dancing toward bethlehem. //

If there is only enough time in the final
minutes of the 20th century for one last dance
I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,
say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.
My palm would press into the small of your back

as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile
of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,
just as the floor of the 19th century gave way
and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.

There will be no time to order another drink
or worry about what was never said,
not with the orchestra sliding into the sea
and all our attention devoted to humming
whatever it was they were playing.

-Billy Collins, Dancing Toward Bethlehem

I guess there's a special kind of reverence to be had, watching an era slip away, but when the clock struck midnight on December 31st, 1999, I was four years old, probably in bed in our old house. As my parents no doubt rejoiced that Y2K hadn't wreaked havoc on their computer systems, I slept peacefully. I had no idea that a century had just turned over, something most people alive at that moment would only experience once. In fact, it wouldn't be for another 10 years that New Year's Eve meant anything to me at all.

But I think as the years roll on, they start to carry new importance for me. You can look back at what the year has brought, listen to the Greatest Hits of 2014 on the radio, and realize that there is a unique quality to every year, that as the cheesy adage goes about the snowflake, no two are completely alike. And we can either be incredibly relieved to watch the clock tick past midnight, or we can be sad to see it go. But either way, it does. And all you can do is carry the memory.

 I could talk about everything that happened to me in 2014, but that would be incredibly boring to everyone except the few people that went through those things with me (okay, maybe even to them). I could also talk about everything that happened of world importance, like how Robin Williams died and we will all miss him, or how all those planes disappeared in Asia and no one knows where they went, or how Iggy Azalea showed the world both that white girls can rap, and that spiders can be made into really hot metaphors. But we've all heard that, too.

What matters is 2014. The whole year. Another year that we got, every one of us, filled to the brim with new blessings and new hardships and everything else that God chose to pour out. Regardless of whether we think of it as a "good year" or a "bad year," it's still a gift. It's still another 365 days that we got to be on this earth with other people: people we love easily, or try to love, or, in some cases, love in ways that we wish we didn't. It's another year with four seasons, and new experiences, ones that we appreciate and ones that we don't. And yes--the reality of the thing is that those planes did disappear, and two of my friends have lost loved ones in the past week, and this year will forever cast a dark shadow on the lives of many, many people. But that doesn't mean that it didn't mean anything, that it wasn't exactly what God had in store for us at this moment in our lives, at this moment in history. 

So tonight, as the clock strikes midnight, whether you're surrounded by joy and excitement or bitter mourning, remember: there will never be another 2014. Ever. We will get more years, all different kinds of them, but once December 31st 2014 turns into January 1st 2015, that's it. And all we can do, as another year drops away into nothing, is be thankful. For the good, and the bad, as painful as that may be. Because on the perfectly-crafted roadmap of our existence, 2014 is just another dot, just another stop along the way, but it's taking you somewhere, and me, and everybody else.

Now that I'm older, I'm determined to watch the passing of the years with special reverence. I will not sleep through the milestones, through the stops along the road, as if they could somehow be anything but significant. Each one means something. 2014 meant something, and 2015 will mean something different. And all we can do is rejoice in all of it, and take what we've learned, and march forward into what comes next. 

one year. //

I walked in for the first time on a cold, bitter, late-afternoon in December. the lights were on, shining through the few front windows and the skylight in the sanctuary.

inside, the chairs had been set out all in rows facing the front. a few people were sitting near the front, commenting on the placement of the chancel and the communion table and the chairs for the pastors. I put my coat down on one of the chairs, and smiled excitedly at the other musicians. this was it.

we had spent the last year in construction and preparation and legal negotiations. we painted and put up walls and built the choir loft. we spent hours turning an old motorcycle showroom into a church. and periodically, we gathered in the empty, unfinished sanctuary and sang hymns. and we couldn't wait for what this place was going to become.

and here I was, the night before our first worship in our building. this place was all our own--the thing we had prayed for and waited for and worked for. there was the baby grand piano in the corner, shiny and beautiful and waiting for someone to play it. I had wheedled my way into being the first Trinity pianist to get to play in the new building, and now I sat down and played for the first time, and the sound resonated through the space.

being there felt amazing and too good to be true and completely bizarre all at once. I couldn't believe that we were really here: that everything had come together, and that the next morning, the church family would be here, rejoicing and singing and passing joyous and thankful and excited peace. as I sat behind the piano, I looked out at the sanctuary, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to worship here Sunday after Sunday, to have this place become truly ours, to have a real church after so many years.

it has been better than I ever could have imagined. people talk about a house becoming a home, when you fill it with the people you love, and that has been a million times more true with our church. as this year has gone by, it's gone from being "the building" to church. it's the place we worship, and sing and fellowship. it's the place we potluck, and hold babies and pray together. in this place, we've been through death and marriage and baptism, together as a single unit. and it's only been a year.

when I think about what we've been blessed with, I'm so thankful. I could never have imagined that a building other than my own home could become so dear to my heart, but this one has. this past year has been an incredible gift, and I can't wait for the years to come, as our church becomes even beautiful and prosperous and rich with memories.

as in all things, soli deo gloria.

blinders. //

Sometimes I forget to look around.

Sometimes I get so caught up in myself that I forget that the world exists, and that it's vast. My gaze is "incurvatus se:" I am inward-focused, too inward-focused. I am blind to everyone and everything but myself, my own feelings, my own mental world. It's as if I walk through my days with blinders on, like the ones they put on horses, so that I am completely cut off from everything but me. Those horses pull carriages, and they wear those blinders so that they don't get distracted from their job, which is to walk along a given path, and nowhere else. Maybe I am one of those horses; maybe the duty I've forced upon myself is to stay inside my own head, in a curved-in universe of my own making. Maybe I, like the horse, wear the blinders so that I can stay perfectly focused on the thing I've deemed most important- my own life. But what if the blinders came off? What would happen to the horse? What would happen to me?

Today, the blinders fell off my chance. I was driving; I had just pulled onto a highway I've driven on a million times, and today I looked all the way down it, from the top of this hill to where it rises up another hill, all the way on the other side of town, and then disappears. Today, it disappeared into fog- a thin, gray mist cascading off the mountain and draping itself over the city like a length of tulle. As I drove down this hill, I could see the lights of tiny cars going up and down the other one, coming south into downtown or going north to pass through the trees and into heavier fog. And in that moment, I was not incurvatus se. I was looking outward, and not just looking, but really seeing. Here was just one of the myriad exquisite trivialities the universe has to offer: this length of winding road that stretches for miles and miles through the  November mist, this vantage point from which you can trace it through a sleepy town to the next horizon.

So to answer the question, when the blinders come off, we see what we've been missing. We see the wonders that our own minds can't even begin to create. We realize that there is more to see than straight ahead into the worries and possible problems of a future we can't know anyway. There is all around: three hundred and sixty degrees of world, waiting to be reveled in.

eucharisteo: day 5. //

{the thief.}

the years pass like a thief in the night. they come and then suddenly they're gone, and it's New Years Eve and then it's Valentine's Day and then it's the Fourth of July and you sit down hard, and you say where did the time go.

sometimes the time passes in a serious of huge, momentous bursts. the thieves get clumsy, and they drop pieces of furniture, and they're still hurrying but they're also making a mess in the process. they're moving everything around, leaving you to pick up the pieces afterwards and realize that you don't even recognize where you are. this can be good or bad, a simple redecoration of your life or a ruinous disaster you'd give anything to reverse. either way, the thieves are gone, and you adjust, and the minutes continue to pass.

but sometimes, time is gentle. the thieves are careful perfectionists who remove only the tiniest things, or leave knock-offs behind them, and you hardly notice. you know they've come and gone, but you can almost forget that there ever was a thief, and that the years ever did pass. but then you really start to look around.

it's the things that change, but also don't, that strike the hardest. I'm constantly waking up to the shocking realization of how much my life has changed. the little six-year-old with the sun-soaked blonde hair, as she plunged into a new adventure in a little town in Idaho, would wake up one day, 12 years later, to find herself still here, yet in a completely different world. in a world where the babies she used to hold have become teenagers, and the fields she used to sled on have been built up, and the NSA students that taught her and played with her as a little girl are coming back for their ten-year reunion, and now she's the student, and someday that will be her. and the movie about courtship whose premier she sat in a theater seat and watched, lo those many years ago, is an ancient video-cassette being watched by her college classmates. and the thief knocks the books off the shelves, and leaves you reeling.

but this is the glory. this is the reality of life: that so often, the passage of time happens in such small increments, and so gently, that you hardly know what's happened. because in reality, as the thief goes about his business, you go about yours as well. you age, and mature, and change. the blond hair of the little girl becomes darker and darker, the teeth get straightened, the clothes are bought and replaced a million times over. the student becomes the teacher, the little girl playing in the back rooms of the college becomes the frazzled co-ed taking oral finals on the same floor. the furniture is moved and replaced and sometimes we wake up shocked at just how much, and we remember the way it looked before, but this is good too. it was time for a change of decoration anyway.

eucharisteo: day four. //

{taking to the road.}

for the past few days, wanderlust has been striking me hard.

I feel like someone with a terminal disease, given a month to live. I feel like there are a million places I want to see, a million grounds I want to walk on, a million pictures I want to take. maybe it's the summer air, the fresh smell every morning that beckons... whispering in my ear that this free time, this ability to just get in my car and drive, will be gone soon enough. in two short months, I'll be back to the books, chained once again to a Latin book and a brick school building and the million and a half commitments that September will bring.

that beckoning, the sudden realization that the everlasting summer may just be waning, is all I need. I turn the key in the ignition and pull out of my driveway. I pick someplace within reasonable distance, sacrificing my gas money to the hungry gods of the highway and the river and the coffee shops I've never been to.

there is nothing quite like spontaneously going somewhere different and interesting. I thrive on the feeling that I'm somewhere I've never been before. somehow, I manage to be both a creature of habit and a creature that eats up new experiences, new terrain, new memories. maybe it really is mostly about the memories- the feeling that I am doing something, right now, that I will remember, that's not something I've done a million times. I'm not at Bucer's again. I'm standing in the calm ebb and flow of the shallows of this lake. I'm driving through a canyon. I wouldn't remember another cup of coffee. but I'll probably remember this.

I guess the thanksgiving is for a lot of things. first, for the time to do these things. time is precious, it really is, and I take it for granted too often.

second, for the places themselves: God grants scenery, and cool towns, and nature. the world could all just be one boring, uniform place where everything looks the same, but it's not. by His Grace, it's full of things to be seen and touched and done.

third, and perhaps most importantly, for the very joy of wandering. for the pleasure we get when we take a turn in the road and see something we've never seen before. for the way it feels to do something different, and not even see it coming.

God gives us a life full of surprises, of twists in the road, of a sense of freedom and a sense of urgency, sometimes both at once. He gives us new eyes and hungry eyes that want to see His world, and that want to see it now, because maybe we can do it tomorrow, and maybe we can't, and memories have to be made.

eucharisteo: day three. //

 

{Bucer's. Late June. 8 PM.}

This is specific, yes, but that's because it needs to be. Bucer's exists in two different spheres, alternately filled with two completely different crowds. There's the August-May crowd. The school crowd. The studious stressers, the procrastinators, the true believers who refuse to acknowledge the fact that Bucer's & legitimate studying are mutually exclusive. You can walk in with the best of intentions, of course. Laptop in one hand, Calvin in the other, determined to "sit at a table in the back" and "hunker down" and "just tell people I'm here to study and I can't talk." I admire these people for their self-confidence, but it just doesn't happen. And that's okay. It's the charm of the school-year sphere of Bucer's- the fact that you can't walk in without seeing 12 million of your classmates and friends around every corner.

In the summer, this place slips into a different dimension. Tonight, there's music. And there are people here, but they're of a completely different ilk. These are townies, the type of people I've become accustomed to growing up here. In fact, when it comes right down to it, I'm a townie myself.

In many ways, I feel left behind. The fact that I no longer see countless beloved faces every time I walk into Bucer's is mildly sad. I miss the daily little interactions, the busyness, the chatter that resounds within these cozy brick walls.

But on the other hand, I relish this little secret I have all to myself. I am one of the lucky few who knows the sweetness of sitting at the long table on a warm June night, sipping Americanos & savoring Key Lime Pie in the heart of summer. I see Bucer's in both its worlds, as a student-haven and as a midsummer's gathering place. I walk through it in hurried stress and in relaxed, sun-induced peace of mind. My experiences in this place are widely varied. I ate Bucer's famous old Giant Cookies as a seven-year-old, and I sit here now, sipping iced tea, as a grown-up. I've seen twelve Moscow summers, and, year after year, I walk the sun-soaked streets of this town long after everyone else has left.

cheers to this unique perspective I've been gifted with, this firsthand knowledge of the good & the bad of this town, year around. cheers to many more summer days spent in this place, missing the faces of the migrators I love, but relishing the flair of the ones who stick around, the ones like me.

cheers to being one of the few in Bucer's at 8 PM in late June. I wouldn't trade it.

 

eucharisteo: day 2. //

{the Indian Hills.}

I take this view for granted often. I wake up in the morning, yawning as I pass the French doors that look out to the south. I glance at the hills, at the green and the gold and the trees that stipple them, and I glance away. This is home, 12 years at the edge of civilization, 12 years looking out at crests of wheat & peas & ridges that stretch to the horizon. By now, this is commonplace.

And yet, it really isn't. And sometimes, my stupor of blind eyes & ungratefulness is interrupted. My eyes open, truly, and I see the glory. The stretches of hills that Lewis and Clark saw with virgin eyes two centuries ago, witnessing for the first time the terrain of the Nez Perce, rolling expanses unlike anything else they had ever seen. They came, saw, & marveled. And so I do, on occasion. I pass the French doors, do a double-take, snap a picture.

May my taking-for-granted cease, and true wonder at what my eyes behold take its place, filling me daily with the happiness that comes with looking at something unnecessarily, gratuitously beautiful.

eucharisteo: day one. //

{dusk.}

Tonight, 9:00 PM. I walk outside, into the summer cool of the air, smelling the dryness of the fields and the dampness of the grass. I patter down the steps leading from the back deck down to the yard, relishing the feel of the bottoms of my feet against the rough steps, and then the bricks of the pathway, and then the sharp bark. Only a little bit of light remains: it dusts the horizon to my left gold and pink, only an afterthought of the bright afternoon retiring to the west. Sole occidente. A heavy, zoom-lensed camera swings against my chest as I tiptoe, because I find stark depth-of-field soul-satisfying. I spot the bush of blush-pink peonies growing on the stone wall in front of me. I lift, put the view-finder to my right eye, rotate my fingers on the cylinder of the manual focus. Squint. Balance the weight of the camera against my arm, shooting into the disappearing sun, lens yearning for the last drops of light. Blur is the deadliest casualty of shooting without flash at night, but I'll take what I can get. The dusk is gracious, giving its last bits of gold to me, in my white pajamas, standing in the grass, smelling the peonies, smelling of them. The light fades as it always does, in an instant, the blush-pink of the flowers enveloped into the summer night.

thanks be to God for the simplicity of dusk, the peaceful ending of the day that reminds us that darkness fades in and out; that because Christ conquered death and made it His, it does not last, and it is always tempered with a beauty all its own.

eucharisteo.

I'm three and a half chapters into Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts. I started it yesterday, eager for something new and challenging to sink my teeth into. As a person who, probably like most on the planet, struggles daily to maintain an attitude of thankfulness and contentment, I thought this might hold some valuable wisdom for me.

I was right.

In a nutshell, her challenge is to chronicle every little thing you realize you love, daily. To see what God has given, to appreciate it, and to thank Him for it. She calls it a "dare," and it is. The truest love dare there is. A dare to see the love God bestows, every minute, seemingly inconsequential detail of it, and love it back, and give thanks. Eucharisteo.

I've thought a lot about what it means to live a sacramental life, to bleed the love and joy of my salvation just as Christ did for me, and here- a very real, visceral way of demonstrating it, of bleeding it in thanksgiving. 

I want to bleed beautifully. He spoke beauty into being in poetry and song, and He calls us to do as He does: to use the words He has given to magnify His gifts, to "give them back to God."

So here I go. I hope to magnify through my meager speech, as much as I can, what God bestows daily. The small. The taken-for-granted. Because it is when we start to acknowledge that they mean something, something truly incredible and unimaginable, that we become overwhelmed by their significance, washed over by their beauty and import.

Here's to being overwhelmed, over and over again, day after day, year after year.

Soli gratias deo.

the silent lover. //

 

"A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job."

-Father Robert Farrar Capon

 

there are many things we learn to do as we get older.

we receive different responsibilities, we take on different challenges, and we change, or are changed, by a constantly maturing worldview.

 

in the case of Christians, sanctification is responsible for all of that.

as Christ shapes our hearts for Him, we grow up.

we receive callings, and passions, and roles.

 

but perhaps most importantly, we receive new eyes.

we begin to see the world the way He wants us to see it.

like little children experiencing everything for the first time,

He removes the scales from our eyes,

and we look around in wonder, new wonder,

at everything.

 

this is one of God's most magnificent graces:

this ability to look around us and see the world, His world,

as our world,

our gift.

 

there are two possible responses to this gift.

we can deny it, or simply fail to see it.

we can go on living our lives as "Christians" with no passion-

no joyous sense of being not just receivers, but loved children.

we can passively see the world through glazed-over eyes,

repeating the Apostle's Creed dully to ourselves,

but not truly acknowledging that Christ is our Maker and our Father.

 

or,

we can take our greatest joy, our greatest passion,

in looking at the world through new eyes,

children's eyes,

and seeing with every new morning what our Father has done for us.

we can say the Apostle's Creed

and truly understand that Christ is Maker of Heaven and Earth:

this earth.

the one with roses and green grass

and light, warm winds that rustle oak leaves.

the earth with so many beautiful things

that don't need to be here, that aren't crucial to our life-form in any way,

but that He gives to us

simply because He wants to.

 

this is our gift of sanctification.

it is the ability to see the world the way He sees it.

to love it the way He loves it,

and to love it loudly and exuberantly.

 

we cannot be silent lovers

because He is not a silent God.

through everything around us,

every simple unnecessary mercy,

He proclaims

"Look."

and so we, with our new eyes,

look indeed.

within sight of the finish line. //

 

On a hot day last August, in the midst of the insane death-match of freshman orientation known as Prologus,

the newborn NSA freshman class sat in the uncomfortably warm Nuart Theatre,

our freshman advisor standing on the stage in front of us.

We were utterly terrified.

 

We had just been given our first assignment of the year,

and the 200 page book we had been told to read for our first lecture the following Tuesday stared at us like a bad omen.

I can almost guarantee that every single freshman, while furiously (but ineffectively) speed-reading was wondering what the heck they had gotten themselves into.

 

So there we sat, next to people who seemed weird and whom we never thought we'd learn the names of, let alone like.

Our freshman advisor, pacing back and forth on the stage, told us this:

 

Freshman Year is like a race.

It will be long and hard, and there will be many, many times when you want to give up.

There will be days when you feel like you can't do it any more.

 

Callings aren't easy to follow.

But if this is your calling, 

run the race,

and run it well.  

 

We're now two weeks away from the finish line.

 

We've been through four terms,

almost four finals weeks,

eight term papers

and more books than we care to count.

 

Nearing the end of the race,

we can look back on where we've been

and how far we've come,

and laugh and smile (and maybe cry) about everything that's happened.

 

That stage, the one our advisor stood on when he told us how hard it was going to be?

Each of us has gotten up there 27 separate times

and given stupid, funny, embarrassing, awkward speeches to our classmates,

speeches that turned us from classmates into friends

(sometimes friends that know more about each other than we'd like).

 

That freshman advisor, who also happens to be our Theology professor?

We know that he raises his eyebrows when he makes a point,

and that he loves cough drops,

and that he sees the love of God in everything,

and that he will throw students out of his office for not knowing

the bibliography format in Turabian.

 

The funny thing is,

at the beginning of the race,

we had no idea where we were going.

The path ahead of us was dark,

and filled with obstacles that we weren't sure we'd be able to overcome.

 

Thankfully, as we ran,

the Lord lit our way.

He lit lanterns for us late at night

while we read big books

and struggled through Latin.

 

In His grace,

He gave us respite,

and downhill slopes,

and time to breathe and appreciate the view.

 

There's one more slope ahead. Just one. And so much beauty and sweat and joy behind

that I almost want to run it all over again.

Almost.

 

"Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,

 the Author & Finisher of our faith."

-Hebrews 12:1-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

filter

let me see the world, Lord,
through the filter of your love.

the days
and nights.
the clear, sun-infused summers
and the long, frozen winters.
the times of triumph
and the times of weakened despair

when the flowers bloom
and when they fade
for life
as well as death
are for your glory
and your purpose.

my cup runneth over
with the sweet water of your blessing
and  it will fill me
so that I am never empty.

culturing //

"Culture is an outworking of our most deeply-held beliefs. It is religion externalized."

-Joshua Appel

 

everybody wants to be a culture-shaper.

Everyone wants to leave their mark on the world and influence those around them. As Christians, we are especially encouraged toward this. We look at the Great Commission, or the Cultural Mandate, & we immediately see a grand opportunity before us.

This is our chance, we think, to shake up secularism.

This is our excuse to go into their world and take dominion.

 

but what if that's not the only way to shape culture?

What if we can shape it just by following our calling?

 

God calls us to live in this world in different ways. He gives us different paths, and different responsibilities. He created each of us with unique gifts, and He gives us those gifts so that we might use them.

 

He also gives us different loves. He gives us passions--

the things that make our eyes light up, the things that give us joy. The things that we can bestow upon the world as evidence of His faithfulness.

 

what if that's the best way to shape culture?

To live relationally in a relational world,

using our whole lives to shine the light of what we love and who God has made us to be on others?

What if we were to merely follow our calling, take the gifts and joys and delights God has given us

and give them, in turn, to everyone we meet?

 

"A man skilled in his work will stand before kings."

 

we are Christians. We are God's chosen people, living in His world.

Everything we do in Him, in His joy, in His love, is faithful culture-shaping.

If we do what He has called us to, what He has made our hearts sing for,

He will use it.

a sweet perfume

the world smelled incredible today.

amid weeks and weeks of sub-freezing temperatures (and even some single digits), I had forgotten what the earth actually smelled like. I had forgotten the fragrance of the dirt, and wet streets, and thawed air. Today, standing on a street corner, it was like a new awakening. All of a sudden, as the 5 o'clock setting sun shone warm on my face, I smelled it all. With 50 degree weather came everything I'd been missing for so long.

it's these little specks of grace that startle me sometimes. Here I was, waiting to cross a street, ready to get in my car and drive home, just like any other afternoon. But this time, God woke me up a little bit. He showered on me another remembrance of His love, reminding me that in this gift of a universe, there is not only sunshine and warmth and glistening snow and majestic clouds, but also a sweet perfume in everything- right down to the dirt from which we were created.

He is too good to me, to us. But I guess that's the point.

 

a good night.

When all is said and done, the things you remember from college are not the studies. The things you remember are the good times. The fellowship, the food, the people you love.

You remember beautiful, shining winter nights, as snow falls lightly from the skies. You remember slippery drives back & forth through town, and sitting pressed together in warm restaurant booths with your friends. You remember skating on clear ice, under fluorescent lights, and spinning in circles until you collapse in dizzy laughter. You remember Elizabeth taking pictures and Annie asking with smiling eyes "Am I doing this right?" as she shows you her spin. You remember cold fingers, and clouds of breath, and scrambling to turn the heat on in frozen cars. You remember going to sleep with a happy heart, thanking God for his gifts.

What a blessing this place & these people are.

a moment

a little bit of my own poetry. //

a moment

 

Let me stand here, a moment

Gazing with near-unseeing eyes

Let me imbibe the way you look

The way you feel, the way you smell

Let me memorize this flash of an instant

Because I know

With our lives moving forward at a light year’s pace

Even if we move together, which is doubtful

We’ll never be here, again

Implanted in the earth, immovable bodies

With the world spinning around us, love drunk.

 

 

Love Bade Me Welcome

love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back//
guilty of dust and sin.//
but quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack//
from my first entrance in,//
drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning//
if I lacked anything.

"a guest," I answered, "worthy to be here,"//
Love said, "you shall be he."//
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear//
I cannot look on Thee."//
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply//
"who made the eyes, but I?"

"truth Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame//
go where it doth deserve."//
:and know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"//
"my dear, then I will serve."//
"you must sit down," says Love, "and taste My meat."//
so I did sit and eat.

-Love Bade Me Welcome, by George Herbert

Herbert does such an incredible job of personifying the guilty, ashamed sinner in the presence of His God. Here we see the deep significance of Christ's redemption in bringing us to the Table, and reconciling us with our Lord, the ultimate Host. None of us is worthy, save that He Who created us make us once again fit to be with Him. It is the most perfect gift to be at the Feast of the Lamb, at which Christ is both Food and Feeder.