To my wife on our Anniversary

To my wife on our anniversary

I loved you when

Our journey began.

I love you now and

I'll love you then.

And when this journey comes to its end,

I'll listen to the story told

Of love...

... and love again 

(Written 20 years ago for our 8th anniversary.)

I found a carving in the wood

I found a carving in the wood,
   a pedestal where something stood. 

A statue must have been right here,

   its placement had been very clear.

But now this pedestal was bare

   and statue which was carved with care

was now cast off and on the ground

   under leaves and grass around

its form so it was barely seen. 

   I stooped down now and tried to clean

debris away so I could see

   what had been and what will be.

Dead leaves, wild grass, pulled and plucked

   brushed away so I now looked

at stone now in the light of sun,

   its lines and grooves forming some

image now in my mind

   of fingers that were intertwined. 

I brushed off more and saw an arm,

   its wrist embraced with carven charm.

The form now clear a woman lay

   framed by grass and roots that stay

clinging to her female form

   in ways that seemed now to adorn,

like woven garments, nature made

   now for my eyes in woods displayed.

but something did but seem awry

   twists and contorts caught my eye

should a real arm lay this way

   what did this artist seek to say? 

Those fingers still were intertwined

   I cleared some more so I could find

what lay beneath nature's shield

   in hidden wood, in long-lost field. 

I grabbed a mass of root and vine

   and once pulled back I saw the grime

from mud and muck and trails of worms

   which slid across these carven forms. 

What I now saw seemed grotesque

   as if the artist did detest 

these models from which he must have carved

   these two hideous and starved

creatures which now before me lie

   did the artist even try? 

Or was this the point for which he sought

   to twist and deform as he wrought

and carved and chipped away at stone

   to make an image that was one

in which I stood in horror now

   beholding scene of painful bow

beneath a weight of unseen trial

   that crushed these two beyond denial. 

The dirt and grime I brushed aside

   worms and mud, old roots I plied 

away from stone so more I'd see

   of what this spectacle could be. 

As I cleared nature away

  revealed now stone to sun's bright ray

and plucked away those final twigs

   I pondered now something big.

Could I now with all my might

   set these two back up aright? 

and place them on their pedestal

   restored, returned before their fall? 

I plotted and I then heaved to

   with levered strength in what lead to

a twist a turn and then a grunt, 

   drops of sweat, give up I won't. 

And one last surge of strength divine

   these two were back, but now I find

one more thing that I must do

   to finish task and make things new. 

I turned now to a fountain near

  water trickling down so clear

from ancient stone which had been struck

   to sustain life while on a trek

to promised land so long ago. 

   A rag I dipped beneath the flow

and dripping with the water clear

   I turned and cleaned off the first ear

then a chin and down that arm

   around the fingers and the charm. 

Across a back and down to feet

   between each toe my rag did meet

every crease and crack and nook

   I stood back now to take a look

and what now did my eyes behold

   a different story than I'd told. 

What seemed to me as pain before

   now looked like love that each had for

the other one it now was plain

   that though some trauma did remain

these two weren't wretched as it seemed

   but now revealed as I'd cleaned

my view had changed from before

   and now I saw what it was for.

The pedestal in ancient wood

  was granite hand on which they stood,

when cast off from its firm embrace,

   it looked like pain upon each face,

but now returned within that grip

   each now appeared with word on lip

that seemed to say by artist's skill

   "I love you now, I always will, 

because he loved us from the start,

   and in his grip, we'll never part."

In awe I stood at artist's hand

  that could with skill and careful plan,

create a scene that untrained eye

   would perceive dread and want to die, 

but with an eye trained by His book,

   a better eye could take a look

and see the beauty held within,

   though a tragedy had been

and the art did not ignore 

   these tragic things these faces wore

the end result was very clear

   these two knew Jesus and held him dear. 

 

Post Pastoral Thoughts Number 2: The Church and A Church

Not an Ideal but a Divine Reality (pp. 26-27, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. 

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to a genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. 

They Don't Get Him.

I don't have a lot of fight in me. I just don't. ... hence the break from preaching. So there is some hesitation in bringing this up. I know that my comments won't be able to measure up to my actual concern regarding this topic. I also know that I won't have the endurance to battle any naysayers who want to critique my critique. Well. I am still going to try and say something. 

Post Pastoral Thoughts No. 1: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

For those who are new here: 

If you are new here, then you may need a slight introduction to this post. I'll start with the basics. My name is Matt Harmless. I have been a math teacher for 24 years (with a short stint as a disciplinary dean, but that's another story). For the last 14 1/2 years I was also a bivocational pastor.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a bi-vocational pastor is one who normally would be a full-time or part-time Pastor, but would then have another job. This second job could potentially be full-time but its primary purpose was to help make ends meet. I, of course, got that backward. I had a full-time job as a school teacher and then decided to try to take on pastoral work. This inevitably led to what came next. 

A Rant.... ish.

First a disclaimer: 

(I am placing this disclaimer at the beginning of this post, but I wrote it last.) 

This is a rant. One definition of a rant (from a Google Search) is "As a verb, "rant" means to speak or shout in an angry, impassioned way. It can also mean to complain in an unreasonable way."  Notice that it is impassioned, but it can also mean unreasonable. I readily accept that what you will read is truly a rant. Here are a few disclaimers if you choose to read my rant: 

1. As a rant, this is not personal. If there is something in here that you actually do think is about you, it isn't. It might resemble you, but the reality is, there isn't anything in here that I reference that I haven't seen and/or experienced from multiple people. So... This isn't about you. You know who you are. You are the one who thinks everything is about them. This isn't about you. If you contact me and say, "Why did you write that about me?" I'm going to say, "You didn't read the disclaimer did you?"  
2. As a rant, this will cover several different topics, and none of them in-depth. If you read it and think that I should have been more clear, I'm sorry. I am not trying to be very clear. It is a rant.
3. As a rant, this will be primarily negative. I hope you don't read this and think that this rant is what I am usually like. I think that I am usually fairly positive. But I also don't think that I should entirely avoid these topics I'm ranting about. I think they are rant-worthy. If I strike a nerve, I  want you to know that I didn't have my crosshairs on you, but I did have them on these topics.
4. Since this is a rant, I won't be sharing this link on Facebook. This means that the only people who see this will be people who actually follow me or seek me out. If I record this as a podcast, I won't be sharing that link on Facebook either. 
5. Even though this is a rant, if you read anything here or listen to this and feel the need to say something to me, either through Facebook, Twitter (X), e-mail, phone, or in person... I will be more than happy to actually listen to you before I even think of defending myself. I am sure that ... because it is a rant ... my words will be full of inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and all manner of unreasonableness.  

Let the rant begin: 

The Household and the War for the Cosmos - Review

 The Household and the War for the Cosmos by C.R. Wiley

If you have not read this book, I will begin this review by saying that I highly recommend that you do that now. Seriously. Click the link above and purchase a copy of it and start reading. If the title seems odd to you, I would like to double my encouragement to get a copy of this book. There is a cosmos. There is a war for it. And the household, your household is playing a part in this war. 

Matt is a Hand Tattoo Person now... There is no going back.

Well, I'm a guy with a tattoo on my hand now. There is no going back. Tattoo number 5 is done and in the exact place I want it. 

I went with the Hebrew word, Shalom, which many know means "peace".  It was the topic of my final sermon (which I will include a link to, once it has been uploaded) before I stepped down as a pastor of Edgewood Church.  It is also a word that exemplifies, not only what I've aimed for in my life, but also what I long for the most in the next. The Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Dictionary defines this word as:  

1) completeness, soundness, welfare, peace (a) completeness (in number), (b) safety, soundness (in body), (c) welfare, health, prosperity, (d) peace, quiet, tranquillity, contentment, (e) peace, friendship, (e1) of human relationships, (e2) with God especially in covenant relationship, (f) peace (from war), (g) peace (as adjective)

In other words, it is the making of everything right in a world where everything is wrong. 

A Christmas Sermon for Pagans

Strand Magazine published this Christmas Sermon by C. S. Lewis in December of 1946. The title: A Christmas Sermon for Pagans.

Farewell Old Friends

 

Farewell old friends. 

I thought many of us would make it to the end together, but so few are remaining on board and so many are jumping ship.  More and more every day. 

And unlike so many others... I cannot... I will not... jump ship with you, thinking that Christ will come with me.  There is not a relationship on this planet that I would bend the law of Christ to maintain. Not a one. 

And it is not simply my love of Christ that compels me. I will also seek to maintain my lack of Christian / Familial fellowship with you, my fallen brothers, out of the vague but essential hope that this visible, tangible broken relationship with me, as you cling to your sin, might help you to see the invisible, but more real and more broken relationship with the Father before it is too late. 

Oh, if only other believers would but take the same approach, hoping to make it clear to all that friendship with the world is enmity toward God. 

Farewell old friends. I hope you know that when you return to the Father, I will be running down the road with him to greet you and not sulking in the fields. 

I know he lives.

 C.R. Wiley - From The Household and the War for the Cosmos

"I hate to say it, but even the piety of Wesley and Whitfield was a downgrade of the real thing. This is because by the eighteenth-century piety’s sphere had already contracted. It is a well-documented story, so I won’t go into detail, but I think I can sum it up succinctly. By the time of Wesley and Whitfield, what had once been regarded as public truth had been reduced to private convictions. Authority in general had eroded due to revolutions in politics, the sciences, and even economics. To meet the challenge evangelists were forced to stress direct, very personal experience of the supernatural by everyone. The second-hand Truth contained in catechisms and confessions was no longer enough. Even eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ were not as trustworthy as a “warmed heart.” This is how we ended up with a hymn like “I Serve a Risen Savior.” In that song the line that is supposed to persuade you to believe that Jesus rose from the dead is, “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!” What we are left with today is heart religion, because now the heart is the only place Jesus can be publicly acknowledged to live. Ironically, many people think that this is the sum total of Christianity, and the notion that this is actually a downgrading of the faith is inconceivable."

Post Tenebras Lux

A modification of the Post Tenebra Lux (After Darkness Light) Seal of Geneva. 

 

A Triumphal Entry - Into your Soul.

 

Rejoice in the Wife of your Youth.

 

My one and only since 1989. 

The Covenant Household Free Today

Kindle version of this book is free today.