Why read poetry? 

  "The great tendency and purpose of poetry is to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; to lift it into a purer element; and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of early feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on a future life." 

William Ellery Channing.   

  Let the church ask itself, which would please its Master best,  

Teaching some ignorant child the way of life, or going to hear a great sermon – visiting and consoling some poor mourner, or going to a prayer meeting – stirring up some weak soul to duty, or seeking for an hour of emotional excitement – going to meeting always, or laboring occasionally for the reclamation of some sad wanderer from the path of virtue?

Timothy Titcomb

 

What is a home? 

"Is it merely a place where fellow-morals meet to eat, drink, and sleep securely beneath a roof? A house is reared to be a HOME: the center where a Family may gather into one; to be a serene retreat, where the tenderest affections may find rest; and within its walls love may have a dwelling place, and the charities of life gain ample scope and happiness; that parents and children may there press one another heart to heart; that sorrows and joys may be freely shared in confidence; that troubled spirits may unburden themselves, and be blessed with pardon and peace; and, in a word, that the great work of training human beings for the duties of the present life and the perfection of another may be begun and carried on." Channing. 

 

"The only power to oppose evil is love. Miserable indeed will your position be if this spirit does not possess you.  

Nothing but Christ's spirit, that which carried Him to His cross, can carry you through your work. This spirit will touch the heart which has hardened itself against all other influences. It will pierce the conscience. It will say to the reckless transgressor, in the only language he can understand, that he is not an outcast from his race; and it will reveal to the desponding sufferer a love higher than your own, and bring back his lost faith in God." William Ellery Channing.

   I hear countless stories about loving Grandparents that reared a Grandchild when the parents were absent because of some tragedy or crisis. They stepped in and took over as mothers, providers, confidants, spiritual leaders, or just to be a shoulder to cry on.   

I see in this photo a devoted Granddaughter whose Grandmother was unable to attend her wedding because of her feeble condition; but this Grandchild broke away at some point on her wedding day to share with her beloved Grandmother.   

 

"And in secret You will make wisdom known to me." Ps. 51:8

  When we quiet our self and set aside a time devoted to God alone, we will most often find He speaks there, and most often through His word. No doubt He will speak through Pastors and the brethren, but like Emerson so eloquently says, they are like --

  "Like a bird which alights nowhere, but hops perpetually from bough to bough, is the Power and Voice of God, which abides in no man and in no woman, but for a moment speaks from this one, and for another moment, from that one."   

 

 

 

  

"They came for condiments, not for corn." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  I was reading some of Emerson's essays today and this line struck me:  "They came for condiments, not for corn." People, in general, look to the shallows, few want to discover what lies beneath the surface: few care to search the souls of others, but rather, like this quote implies, they prefer to pick through the condiments and disregard the corn; or, to put it another way, they relish the gravy but not the meat. This has so many applications; certainly it's true in the romantic arena; and equally, in the spiritual: where they will listen to you if they hear some clever or novel thought, but as soon as they determine you no longer entertain them, or affirm, or concern them, they leave. 

  "Therefore, this is what the Lord says: “If you return, then I will restore you— You will stand before Me; And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman."

In this life we will face many great sorrows, some caused by others, and some we cause ourselves. There is no way to avoid all failings and sorrows. And each of us will do things that are "worthless" or have things happen to us. But the promise gives us our answer, "return to Him, and restoration will come", we are to extract the precious from the worthless and make the best use of what remains."

 

All through the Bible we are taught to "flee",  From Potiphar's wife, Sodom, idolatry, sexual sin and on it warns. When we yield and stick our nose where it doesn't belong....... well, the photo needs little interpretation.

 "Seeing the people, Jesus felt compassion for them..." Mt. 9:36

 I like that Jesus "felt" compassion. He "felt love" for the rich young ruler, and He felt compassion and love as he "wept" over Jerusalem. Many times we are told about the emotions of Jesus as we read about His words and actions. Jesus wasn't dispensing truth and healing out of duty being the Savior. He showed us that we are to be personally involved with the needy of the world. We are to pray with them, console their sorrows, share in their griefs, we are to "feel" for them. 

"And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them." Mark 10:16

Any Gospel that lacks emotion is but a husk of Christian truth. 

 

 "One of the most common vindications of God's love is found in the fact that, as much as humans suffer, they enjoy more. We are told that there is a great balance of pleasure over pain, and that it is by what prevails in a system that we must judge of its author. This view is by no mens to be overlooked. 

It is substantially true. There is a great excess of enjoyment, of present good, in life. The pains of sickness may indeed be intenser than the pleasures of health, but health is the rule and sickness the exception. A few are blind, or deaf, or speechless; but almost all of us maintain through the open eye and ear, a perpetual communication with nature and with one another. Some may be broken down with excessive toil; but to the great mass of humanity, labor is healthful, and invigorating and gives a zest to repose, and to the common blessings of life. We all suffer more or less from our connection with imperfect people; but how much more good comes to us from our social nature, from the sympathies and kind offices of family, friends, neighbors, than of pain caused by those who want to do us wrong. The world is not a hospital or an alms house, nor a dungeon. A beautiful sun shines on it. Flowers and fruits deck its fields. A reviving atmosphere encompasses it." Channing. 

Rev. Dr. Tuckerman

   

     Discourse on the life and character of the Rev. Dr. Tuckerman

  "Having laid a good foundation by study, an unerring instinct taught him that study was not his vocation. His heart yearned for active life. He became more and more penetrated with the miseries and crimes of the world. As he sat in his lonely study, the thought of what men endured on the land and the sea withdrew him from his books. He was irresistibly attracted towards his fellow-man, by their sufferings, and still more, by a consciousness that there was something great beneath their sufferings, by a sympathy with their spiritual needs.

In a favored hour the thought of devoting himself to the service of the poor of this city entered his mind, and met a response within which gave it the character of a Divine monition. So deep was the sympathy, so intense the interest, which the poor excited in him, that it seemed as if a new fountain of love had been opened within him. This was no blinding enthusiasm. He saw distinctly the vices which are often found among the poor, their craft, and sloth, and ingratitude. His ministry was carried on in the midst of their frequent filth and recklessness. The coarsest realities pressed him on every side. These were not the scenes to make an enthusiast. But amidst these he saw, now the fainter signs, now the triumphs, of a divine virtue. it was his delight to relate examples of patience, disinterestedness, piety, amidst the severest sufferings. These taught him that in the poorest hovels he was walking among immortals, and his faith in the divinity within the soul turned his ministry into joy. 

  Much of this success was undoubtedly due to his singleness of heart; but much, also, to his clear insight into the principles of human nature which rendered the poor open to good influences, and into the means by which human beings in their condition maybe most effectually approached. And this shows his insight into the temptations, perils, and hearts, of the depressed and indigent; and, whilst exposing their errors and sins, he breathed a never-failing sympathy. 

It is easy to see in these that the great principle which animated his ministry was an immovable faith in God's merciful purposes towards the poor. Their condition, never for a moment, seemed to him to separate them from their Creator. On the contrary, he felt God's presence in the narrow comfortless dwelling of the poor as he felt it nowhere else.  

  His perpetual recognition of the spiritual, immortal nature of the poor, gave to all his intercourse a character of tenderness and respect. He spoke to them plainly, boldly, but still as to the children of the same infinite Father. He trusted in man's moral nature, however bruised and crushed; he was sure that no heart could resist him, if he could but convince it of his sincere brotherly concern. He always spoke encouragingly. He felt that the weight under which the poor man's spirit was already sinking needed no addition from the harshness of his spiritual guide. He went forth in the power of brotherly love, and found it a divine armor. 

He taught us that men in the most unpromising conditions, are to be treated as men; that under coarse jackets, and even rags, may be found tender and noble hearts; and that the heart, even when hardened, still responds to the voice of a true friend and brother. He was indeed too wise a man to give them an abstract form, or speak in technical language. His words were steeped in his heart before they found their way to his lips; and flowing warm and fresh from this fountain, they were drunk in as living waters by the thirsty souls of the poor. 

  A great secret of Dr. Tuckerman's success lay in his strong interest in individuals. It was not in his nature to act on masses by general methods; he threw his soul into individual cases. Every sufferer whom he visited seemed to awaken in him a special affection and concern. He made the worst feel that they had a friend, and by his personal interest linked them anew with their race. 

  Let me add another explanation of his success. He sought for something to love in all; he seized on anything good which might remain in the fallen spirit; on any domestic affection, any generous feeling, which might have escaped the wreck of character. If he could but touch one chord of love, one tender recollection of home, one feeling of shame or sorrow for the past, no matter how faintly, he rejoiced and took courage, like the good physician who, in watching over the drowned man, detects a flutter of the pulse, or the feeblest sign of life. His hope in such cases tended to fulfill itself. His tones awakened a like hope in the fallen. "He did not break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax."  

William Ellery Channing; photo by Cedric Hayes, on the streets of Portland Or. 

 

  "If I were asked what strikes me as the greatest evil inflicted by slavery I should say, it is the outrage offered by slavery to human nature. Slavery does all that lies in human power to unmake men, to rob them of their humanity, to degrade men into brutes; and this it does by declaring them to be Property. Here is the master evil. Declare a man a chattel, something which you may own and may turn to your use, as a horse or a tool; strip him of all right over himself, of all right to use his own powers, except what you concede to him as a favor and deem consistent with your own profit; and you cease to look on him as a man. You may call him such; but he is not to you a brother, a fellow-being, a partaker of your nature and your equal in the sight of God. You view him, you treat him, you speak to him, as infinitely beneath you, as belonging to another race. You have a tone and a look towards him which you never use towards a Man. Your relation to him demands that you treat him as an inferior creature. You cannot, if you would, treat him as a Man. That he may answer your end, that he may consent to be a slave, his spirit must be broken, his courage crushed; he must fear you. A feeling of his deep inferiority must be burnt into his soul. The idea of his rights must be quenched in him by the blood of his lashed and lacerated body. Here is the damming evil of slavery; it destroys the spirit, the consciousness of a man. 

I care little, in comparison, for his hard outward lot, his poverty, his unfurnished house, his coarse fare; the terrible thing in slavery is the spirit of a slave, the extinction of the spirit of a man. He feels himself owned, a chattel, a thing bought and sold, and held to sweat for another's pleasure at another's will, under another's lash, just as an ox or horse. Treated thus as a brute, can he take a place among men? A slave! Is there a name so degraded on earth, a name which so separates a man from his kind? And to this condition millions of our race are condemned in the land of liberty."  William Ellery Channing.

  "When one becomes a mother, guilt almost always rears its ugly head. And to be truthful, our lives as humans are filled with mistakes ranging from trivial to catastrophic. But here is the secret about guilt; it is actually pride. Guilt says I could have done better. I should have done better. I am going to be better next time. But that is still self-reliance masquerading as humility. And it paralyzes every one of us if we let it."

Alice Mills , Poema Chronicles. 

Acceptance

Oh to know acceptance

In a feeling sort of way;

To be known for what I am --

Not what I do or say.

It's nice to be loved and wanted

For the person I seem to be,

But my heart cries out to be loved

For the person who is really me!

To be able to drop all the fronts

and share with another my fears,

Would bring such relief to my soul,

Though accompanied by many tears.

When I find this can be done

Without the pain of rejection,

Then will my joy be complete

and feelings towards self know correction.

The past to feeling acceptance of God.

Is paved with acceptance on earth;

Being valued by others I love

Enhances my own feeling of worth.

Oh, the release and freedom He gives

As I behold His wonderful face --

As Jesus makes real my acceptance in Him,

And I learn the true meaning of grace.

A pity it is that so late we find

his love need not be earned;

As we yield to Him all manner of strife

A precious truth has been learned.

Then, as we share with others who search

For love, acceptance, and rest;

They'll find in us the Savior's love.

And experience the end of their quest.

C.R. Solomon