Baby Rock Climbing!! :D

We are born to climbWe are born to climb
Posted by I love climbing on Saturday, February 27, 2016

Victimae Paschali

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi, miserere nobis
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi, miserere nobis
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Agnus Dei ... This is the sound resonating throughout all creation. Not just the human heart: in unison, this is the sound of creation's groan: Agnus Dei ... 

Have mercy
Creation groans  
Give us peace 

For this is the still point of the turning world: at the reconciling center of the shattered world lies misericordia, the peace-bringing mercy of a Lamb who stands slain at the world's foundation.

And this is what creation groans for, and this is the source of its cry.

The lament is a song. The plea is adoration: for the Lamb stands at the center. The harmony is mounting, growing more piercing; it will not be stopped, for he is its source. Listen: can you hear it?

Creation sings: Agnus Dei ... Agnus Dei,  you are the source, from whence we came and to which we return, you, reconciling us before we knew our fault, you, taking up our lament and becoming the source of our song, you the beauty before all ages, the beauty piercing all, in all and through all: you, Agnus Dei. You take away the sins of the world: great is your beauty.

Agnus Dei, you stand at the center of the world, and we long for you, and we adore you, for you are our heartbeat.

The God become man has within himself gathered trembling and wounded creation, taking us into himself so that out of him we may be born, radiant again. The lament has become the alleluia: for he made our lament his, and made our lament his glory.

Oh redeemed mankind: arise! For you are crowned; you are priests of the eternally-reconciling Lamb, you, high images of Him so that creation's song might find it repose and glory. Do not desecrate your holiness! Here is the weight of glory: terrible, splendid, borne in full measure by the Lamb, bestowed in mercy on you and thence to all creation. Rise to his worship, and lead creation in its ever-growing groans as He has commissioned you:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi, miserere nobis
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi, miserere nobis
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatta mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Is it a phantasm, the thing that vanishes when grasped?
Do the voices of others' hearts drum up the fantasy?
Here the paradox:
Temet nosce cannot be ignored
Yet fain would its call be answered.

I name myself and find
Another on my lips or heart
Here the intersection:
Desire and desire -- both true,
Yet not the same.

Their nearness makes me fear;
Their goodness will not let me forget.
And here the question:
Who will dare to tread the inner Sanctuary,
But who can turn away?

Lament

What will deliver us from the cold empty heaviness within our breasts?
The weightlessness with which the human spirit upwards soars, full to bursting with life,
The very next moment encounters the dark and dank and deathly,
The empty, shameful, lonely.
And the soul that one minute before would have sung endless praises to the Sun
Now sits, stammering, helpless, desperate, hurting, needy,
Ashamed and angry, grieved and afraid--

--As different as heavy, blood-tangy metal (without blood's warmth)
Is different from a rose in first bloom, opening outward.
Yet even the rose has thorns.
What, then? Is this our fate: does every joy have a sorrowful twin,
Every comfort a corresponding pain?

What response shall we make to the outraged heart,
Whose love is ravaged by shards of broken spirit cast from its beloved?

New Blog!

While I will still be posting periodically on this blog, I have recently created a new blog where I hope to post my musings on my faith and the life of Christians. Check it out! http://catholicprotestant.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html

Sacred Silence (For Advent)

Here within the sacred silence

heavy with the weight of grief

shrouded in the dark of night

we, the captive souls await

illumined by a solitary light.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel!

Within barren breast yet still hope beats

a fragrance sweet will grace us, furtively

barely noticed, grasped, and gone,

waiting here, we stay our hearts

in sacred silence.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel!

Ears that never truly heard

heavy with the weight of silence

waiting now for silence broken:

Silence sacred awaits it consummation.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel!

Darkness, you will meet with death by Dawn.

Our Life has come.

Rejoice: Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Clockwork Captive

I wrote this a few months ago, and I can't really take full credit for the image I use. It's taken straight out of a movie called Mirrormask, but it fit what I was trying to say too well to be ignored. It's not a very refined piece since I wrote it all at once. Anyway, take it as it is. The thought is mine, if the image isn't.

Surrounded and covered in so much more than living flesh--
The child that no longer was a child,
A simple and profound beauty, hidden beneath layers,
The childlike trust and stubborn love obscured and suffocated.
How can her living soul breathe beneath the heavy golden mask?

The child, her infant days giving way to full flower of youth
Torn from innocence because of a foolish step
Taken captive to a dark kingdom where she stays
Made an impostor, hypnotized and seduced into deception
And her dark nurses, crooning lullabies,
Making of her a living corpse
And she sits still, in their grip,
Not herself, yet somewhere hidden deep within.

She is no longer recognizable for the carefree maiden
The one that would gather flowers and give strong advice to a coward
She is a slave to the dead kingdom
Like clockwork, everyone moves the same
Glamour is not beauty, but everyone there pretends it is.

Somewhere inside her there is a struggle
Sometimes a glimmer of that little maiden breaks forth
The dead eyes lose their cold glint and come to life
A tear sometimes falls
But the kingdom wants no letting her go

And she is not strong, not is her confidence strong in a savior
Else she might cry out until her voice had gone
Despite the bruises her captors inflict,
Despite the many times she is brought under them again.
But this is a dark battle, and she is wanted here
To stay, like clockwork
A strange compliment to a dim world
Somehow, perhaps, it finds perverse beauty in owning the remnant of innocence.

And she lets go of hope, time and time again, though she had given a cry
Though the savior has pushed his way through the brambles outside
And never stops coming for her at the sound of her voice
But she is captive to a dark spell
And she cannot bring herself to break it--
Cannot bring herself to break the searing and mesmerizing gaze of her clockwork captors.
Is it beautiful?

Perhaps the profundity of their ugliness mimicks beauty
Perhaps the strange light here makes her fear the bold light of the upper kingdom
Perhaps she cannot face the horror of her captivity
But finds it easier to sink back down into painfully sweet hypnosis
For somehow the embrace of despair is less frightening then.

But if she will be free, she must look her captors in the face
Not as clockwork companions, but as monsters
She must hate the monstrous shell they have made around her
That she has come to call herself
She must refuse to be consoled until the savior breaks the throne
And shatters the darkness around her.
The clockwork will fall to pieces,
And she, naked but living, weak but taking in strength, can step forth.

This is a dark battle, fought against a dark lord.
Only life and light can shatter the clockwork darkness of death.