A Better Resuurection by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

I HAVE no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

The title the first and the last is also irrefutable proof that Jesus is YAHWEH, the Lord. These terms together mean that Jesus is the beginning, middle and the end for the Christian. Preach orthodoxy, or any form of doxy--if you have left out Christ, there is no manna from Heaven, no water from the rock, no refuge from the storm, no healing for the sick, no life for the dead. If you leave out Christ, you left the sun out of the day and the moon out of the night, you have left waters out of the sea and the foods out of the river, you have left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of the body, you have left the joy out of heaven, yea you have robbed all of its all. There is no gospel worth think of, much less worth proclaiming in Jehovah's name if Jesus be forgotten.

Charles Spurgeon

John of the Cross says the night of the sense is the crisis that initiates the movement from dependency on sense and reason to docility of the spirit.

St. John of the Cross

When we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God's work and not ours we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.

Richard Foster

Good things on earth--the natural world, beauty, love, joy--still bear traces of their original purpose, but amnesia mars the image of God in us.

From Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

God created both the natural world and human beings as any artist creates, forming something separate from himself and then setting it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had palnned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage managers, who had since made a great mess of it.

From Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize the cup of life is not only a cup of soorow, but also a cup of joy, will we be able to drink it.

Henri Nouwen

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to "inject" His kind of life and thought, His 'Zoe' (life) into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.

From "Mere Christianity" by C. S. Lewis

Psalm 23 - "The Other Bible" by Willis Barnstone

Your Holy Spirit
illuminates the dark places of the heart
of your servant
with light like the sun.
I look to covenants made by men.
Worthless.
Only your truth shines.
And those who love it are wise
And walk in the glow
of your light.
From darkness you raise hearts.
Let light shine on your servant.
Your light is everlasting.