vast beauty of the universe, there is elegant symmetry, and order which does not stifle creativity, but merely enhances it, like the way salt enhances the flavour of meat.

Here's the Canadian poet, PK Page, whose simple and lovely poem makes me happy when I'm sitting at my desk, proof-reading and praying that I'll pay proper attention to pick up on all the mistakes.

Stargazer

The very stars are justified.
The galaxy
italicized.

I have proofread
and proofread
the beautiful script.

There are no
errors.

Wunderkammer Day

Not much going on here along Addison's Walk as far as original tumblings of the mind go.

But here's a miscellany of delights for you:

- some poetry

- a song

- some pale and soft pictures of Iceland.

Happy Easter Monday!

This Bright Sadness

Did you know that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Lent is called the Season of Bright Sadness? It's an expression that, as one website remarks, "attests to the tenor and labor of the season."

Lent is a season of mourning, but one in which grief is lightened by the anticipation of joy to come. Lent's necessary end at Easter means that Christ's Resurrection on that Sunday works its retrograde effect on the 40 days previous, illuminating agony with glory, despair with celebration.

The Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann rebukes our forgetfulness of Resurrection Hope, in this Lenten season:

Anyone who has, be it only once, taken part in that night which is “brighter than the day,” who has tasted of that unique joy, knows it. On Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and live by it. . . Is it not our daily experience, however, that this faith is very seldom ours, that all the time we lose and betray the “new life” which we received as a gift, and that in fact we live as if Christ did not rise from the dead, as if that unique event had no meaning whatsoever for us? We simply forget all this — so busy are we, so immersed in our daily preoccupations — and because we forget, we fail. And through this forgetfulness, failure, and sin, our life becomes “old” again — petty, dark, and ultimately meaningless — a meaningless journey toward a meaningless end.

At the moment, I seem to be drowning in sorrow and sickness: both my own and sharing in others'. Blown apart by a whirling confusion of misunderstandings, misarticulations, misplacements, misadventures, mistakes and miseries. They are, perhaps, all to common to the experience of being human in a broken world. But nevertheless stinging, in their immediacy. And so I am thankful for this Lenten Season, that comes so early this year.

I step into the dark, already a late-comer to the Time. My individual, petty, first world agonies are caught up in the Great Mourning. I lay down the griefs of those I love, in supplication and trust. I need not fear, for I know that in these days of weakness of I shall meet my Lord, who bore the Cross.

Recently I discovered this exclamation:

The night may be dark and long, but all along the way a mysterious and radiant dawn seems to shine on the horizon. “Do not deprive us of our expectation, O Lover of man!” - Alexander Schmemann.

It's become a prayer for me:

Do not deprive us of our expectation! I yell, over and over.

And I know my prayers are answered:

For as many as are the promises of God, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him our 'Amen', to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

Because you are the age that you are
and because I am the age that I am
such thoughts must be remembered
and many feelings are muted

And so I reach back
straining my memory
reaching as if behind my back

For the fiery restlessness
striving to pursue, to attain to remarkableness
To do something, to serve, and put hands to the plow

I remember the ache for beauty
That has never gone away
The longing for a better world

To cast off, cast away
For far off land - brighter seas

It’s still there of course
even after all these years, and the intervening things
Perhaps I have sterilise it
Perhaps I’ve neatened and straightened it
places it in tissue paper

Perhaps life has muted the ache
Dulled the pain?
In part. It is so.

But I have learnt too, in these years.
Of the Lord’s patience
Of the cost one pays
To be slaves, even as we are kings and queens

Oh dear one
You must also pay it
Perhaps you’ll pay it away from me
Where I cannot comfort you

But I am only a selfish sort
This talk of sending you off is all vaulting sentiment
It isn’t for your sake that I pray you’d stay
It’s for to lessen my agony

And if there were another way
I’d rage like the best of them