Recession

To put your minds at ease, this is not a post about the economy. I am talking about the recession of thoughts back into the deep recesses of my mind. (Where else would things recess into but recesses?)

I am speaking of a poem that was lingering about in my mind just not ready to come out, no, just not yet. I had mentioned not long ago that I felt it coming on.

And now it is gone. Into hiding. It lays buried deep in my mind if it exists at all anymore. If it ever existed in the first place.

For those of you who would think it strange that I would even write something I would try to pass off as a poem. I have done it before. Here. Here. And here. Not to mention here and here. I think there is one other somewhere else, I just cannot find it right now. Wait a minute, here it is, I found it.

Not very good, but there they are. What troubles me is not the loss of the poem (OK, a little), but the fact that I can lose a grasp on a thought, one I was sure was there but now is lost. (For once I saw, but now I am blind? Does not make a good hymn lyric.)

It is gone for now. So be it. I wonder if it will come back, but if it does, will I even recognize as the thoughts I had from before? Or will it all seem so new to me? I guess I have to be glad my faith is not like the rest of my thought process. It is there and is not going anywhere.

It occurs to me that the reason for that is simple: my thought process is man-made. My faith was wrought by God, and woven into my very fabric. The man-made is fleeting, temporal, passing. The God wrought is eternal, spiritual, lasting. The two are not comparable, because God is incomparable. The reason for it is not understandable because a divine being is incomprehensible to a finite mind. We cannot understand Him fully, maybe we are just better off writing poems about Him instead. In addition to praying to Him and worshiping Him that is.

I may just have to write a poem about all that one day.

George Swinnock

I have recently read some excerpts from the writings of George Swinnock called Trading and Thriving in Godliness. I found it an enjoyable and easily understandable read, not always the case with 17th century Puritans. While I enjoyed the whole book, there was one particular section that stood out for me, three excerpts from his book, Christian's Man's Calling, which is entitled The Value of Godliness. These excerpts all bear in their title the word great. here are a few of Swinnock's thoughts:

• Our Great End - Now the great end to which man is designed by God, is the exercising himslef to godliness...Man is made of glass, to represent the perfections that are in God. A glass can receive the beams of the sun into it, and reflect them back again to the sun.
• Our Great Weight - Now godliness is, amongst all man's works, of greatest weight...We must say of this work of Christianity, compared with all other works, what David said of Goliath's sword, "There is none like it;" (1 Samuel 21:9), this is soul-work, this is God-work, this is eternity-work, and therefore of greatest weight, and requireth us all to make it our business; such blows as these three are, one would think, might force fire out of flint.
• Our Great Reward - The reward of godliness is of infinite worth, the end of holiness (as of hope) is the salvation of the soul, the eternal immediate enjoyment of God in heaven...And can we think the God of nature will give men to know him, as they are known of him...while they lie lazying on the bed of idleness?

So much more here, but just a taste towhet the appetitie of the inquisitive. He is our great end, our great reward, and worth the great weight we carry through this life, but which we only succeed in shouldering with His infinite assistance.