A Church in Tuscany

The experience you gave me,
My friend,
Showing me the beautiful,
Those ancient lines drawn by
Men long dead
But alive for all they touch my heart
Cannot be repeated
Or given me by another
Never in all time.
To have shown to me
The delight of your eyes,
And have shared with me
This secret knowledge of your heart
What more can man give?
And I will never quite know
How it was that we shared this,
You and I
Eye to eye, and eye to art
This breath taking delight
This golden thought arrested
For eternity in the mind of Elohim.
May heaven contain its shrine
As does my mind for time
And may there bowered be
In those mansions of Elysium
This moment and your hand in mine.

December 28, 2000

Opportunity

Odd, how rejection opens the secret postern door for a midnight walk with the Beloved One. And the things that burn in our breasts with secret fire - unfulfilled longings of the heart or soul - become for us an opportunity to worship Him. To lean into His breast, as John the Beloved did. You've got to love MacDonald, and his metaphors of God clothed in the beauty of the female characters in his fantasies. Exquisitely envisioned. Reminder all again, how the image of God is with us, male and female. And yes, one must agree with Lewis, that we all, as mere creatures, experience the intrusive glory of God as dangerously male. And perhaps this is why women seem drawn to Him more readily than men. But as a man, to see God clothed in beauty, as a woman is, is also to be inexorably fascinated, and to learn to worship, as Keats, in beauty and truth. Perhaps the syphallitic, tubercular romantic will among those we will be astounded to see around the Throne, where many a bishop will go missing. So to Him, the dedication of this secret fast this day.