Incompleteness

Incompleteness is a part of this world. It's in our governemnts and our transportation, our cities and our countryside. It's in our relationships and in our careers, in our grades and in our textbooks. It's in my life, and yours, and that of each of our neighbors. It's inside my head, my heart, and my body, and yours too, and that of everyone we've ever met, except for God.

In Him our truest and best longings are fulfilled; in Him is the completeness we lack. In recognizing our own incompleteness we can realize our need for Him. In acknowledging that in Him and Him only is that completeness we seek we can give Him true worship.

I need Him tonight. I need His fullness of love and strength and peace around me. And I take comfort in knowing that whether I feel it or not, He is all that I need and more.

On Watching a Dance Rehearsal (poem)

I watch the dancers move, the lights transmute
The colors shift, the shapes converge and drift
I hear the singer's voice and I am mute
Responding to it all I droop and lift
I see emotions, hear my silent heart
And in the words come thoughts I'm shoving down
Involuntarily the tears will start
To form, but might not fall, I might not frown
The past, the present, future, all of these
My dreams and hopes, my plans and memories
Converging in my thoughts and in my heart
In unwilling reaction to this art
It's good to be reminded how to see
And in the vision and the sounds, to be.

Pieces of the Puzzle

I am only one piece of a very big puzzle made by Someone very wise and very loving. I am not the same mix of colors as the piece next to me or any other piece I can see. I am not the same shape as the piece next to me or any other piece I can see. My neighbors might have what I sometimes think of as brighter colors or prettier colors or a more harmonious combination of colors. My neighbors might have what I consider to be a shape of superior usefulness. I might look at my colors and my shape and think they are illogical and annoying.

The Puzzlemaker, however, has a different perspective. He knows precisely how my shape and my colors are necessary as a part of the very large Image that He is creating with all of His puzzle pieces. He knows exactly what the image ought to be, and He has chosen my part in it.

Therefore, when I want to cover up or change or cut off some part of the piece that He made me to be because I don't like it or it's not convenient; when I doubt if the Image shall be at all improved for my being in it; when I feel that every other piece of the puzzle is superior; I grieve Him. He has formed and is forming in me exactly the sort of beauty and usefulness that He wishes me to have, and He has made me part of the puzzle. Do I doubt His wisdom in making me this shape? Do I doubt His love in giving me these colors? Do I think that I know better than He what the Puzzle requires to be complete?

In short, if a piece of the puzzle doubts that it has been made the right shape, with the right colors, and has a valid place in the Image when the Puzzle shall be put together, it is doubting the Puzzlemaker. And the Puzzlemaker is the only truly infallible Being that is.

Underneath the stillness

Underneath the stillness, behind the words

Bursting to go and afraid to leave

The core of me trembles but dares to believe

In shadows undarkened and pictures unblurred.

Chasing an echo, a rainbow, a dream

An ideal unbroken, an art unrestrained

A heart that is pure and a feeling unfeigned

A song with an unspoken heavenly theme

My God, let my insides be pleasing to You

Heal my hurts, take my sins, teach me how to forgive

I long to be able in fullness to live

Please show me the way I can serve all that's true

In Beauty, in Goodness, in Love I see... You!

Let each thing I chase be a small piece of Thee

That in the end I strive for You not for Me

May Your nature shine through in all that I do!