Into Thy Calm (a fragmentary liturgy)

 
[folio begins]

...seek the Lord while He may be found.

Call upon Him while He is near.

Let the wicked forsake his ways,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him,

And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

And do not return there but water the earth

Making it bring forth and sprout,

Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth:

It shall not return to me empty-handed,

But it shall accomplish that which I purpose

And shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy

And be lead forth in peace.

The mountains and the hills before you

Shall break forth into singing,

And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands...

[folio breaks off]

 

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...so if I had one chance to tell you something, then I would tell you that it is all true. Everything. Everything that God has purposed. It is all true, all real, all happening and going to happen. Even the wildest, craziest promise is going to happen. You will go through the dark night and walk into the sun of a far, green country. You will walk into it with joy, led forth with peace, and all the mountains and hills and trees will break forth into singing, and everything sad will be made untrue, and everything wicked will be unmade, and we shall all be remade and are being remade in every moment and every inch of our lives. You who are the children of God: right where you are, wherever you are sitting are standing, you are caught up into the whirlwind of God's will, a wind blowing in one unstoppable direction, towards an end that will be the beginning of all your deepest desires and the resurrection of all good things in a splendor so thick and sweet that your soul will drown in light inaccessible, joy indescribable, and peace passing beyond the smallness of your thoughts and dreams and...

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...by now the thing must have passed together out of the region of sight as we understand it. For he says that the whole solid figure of these enamored and inter-inanimated circlings was suddenly revealed as the mere superficies of a far vaster pattern in four dimensions, and that figure was the boundary of yet others in other worlds: till suddenly---as the movement grew yet swifter, the interweaving yet more ecstatic, the relevance of all to all yet more intense, as dimension was added to dimension and that part of him which could reason and remember was dropped farther and farther behind that part of him which saw---even this, at the zenith of complexity, complexity itself was eaten up and faded, as a thin white cloud fades into the hard blue burning of the sky, and a simplicity beyond all comprehension, ancient and young as spring, illimitable, pellucid, drew him with cords of infinite desire into its own stillness. He went up into such a quietness, a privacy, and a freshness that at the very moment when he stood farthest from our ordinary mode of being he had the sense of stripping off encumbrances and awakening from trance and coming to himself. With a gesture of relaxation, he looked about him...

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Selah. Amen. Again...

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2013

Homily Magnus: The High and Holy Striving (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.'" II Cor. 6:16b

It is the presence of God that counts in His children's lives and nothing else. The greatest danger is not always in what you're doing but in how or why you are doing it. Though motivation and intention are often less important than what actually happens, they can still be the greater threat because of their subtlety and insidiousness. They can creep in unawares and poison the most noble of endeavors with foul foundations, twisting them into paths of destruction. It is the fundamental intents of the heart that can lead to actions that we did not intend. Small, blinding miscalculations can bring the whole things crashing to the ground. That is the seriousness of the matter.

The life that seeks holiness and upright living apart from the presence of God in their life will become Pharisaical and legalistic without warning. Hard on themselves, impossible with others, and unable to avoid turning into anxious hypocrites. Meanwhile, the life that seeks some numinous religious experience apart from the presence of God in their life will fall into either a hollow and abstract mysticism or (what is worse) a paranoid and pathological occultism. Locked into themselves, blind to others, and unable to escape being useless statuary in God's trophy room (or being seduced by darker, more treacherous spirits). And the life that seeks social activism and cultural change apart from the presence of God in their life will become hopelessly knitted to the failing schemes of man, replacing God's wisdom and patience with all manner of man-made theories and solutions for utopia. Zealous for passing causes, vindictive of those who do not follow them, and incapable from avoiding fashionable fanaticism.

Do not misunderstand: this is not just a matter of giving God's presence a nod; any fool with a cause can claim, "God is with me!" Rather, this is a matter of recognizing and living out the recognition that without God's presence with you and within you, you can do nothing and are nothing (John 14:20; 15:4-5). It is not merely about knowing that He is there (for that can turn into a highly selfish solace), but rather about knowing that in all things He is first. In other words, it is not about principles and practices only but also priorities, the priorities that shape your principles and practices. And if God is not the priority of your life (knowing Him, loving Him, and trusting Him), then the well is already poisoned. No matter your intentions, the fundamental Intention is wrecked already. If God is not first, then He is not anything.

There is no way to do this perfectly, of course. The whole of the Christian life is this struggle to keep God first, but that is the point. You must struggle: groping and panting and fighting and desiring for the presence and beauty of the living God (Ps. 27:4; 42:1-2); and that struggle, that high and holy striving, must be the wellspring from which all other streams flow. We must ask ourselves the right questions: Do you abstain to honor Him? Contemplate to find Him? Work and create because you love Him? You must do it all for Him and no other goal, for there is no other goal except a chasing of the wind.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012