It's Been a Really Looong Time...

It's been a really long time since I posted anything on this blog. I had pretty much given up on it. What, with taking on new teaching duties and adopting the cutest baby in the world, I've had little time for such superfluous activities. But, hey, here I am taking some steps back into the blogosphere.

I thought I would re-christen this weblog by posting a copy of the poem that inspired its name. It captures, I think, the single most common theme running through the lives of all men and women and children: limitation.

I was reminded the other day of why this fact of life is of such interest to me when I was listening to some old radio interviews with Rich Mullins. In one of them, he points out that that most blessed of gifts we have been given, friendship, is not a cure for loneliness: that even in the most intimate moments with an Other, there is something undone, something not-yet-united, something incomplete. This absence, or lack, is always there lurking underneath all the fluttering emotions and the activities of the glands (a la Faulkner) that often accompany our many and varied experiences--including friendship. It's that lack, which works itself out into a holy "restlessnesse" (see the poem below), that is central to this blog.

As Herbert depicts below, we are body and spirit, and though these two forces are meant to live in harmony, they often are at odds. Moreover, though the Incarnation reaffirms our life in the body, we will never, in this age of the "inaugurated eschaton" (thanks, NT Wright, for that apt term), find rest-wholeness-unity in its complete and final form. This blog is borne out of that restlessness and the urge it creates to continue to explore God's wonderful (literally) world, looking for signs of wholeness, beauty, truth--signposts of that wholeness to come--even in the midst of darkness and brokenness--especially in the midst of the darkness and brokenness.

So, one of the signposts I hope to continue exploring on this blog is art in all its forms: poetry, prose, music, painting, design, etc. The postings may be sparse, but I plan to at least be "faithful" (wow, that feels silly--faithful to a blog).

Enjoy and see you 'round the 'sphere.

THE PULLEY.
WHEN God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can :
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way ;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure :
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse :
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.

~ George Herbert