Adventus

Time dawned and chaos was made order,
man came alive within a garden’s border,
within the garden’s border man died
when he disobeyed God and bowed to pride.


Darkness and chaos twined the world ’round,
but with the curse a promise was found,
up would grow a tender young shoot;
A King would rise from Jesse’s root.


A King would rise like light in the dark,
One unbranded by sin’s cruel mark,
to free his people from the grave,
from sin’s tyranny, which made them slaves.


The Light of the world, mighty to save,
was born bloody and frail in a dark cave;
He grew up, a tender shoot as foretold,
the prophet cried: “The Lamb of God, behold!”


The Dayspring from on high came down
to open darkened eyes, to wear a thorn-crown;
He died bloody and broken on a cross,
Unbranded by sin, but smeared by its dross.


Day dawned anew when the Light rose,
sin’s consequence paid—Death in its throes
was undone within a garden’s border;
man, made alive, chaos, made order.

Echoes

Sorrow, sorrow everywhere

splattering world headlines with its stare,

making worry-lines on the faces of

those I love, and some I've yet to know;

yet sorrow is the strand that binds us,

find us, weaving us into God's ancient tale

Broken, broken everywhere

within our hearts, or bodies hale;

cancer cells and expectations stale

growing unchecked can usher death—

brokenness devours both body and soul
with all its demands it is never full

Heart ache, heart break everywhere

and many are the ways to cope—

mothers cry, their faces aging,

men grow sober and waste away,

heart-hungry, not for food, but for hope,

dying for want of the Water of Life

Echoes, echoes everywhere

of Eden and of the Fall—being God

is our desire, to have and to control;

to cry out, "I don't love you anymore!"

and have it reverberate in all divorce,

in every act of our damned selfish wills

Bleeding, bleeding everywhere

from hands and brow, feet and side,

from the broken hearts of those betrayed;

death presses on mortal men, they are afraid...

But glory! Blood atones from the Sorrow-Man,

Redemption shouting into God's story

The Blur in the Brushstrokes

Particulars matter. Of course, so do Universals and Forms. I hold to a healthy mix of Aristotle and Plato, tempered by Jesus and His word. I find it interesting that the particulars make up the whole, even if the universal was set into place first. For example, God said, Let there be light, and there was; then He went on to make the sun, moon, and stars. The universal preceded the particulars.

However, we live inside the universe—that is, within the universals. We live inside one planet in our solar system, which is in our galaxy, inside the whole universe.  We live within time—second by second, the future becoming now, becoming the past—in such a rapid succession that it is a good thing we don't constantly focus on how fleeting the present is as it arrives. We would miss it if we did. We live inside the seconds, minutes, and hours that make up our days. We live inside the days and months that form the years. We live inside this framework of time, within our rolling universe.

All this I realised in a few moments when writing the date on the upper right corner of my journal, the place and time of day in the upper left. Upon studying abroad, I learned that most of the world writes the date in ascending order: day, month, year. This seemed logical and more practical to my understanding, and I quickly adopted the practise. In fact, North America (and parts of Canada) seems to be the only place(s) where dates are written in a mid-form of month, day, year.

When did this odd practise begin? Though I gave this question a bit more than a cursory search, I could not find a definitive answer. However, I was stunned as I realised that writing the date month-first deconstructs our very selves, as well as the universal framework in which we live. You see, if we begin, not with the overarching framework of the year of our Lord, nor the particular minutes or days that make up our part in that story, what do we have left? An arbitrary median that shows us neither the details nor the whole picture. It is like looking at an impressionist painting at a middling distance—it is merely blurry, causing one to miss the intricate strokes and colours of the up-close detail, as well as the clearer picture from a farther vantage point.

Our minutes and hours are how we spend our days, and as Annie Dillard says: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing."1 If we live only in the minutes, in the what we are doing, without the framework of the universal 'year of our Lord' or the metanarrative of all of history, then what we are doing becomes those unintelligible brushstrokes of a Monet, seen an inch from the canvas. Our moments in the story are unintelligible without a larger framework.

However, there is a big picture laid out from the beginning of time, from the conception of the universe. When we find ourselves placed inside of that framework, then our moments and days—how we spend our lives—flow in the picture. Our days are the light and shadow of a section of the painting. The stroke of our lives may seem incredibly small compared to the giant canvas, but our placement matters in the whole.

Is there room for something between the particulars and the universal? Like months slipped between days and years? Yes, of course. There is something between individual atoms and the galaxy: planets and stars; water and plants; animals, man, and more. So, too, there are individual humans as particulars, society as a whole. What comes between? I posit two middle-forms: the family and the Church.

Families are made up of individuals, helping one another both to survive and to thrive; society is made up of families composed of individuals. The Church (throughout time and space) is made up of individuals and families being knit together into the Body of Christ Jesus. It is these blurry middle-forms where we sometimes have a hard time seeing either the whole story or the individual words.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

      full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.2

You know the individual words, you begin to see the whole story by the stringing and weaving of those words together into sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. The middle-form of a story is a chapter—often the length of the story that we read in one sitting—if we are savouring the book. A chapter is a good length of the story to read, to mull over, to build upon. But a chapter alone does a poor job of conveying the story as a whole with its plot and chronology; nor does a chapter catch the depth of the characters, their memories, histories, or significance to the whole. A chapter is a necessary middle-form or larger building block—much like a month—obviously somewhere between the details and the whole.

So, we return to families, the building blocks of society. There is really no such thing as an individual family—there are always extended relatives, family members marrying and branching out again and again. It is easy to see why we use the image of a tree to explain families, because there is that continual growth and branching, like a tree, that make up a whole. A family is a bit elastic, expanding in marriages and births, constricting in deaths. It is fluid, and thus a bit blurry; like a swift stream, like the Monet seen somewhere between brushstrokes and long-distance clarity. The present is the same, the blur between the future and history. The middle-form is always the blur, the brushstroke, the action point, the beam swinging from the crane in the building process. It is like present circumstances, rather hard to understand as you are going through them, but easier to see the edges, the whys and wherefores, after you have made it beyond, gaining perspective from the passage of time.

We live in the moments and the days—the particulars. Particulars build those middle-forms of family and Church, of months and years, of planets and stars; all within the frame of the whole picture, God’s universal story. The moments matter—become material—like paint on the canvas or inky words on a page. The middle-forms matter, too—setting lonely people into their right place; ordering words and paragraphs; building brick upon brick—so that we can see the family, or story, or home. We see the whole by the blurs in concert, the fragmented pieces coming together.

Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand,

Make the mighty ocean

And the pleasant land.

So the little moments,

Humble though they be,

Make the mighty ages

Of Eternity.3

_________

1. Dillard, Annie The Writing Life (New York, New York, Harper Collins, 2009), emphasis mine

2. Oliver, Mary, "Breakage" in Why I Wake Early (Boston, Massachusetts, Beacon Press, 2004), 32
3. Carney, Julia Abigail Fletcher, "Little Things" Public Domain

Rise Up, O Church of God!

A challenge to churches to rise up to their calling

Often a friend of mine tells the story about when his wife became a Christian, "She started reading the Bible in Genesis and began to get bogged down. I told her to skip all that and start with Matthew." Sometimes I wonder if his wife ever got horribly confused to begin reading the story three-quarters of the way through. It would be like reading The Magician's Nephew first on your initial reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, you would see how Narnia began, but the significance of many seemingly arbitrary pieces of the story would be lost on you until you read the rest of the series.

I've wondered if my friend's wife ever went back and read the old covenant parts of the Bible. Are there things that still seem puzzling or arbitrary to her—even now—because she is missing so much of the story? Sadly, I don't expect the church to have taught enough from that first chunk of Scripture for the connections to be made. Nor do I expect, with a husband battling cancer and two high-energy children, that my friend makes the effort to figure out the Old Testament on her own. She has been told it is difficult to understand, that it is boring and outmoded—why devote what little time she does have to something like that?

Many churches across America do Christians a disservice with these well-worn lines. From implying that—or saying straight out—"The Old Testament is boring," to playing only upbeat closing songs, churches are defrauding their members. They are giving people the Instagram version of God, His word, and the set-apart life. Too many churches focus on the sentimental aspects of God's character, read mostly the New Testament or “practical” Old Testament books, drive worship by emotion—rather than emotions by worship and thanksgiving—and offer no place of refuge, silence, and healing.

Real life in a fallen world includes cluttered minds, broken hearts, and deep sorrows. We cheapen words like “grief” and “tragedy” through hyperbole and overuse, and so have no language to lament with those who experience tragic loss when it comes. How does the church help people who are grieving? Pointing hurting people to professional counselling is good and loving, but what about training up a body of wise, kind, and honest counsellors to help one another? Churches could teach people truth—the good, the hard, even the ugly; they could teach people the value of life, the good of life, and what weather-all-Hell's-darts love looks like in daily words and actions.

What if churches taught God's story from the beginning? Then people would know how catastrophic the Ffall was; would see its sinewy hands reaching long fingers out into every part of God's story that it could; would see how desperately God's people tried and failed—and tried harder and still failed—and how utterly wretched they would always be until the promised Messiah came. Then we might understand why the Incarnation was so monumental, pivotal, in the narrative—because after bondage, struggle, failure, and darkness, the Light dawned, the captives were set free, and God's people were given a Saviour who would succeed. We might see that the Cross truly is the crux of the story, and that our lives and times flow directly out of that turning point in history. We might begin to understand that God is making all things new, which means this earth as well as human beings—and what we do now matters for eternity in a way that keeps us from being apathetic Nihilists.

What if churches allowed silence in their worship—no background music, no mere twenty seconds to pray silently—but minutes of silence to enter into the presence of God? What would people do if they had to be still—no phones, no talking, no noise to distract their minds? Would we come face-to-face with our mortality, with grief, with our own brokenness, with the overwhelming grace of God which is deeper than all our vilest sins? What if there were no distractions to console or ease our minds? Would we have to stand naked before God in wretchedness and let him begin to heal us?

What if churches regarded their enemies as a threat? "The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries,"1 said Pascal. Diversion—distractions and amusement—are where we seek solace for misery, and irony of ironies, we are made miserable by diversions. They drag our attention from the God who is there—present with us in every moment—putting our minds on what we don't have or making us feel emptier than when we first reached out for those glittering distractions.

Aside from the distractions we choose on our own, we are constantly occupying a space where spiritual hosts of wickedness rule and war. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."2 What if churches reminded us frequently that we are in a battle; that we must take up the armour given by God; that we must seek refuge in God; and that we must use the word of God as a weapon on the battlefield of our minds, wills, and emotions?

In short, I am issuing a challenge to churches to rise up and take their calling seriously. Be ekklesia "called out ones". Don't be like the world or use its gimmicks—be a training ground for saints, helping us to be holy and presentable to God through Jesus Christ. Let the word of God—old covenant included—order the teaching, not the speaker ordering God's word to do as He wishes. Let us seek lament and silence and raucous joy in turn in worship. Remind us that our enemies are active and that we need protection and proaction. Teach us the truth, and pray for us to speak it with fierce boldness and tender love. Oh that we would see Jesus!

__________

1. Pascal, Blaise, Pensées (Public Domain, Project Gutenberg) 49

2. Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV)

Secondhand Stories...

Honey-coloured sunlight pours warm across my shoulders, across the flyleaf of the little book in my hands, where a name is neatly inscribed. The name on the opening page is not my own—no, this little book was purchased used, from a cottage crammed rafters to floorboards with many of the book's kindreds. In such cases, I often wonder what would happen if the owner ever sold out of a stack—or even a single tome in the stack—in a crucial placement. Would the roof cave in, leaving a hole of sky-light rushing through?

Ah, but it was the name on the page that captured my attention, not said book's fascinating location when I came across it. The name was common enough, written in neat penmanship in the right-hand corner: Hunter Swanson. He must have been anxious to prove ownership or have his book returned to him, because he had also crimped the page with a 'From the library of Hunter Swanson' stamp. 

Why, then, is his book amongst my collection? By reason that I had inquired after that particular title in the curious, brimming bookshop. From those copious stacks, the proprietor went straight to a single column, fished out the book from sheer memory, and placed it in my hands. I was so impressed with his knowledge of the book towers that I bought the book on the spot. Granted, as I had entered the shop partly in search of that particular title, it was nearly inevitable that I would purchase it if found. 

Yet again I have strayed from Hunter Swanson and his book lying upon my glass-top table. Who would get rid of a book in which they had both stamped and inked their name? Or perhaps I should ask why? Why would a person give or sell their book to a fellow whose shop is held up by mounds of tomes? Did they despise the writing-style of the memoir? Was the book given to them by a Love, no longer part of their life? Maybe those names we see printed on cover pages have been printed in newspaper ink followed by date of birth and date of death. I do not envy the souls who have to sort, share, and sell a beloved's books upon their death. Or perhaps one has a small cabin which cannot store all of their books, so they give away the ones they have never read or do not plan to read.

There are simply handfuls of reasons why one might give away or sell their library. Still, it seems to me that if you wrote and stamped your name inside the cover of a volume, it must be one you like or would like to have returned to you. Perhaps Hunter Swanson will read this and ask for his book back, which would be a bit sad, because I would like to finish it. But I almost wish Mr Swanson would read this and request his book, because then I could ask him if it really was important and what he liked about it. I could know why this slim book ended up in the tottering piles in the first place. 

Sometimes people are like books in a secondhand store—you wonder how they are in such-and-such a state. Are they like they are because they have loved and lost? What has shaped the story of the person walking by in the airport, on the street, at your church? Where are they going? How will our stories overlap? If Jesus has written His love into our stories, does that love spill into the lives of those we meet? If Jesus has written His name across the cover page of our lives, that means He has claimed us, that He wants us back if ever we are lost. He sees something inside of us that makes us precious to Him—He sees His own signature written on the very first page. We are His, and that makes us valuable.

All these ideas germinated from a name scrawled in a small paperback edition of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. For now, the book lives in a good home, producing much thought—and I have only read the flyleaf.

_____________

* Cross-posted at humanepursuits.com

Why?

Oh, the questions we ask You, Begetter of the universe. 

You, Who spun waves and particles into golden light, we question if Your hands are big enough to hold us. You, Who breathed life into our spirits and our dusty frames, we pause to ask if You care about us. You, Whose finger carved words into the dirt, we ask if You care enough to write our stories, to show us what You want from us and for us.

You, Who entered time, slipped into skin, felt rejection and loneliness—we presume You have left us when our blind eyes cannot see You, and Your presence is not palpable. You, Who are called the Light of the world, we ask where You have gone when we wander in darkness. You, Who carefully marked the trenches of the world, poured its foundation, and sent the Cornerstone, why do we think You are incapable of answering our question marks?

Why does our friend have to walk through that valley? Our family member suffer that pain? Why do our own hearts, crushed, drip red in the darkness and in the blaze of day?

We ask when You will show up, why You allowed tragic loss, why there is emptiness sucking at our hearts like a black hole. Why does the darkness feel overwhelming, when the Light has rendered darkness outmoded, dead, and chased away?

There was a time when You stepped into our world. When eternity became now. You bought us back from hopeless death. And still we question. Still we scream. Still we shake our fists and walk away. You, Who never promised life would be easy, we expect to right everything, now. You, Who never explained Yourself to Job, we expect to spell out every answer to our every why? We expect You to operate like we do, to think in our human boxes, in our narrow line of sight. You, Creator, Sustainer, Holy One, Alpha, Omega... You, immortal, immutable, invisible, we ask to explain Yourself to our finite minds, to contain Yourself in a kernel of knowing that will fit inside of us. But You cannot be contained in our minds, in our paltry understanding, or in our broken hearts.

You are bigger than that—vast, eternal. You fill us, overfull, and splash out onto those we touch. Your love only multiplies. The ringing of Your Truth reverberates throughout the galaxies, resounding through the entire universe. How can we think it is all contained in one book, in one heart, in one mind, in one planet? 

It is not that we do not need to know why—sometimes we cannot know an answer so immense. We are too close to see the whole, to see clearly. We cannot explain away pain, abandoned hearts, our death valleys, or all the other dark shadows that cross over our lives. Neither can we explain why the storm clouds come to us, or why the Light doesn't break through and scare all our monsters away. Maybe we aren't strong enough to endure the illuminating rays that would break those clouds, eliminate that darkness. Perhaps we are being made ready to bear the weight of light—something weightless in our world—that, coming from the heavenly realm, is so dense that it would crush us. 

In a moment of unknowing I whisper, But why, God? Then, I choose to hang my question on these spoken pegs of Hope, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. I do not always know what that Mercy looks like in this moment, in this day, in this shadow world. What form will Mercy take? Sometimes His Mercy is severe. Once, it took the form of flesh, nailed to a cross—suffering with us.

God is not "out there" but right here, with us—even when I cannot feel Him or see Him, and the clouds do not part. He is not against me—or you. He does not say why He does what He does, or why He allows various things. He withholds His mighty hand at times, and I don't know why. I only know He will not leave us all alone.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Grant us Your peace.

From "The End" to "Once Upon a Time..."

Advent: Week 2

Toward the end of each year I become eager for the next. Perhaps the new year's freshness wafts into my soul, breathing life inside. Maybe I think the current year has been quite long enough—I am ready for new dreams, people, and places. Deeper than than that, though, is the reality that the new church year has already begun. Advent is the new beginning amidst the end. The steps of the Great Dance have come full circle, to be made new in this familiar theme.

For me, Advent, Christmas, and New Year's are the season of both looking back and peering to see ahead. Hindsight is not always as clear as people say it is. Upon reviewing this year, I see a lot of messy, painful life situations for my friends, family, and myself. These things do not wrap up neatly at the end of the year. There is still much question-asking and inability to see God's plan unfolding. In some cases all I can see are the tossing heads of hoary waves, no land in sight. How can anyone survive the turbulence, the repeated buffets, of such conditions with no respite in view? Only by Hope. Hope is the anchor for our souls, to keep us from drifting out to sea and being lost among the crashing, crushing waves. 

Hope. Anchor. Abandonment. Ashes. Fearlessness. Bitterness. Forgiveness. These words have twisted into a thick cord, the thread woven through the tapestry of this year. They have haunted the rising and falling melody of the Great Dance with their dissonance, assonance, and resonance. What words will step into their places this new year? What themes will emerge in the music always over our lives, in the weaving of God's seen-story? 

I do not have answers yet. The above words have been whirling through my thoughts, writing, and reading so much that I had to again spill them upon the page. With these words I go from "The End" toward the unknown "Once upon a time." This next story may be full of ogres, sorrow, and sore loss—but it may be filled with valiant warriors for what is right, with wisdom sought and found. I suspect that it, too, will end with Hope.  

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

~ Saint John  1:1-5 (ESVUK) 

Treading the Sea of Darkness

Noisy chatter clutters the lobby. The porch overflows with sound, seeping from every crevice of the hotel, like grapes, crushed. And I? I feel alone. Wearing the mask of a smile, while my soul wrestles with the Fall. I slip out into the rain-cooled air, the cloak of night hiding me from peering eyes and piercing laughter. 

How many times have I sat in a crowd of persons, even those I know, and felt the icy tentacles of loneliness? How often have I painted a smile on my lips, yet my eyes are belied by tears? Can I number the times I have listened to another's excitement while holding in my sorrows? How often have I concealed my joy in the face of someone else's pain? I do not begrudge those emotionally mixed moments. I do not regret that I have the privilege of of weeping and rejoicing with others. Nor am I deeply hurt that only a few look carefully into my honest eyes to see what is inside. Then I wonder, how many times have I not looked closely at bloodshot eyes? How often am I so lost in my own life that I neglect the trials and joys beneath the surface in others? 

This is the Fall–this neglect of others–written large and painted in bold black. The Fall, that locks us within ourselves, isolating us from God and man. The Fall, so murky and deep as to drown us in its depths. It is the Fall that prevents us from seeing life as a whole. We see only bits and pieces of our own lives—of others' lives—and we think those slivers are the whole story. We slosh in the muck of those black-sodden brushstrokes, seeing only a tary mess as far as our eye-scope can reach. 'This isn't how the story is supposed to go', we whisper fiercely to ourselves, kicking to stay afloat. 

But how is the story supposed to go? We think we have a decent plot. 'In the end this would bring God praise. Isn't that good? Isn't that the goal?' We do not see that the darkness of sin has been made the paint for the brush, the ink for the pen. The viscous stream in which we are drowning is the ink, undried. All the harrowing horrors of the Fall that dig their claws into our hearts, our homes, and our heroes have been ground into charcoal-hued pigment, brushing letters on parchment. Our grandiose plots for how our story should go are so small they are invisible upon the page. We swim in the depths of merely one letter, thinking it is our entire story. The Author and Finisher of our faith sees our script from the right perspective, much bigger–yet humbler–than we ever dared to dream or hope. 

Just because God allows us to be free agents in the writing does not mean that we are the author. Though He gives us the intolerable compliment of using our hands, our lips to accomplish His purposes, it does not follow that we know how immense the story, how deep the brokenness–and deeper still the redemption. We do not know how those letters, words, paragraphs, plots and subplots are being woven together to form a far-reaching tale. A true tale, meant for all the world, not only our corner of it, in this place and time.

What about the days when the narrative is dark, when we have tread the turbid waters of the Fall so long that we cannot muster another kick? Will the waves overflow us after all? God forbid! I say this fervently, yet, I am not the one abandoned by my husband. I am not left fatherless. I am not the one cast out by my family for doing the right thing. I do not have to face the long road of loneliness ahead if no reconciliation comes. No, but I can walk alongside my friends in those dark places. When they cannot tread thick waters any longer, I can hold them and swim for them. When I tire, it will be another's turn to support them. This is the body of Jesus, working together toward whole-ness, toward holiness. This one dark letter is not all that is on the page, it is not the whole story, though we or others may stick fast in one place far longer than we thought possible.

I still want to hide the holes in my soul, punctured by the Fall. I want to hide my own sin. I want to run away from the pain that the sins of others have caused me, my family, and my friends. I want life to be full of good things that are delightful and do not wound. But what I need it not to hide, is not isolation. What I need—what we all need—is for 'the light to shine in the darkness, and the darkness not [to] overcome it.' We all need times of solitude, not to forsake others, but times before God in honest conversation, times away to draw us back into the body of believers, toward holiness. Sin separates, it is said. Let us be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, then. Let us reconcile others to God by walking with them in their darkness—even when the journey is years long and the dawn is far, far off. May the light of Truth shine all over the darkness, making the Author's story—so much bigger than what we planned or imagined—visible to the watching world.

Lost, lost are all our losses;
Love set forever free;

The full life heaves and tosses

Like an eternal sea!

One endless story!

One poem spread abroad!

And the sun of all our glory

Is the countenance of God.*

~ Johanna

___________________

* George MacDonald, 5th Hymn to the Night

Love Will Have the Final Word: Jason Gray

When Jason Gray's ‘Love Will Have the Final Word’ came out, I had been listening to his previous album ‘A Way to See in the Dark’ on constant replay for about a month. I didn't think any other set of songs could really express my own steps in life better than that record… I was wrong.

When the song ‘Not Right Now’ came on, all I could do was sit there with wet eyes and a raw heart. Finally, someone who understood that Christians need to grieve. Not every song or story ends happily or quite the way we might want. Oh, God’s story ends better than the beginning – of that I am firmly convinced… Just, our stories have loss and pain and we don’t need happy-go-lucky pat answers. We need a place to grieve. We sometimes need our friends to shut up and sit down in the ashes with us.

Every song on the new album expressed the reality of brokenness, the depth of re-creation, the aching need for real friendship, and much, much more. I have never heard such a real, painful, hopeful set of songs that express the fall and redemption so powerfully and beautifully. 

~ Johanna

Vane's Glory

Vane stood before a dark oaken door with iron bolts. The heavy beams were obviously as ancient as they were imposing. Yet she felt compelled to step forward and knock on the door. Knock she did, for the better part of an hour. She heard the sounds of many feet going to and fro, of cheerful chatter, and of the clinking of glasses. There must be a feast inside, thought Vane. Her continual knocking was left unheeded, however, whether drowned out by the revelry within, or mercilessly snubbed—she could not tell which. After exhausting both arms and bruising her knuckles, Vane sat upon the cobblestone steps and wept, the bitterness of loneliness and rejection overwhelming her.

Vane woke with a start. She was lying in her own bed in Barton Manor, early morning sun making dust motes dance before her clear grey eyes. A dream, it was only a dream, she thought. But it was the same dream that had haunted her from childhood. Every now and then it would return, the pain of rejection piercing as deeply as if it were the first time she had dreamt the dream.

Rising from her soft couch, Vane splashed the rosewater in the basin on her face, drying it with a supple linen towel. The English countryside beckoned alluringly, its hills swathed in fresh green grass. Wisteria purpled the walls of neighbouring cottages, and pink flowerets graced many bushes along the path leading to the golden fields of ripe winter wheat. A sigh escaped Vane's lips. There were other things calling her name more loudly than the meadowlarks; things she must attend to first, before escaping to those fields and hedges.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, spent with a book of poetry. The thick door of her dream did not vanish like a morning mist, however. One poem was about a garden door, another about the ache of loneliness. It seemed she could not escape the oppressive hand of denial. She gave a shiver of relief as two little heads peered 'round the corner to see if her repast had yet ended. Vane rose to greet the boy and girl, leading them to the nook prepared for lessons.

At last, the final declension had been repeated, the last sum calculated, the history lesson was itself history, and the children were working on their compositions. Vane left them to their work and slid out a side door to walk in the wild of the early Spring. She thought only of the beauty of the world around her, carefully pushing every other thought from her mind. Dusk began to creep along the eastern edges of the world. Vane turned her face to the fiery sinking orb of the sun. Everything around her was washed in a golden glow. Almost before she really saw the beauty of this light, it was gone and the evening fell like dew. "And so day's glory is illusory after all," Vane sighed out, turning toward home.

Why could you never hold beauty in your hands? How is it that just at the moment you glimpse the first firebrand of the rising sun, it rushes over the horizon blinding the eye? It is almost as if you only know beauty once it has gone, a thing to be looked back on and wondered at, but never to be entered into at the moment you see it. Vane wondered at this realisation. How if beauty were but an echo of a conversation? What if it were a whisper overheard, not meant for us? With these thoughts smoothing away the cares of her day, softening the sting of last night's dream, Vane's step quickened.

She continued thinking about beauty, and the passing glory of each day and season, as she wrote letters after the evening meal. Though other women might find her thoughts inscrutable, one, at least, would not. Vane composed a letter to this dear friend, hoping for her response to deepen and strengthen her own musings. She then undressed, settled under her duvet, and blew out the candle. Sleep quickly claimed her for its own, fast followed by dreams.

All that Vane could recall the next morning, as a thrush called her out of bed, was that she had not dreamt about the formidable door. But what had she dreamt? Hazy recollections attended her to the basin of scented water. Upon looking at the green hills outside, a sharp image leapt up in her mind's eye. A gate. There had been a wooden gate in a green garden wall. Though it was shut, she was sure that if she tried the latch it would open. Yes, now she recalled the gate opening at her gentle push to reveal a meadow filled with rich purple heather. There had been snowdrops, gilded crocuses, and meandering sheep, too—as if the clouds in the heavens were reflected in those fluffy fleeces there below. At the bottom of the hill was a wide lake, silver with morning sunlight.

How could I forget a dream like that? It was peaceful and beautiful. When the gate opened, I felt like I had been welcomed home. Vane decided then and there that she would hold this dream like balm to her heart whenever the stab of rejection from the other dream tried to grieve her.

Days flitted into weeks, the sun shone its face that Summer as it rarely does in England. One evening, Vane was watching the westering sun and she felt the nip of Autumn and smelled not a Summer smell, but one of sweet hay and dying grass. She thought again about beauty and how she had not fully known the warmth and loveliness of Summer until she had smelled the sweetness of the withering grasses and felt the chill of Autumn. Will it always be so in this life? She mused. Will I never catch the moment as it comes, knowing then and there that I am inside beauty?

That night, Vane fell asleep with her window open to let in the fresh night air. The smell of warmth and ploughed dirt mingled with the feel of a dirt road beneath her feet and the smell of a kitchen fire. She travelled on, not knowing where her path would take her, but simply enjoying the going. As if her feet knew the way, she found herself leaving the dirt road and threading her way through the cobblestone streets of a small village. Each house had either a neat garden or window boxes brimming with flowers; stables scented with sweet hay or the aroma of fresh bread wafting from the kitchen. Vane was filled with delight at just being there—amidst the sights, sounds, and smells of life.

Soon, she found that she was coming to the end of the village; there a great stone manor stood. Vane walked right up to the door of the manor—a great oaken door with iron nails and bolts. She could hear laughter and music behind that door. A rich golden light streamed out into the deepening evening shade. More than anything Vane wanted to be on the other side of the heavy door. Fearlessly she raised her hand to knock, but she stayed it a moment, knowing she had knocked on this door since she was a wee girl. Never once had it opened. Her hand did not waver. She would knock anyway. Even if she knocked on that door until she were still older and grey, she would knock in the hope of one day being let in.

Vane knocked. The sounds of steady footfalls and more music greeted her. Those inside were dancing. This door is like all of those moments I realise I have been surrounded by beauty, but it has just passed away. Vane thought as she continued to beat the wood. I know that something beautiful was just there, I have the vision of it, but it is already gone. I could not pass into it any more than I can pass through this door into the light. I want to be inside, accepted, part of the beauty itself. She beat the door will all her energy, but at last her arms grew weary and her knuckles were bloody. She sat down on the cobblestone steps in the darkness, tears streaming down her face, like the light streaming out the crack under the door. She was so close she could taste it, but no one would open the door. "Please, let me in," she whispered as she put her head down on her knees.

Behind her the door slowly opened. A kind-looking man with a weather-beaten face and crinkles at his eyes stood before her. He stepped out and sat beside Vane, putting his hand upon her shoulder. "My dear, why are you crying?"

She looked up into his eyes, deep green eyes that turned blue and sparkled when they caught the light. She knew he was the Laird of the manor by his stately appearance, yet there he was, sitting on a dirty step with her. "I... I have always wanted to get in, beyond that door," she said haltingly. "For years and years I have knocked, have heard the laughter and feasting, but no one ever opens the door." Here she began to weep violently, and the master took her face in his hands. "Vane." She opened her grey eyes in complete surprise—he knew her name. "Vane, your name means gladness, and here you are in tears of sorrow and dejection. Why did you never before call out to be let in? I know your voice, I would have opened the door."

Vane looked bewildered, "I never thought to call out to you," she whispered. "I did not know that you would hear me. No one ever heard my knocking." He smiled down at her, "No, no one ever heard the noise you tried to make with your own hands. But I heard you when you only whispered your desire to be let in... And here I am. Now then," he stood and held out his hands to her, "Let us go inside where the feasting and dancing are in full tilt." Vane put both her hands in his and he pulled her to her feet. They walked in—to the very heart of beauty and acceptance, shutting out the darkness behind them. And inside was only joy and light and praise from the Laird.

Dawn crept in the Barton Manor window, dressed in velvety pink and orange. The lark rang out his final Summer song of the year. Light shone in delicate shafts through the chequered panes onto the form lying in her downy bed. A joyful smile played about her mouth. But Vane did not rise to wash her face in rosewater, or dry her hands and rosy cheeks on the linen towel. She was carefully raised and gently laid in a bed of earth. When Spring arrived, ripples of purple and honey-coloured crocuses pushed their way out of her grave. Snowdrops graced her headstone. It was carved with an arched gate and read, "She has gone in gladness into the good adventure of God's glory."

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“The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire.

For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory