IV. The Beauty of Prayer and Poetry
The entire 61st chapter of Isaiah, which concludes: "For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations."
Every day, each person in the world can experience the heartwarming truth wherein the love of all the goodness in the world is established. Grace upon grace. We all know that every single thing that matters in life has its problems: we are all perplexed by relational problems, spiritual problems, physical and mental problems, social problems, ecological problems, personal and global problems, local and universal problems. The solutions to these problems are sometimes wonderfully simple, and, at other times, the solutions we discover are wonderfully complex. In all of this, as we experience the sorrows and joys of our afflictions and blessings, our mistakes and our triumphs, in all of our experiences in life, there exists the beauty of prayer and poetry.
Prayer and poetry are mysterious and sublime ways in which we praise what it is that matters most to us and what it is that is revealed to us about life and eternity. What in life do you care about most deeply? Take a moment right now to consider what you value most dearly... As Dana Gioia, one of our greatest poets, once said, "The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always." This beautiful line of poetry can help you and me to notice and remember that the revelations and blessings of life are always creating within us a beautiful response of praise.
Prayerful and poetic realizations originate in the paternal and distaff nurturing of all our daughters and sons and grandchildren; when we praise our children, their spirits and their hearts grow! Gioia's wonderful observation about our response to nature unfolds the mysterious way in which we learn about the eternality of love; and here is the brilliant, profound truth wherein all the love of all the goodness in the universe is established: our Heavenly Father teaches us lovingly, kindly and f a i t h f u l l y, and thus we pray; and His creation teaches us b e a u t i f u l l y, and thus we poeticize.
Quite literally, wherever you are, on any given morning, when you behold the dawn's early light, you also experience, with or without knowing it, the stunning brilliant actuality wherein all the love of all goodness arises--and from here, the true miracle of life can be re-preformed: that when we take the time to regard and revere the reflection of radiance in the heart of another person, we participate in the revelation and in the re-creation of beauty--supernatural beauty! and in such reverence, the goodness and timelessness of all love is shown thus: to be flourishing and fragrant for us in every moment of life. In other words, nature teaches us to be loved by (and so to revere) the power of beauty, so that we can carry on the supernatural task of also prayerfully loving not only that which is beautiful, but also that which is not yet necessarily or obviously beautiful. Love Bears All Things within the action of this miracle, as the power of beauty encompasses all things in the omnipotence of Love; Love Truly Believes All Things because love already knows that beauty is truth; and do you know why love hopes all things? Love hopes all things because love remembers that loveliness keeps and fulfills all promises: long after the flower fades, the memory of its perfect perfume remains, and countless myriads and colors of new flowers reopen; Love Endures All Things because in beauty, all things are transformed and renewed, and the essence of love is beauty: "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time." Shakespeare taught us that beauty is love's greatest virtue. The beloved is always mysteriously and miraculously made beautiful; and in all the manifstations of love there is true beauty, like when we notice that the kindness and patience of Love is beautiful. Amazingly, the divine love that humanity experiences in the light of the greatest commandment--the love that we all share in Jesus Christ, (this is the very love that Nancy, LilyAnn, Adalyn and I have experienced)--leads humanity towards all of humankind's holiest dreams and visions, and infinitely and eternally toward God our loving Father ...and toward each other as loving neighbors, through all difficulties, so that we all can give to one another, and experience with God-so-loved-the-world, the beautiful revelation and message of Love and grace and peace, wisdom and faith and righteousness, freedom and joy and hope.
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Prayer is a grace. And poetry is a grace. Revelation is grace upon grace. Earth, in the splendorous power of all of her oceans and rivers, in the beauty of her streams and lakes and ponds and wetlands--and in the lovliness of her glaciers and tundras and deserts and islands and valleys and forests, in the majesty of all of her mountains, storms and seasons, in the spectacular amazing coexistence of her plants and fish and creatures and monsters and critters and bugs and birds; and Earth, in her breath giving garments of atmosphere and clouds, wind and breezes which she wraps around each one of us as we journey together with her through time and eternity; and Earth, when we glimpse and gaze up at her breathtaking crown of outer spaciousness, all bejeweled with Sun and Moon, with constellations and the diadems of endless galaxies--Earth does what she does when we let her teach us just what every other good mother or sister teaches us, and that is: how to be loved and how to love.
By the instruction and tutelage of Nature, we are unforgettably and powerfully and bountifully and beautifully guided to where we will do what she cannot do--so that we can experience the as-it-is-in-heaven miracles of healing and compassion by caring for and consicrating the sick and those who are in need; so that together, we can and will love and praise the supernatural power that peacefully and kindly and righteously unfolds and establishes the future of all of life--this beautiful life we all share. Praise God, life is so beautiful.
May we all--along with our personal and world dreams, our heavenly visions and universal callings--may we all find the way to praise everything that matters in life. Continually and increasingly, let us prayerfully make music and poetry in our hearts; let us persevere and preserve and revere and praise nature and the supernatural presence of Love and Love's beauty, for 'the Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.' 'Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.' 'Grace upon grace.' Poetry matters because love matters, because beauty matters. Poetry does what it does, and right now we need to remember prayer and poetry more than anything else, because in the midst of all the world's problems and opportunities, we desperately and earnestly need to praise what matters most, so that our praises and the beauty of our love will always matter. --Jh 8/9/2016; also, 12/20/2019
L.D./D.V.
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