I will be away for a while...

No Middle Way

 

... choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...Joshua 24:15

C. S. Lewis said this in a 1939 essay, “Learning in War-Time.” Here’s how he explained it:
[Religion] must occupy the whole of life. There is no question of a compromise between the claims of God and the claims of culture, or politics, or anything else. God’s claim is infinite and inexorable. You can refuse it: or you can begin to try to grant it. There is no middle way.
Yet in spite of this it is clear that Christianity does not exclude any of the ordinary human activities. St. Paul tells people to get on with their jobs

Excerpt found here 

As we don the duties
Of another new day
We press toward Heaven,
There is no middle way

On the path of Living
We go, side by side
But at Gates of Heaven
This road will divide

Faith is the substance
Of hope and belief
Life is the highway
To its last relief

We labor together
But choose deep within
The God we will worship
Jehovah or sin

We cannot escape it
Try though we may
When we get to Heaven
There is no middle way...

Janet Martin

Wishing you each a blessed week-end!



 

Power-source

I could not bear

Life’s weight of care

But for the fellowship

Of prayer

I could not face

Life’s grueling race

But for the mercy

Of God’s grace

I could not hope

For Heaven above

But for the goodness

Of God’s love

© Janet Martin

Sacred Sieve

Dark solitude of midnight fills the space

Where dawn has slipped to join all yesterdays

Another day of labor, love and grace

Becomes a picture in thought’s tender gaze

The unknowns of the morn have been unveiled

As hours of daylight flare to fade again

The willingness of Time pours from Love’s grail

In colors mixed according to God’s plan

Heartache and hope in half-breaths synchronize

Faith yearns to touch a Hand we cannot see

But from earth-altars Heaven hears our cries

And comforts those who seek Him earnestly

…and soon the dawn will sweep the dark awry

Another cup of unknowns in Time’s glass

We need not fear; the Painter of the sky

Cradles the sieve through which all colors pass

© Janet Martin

I'm so thankful we cannot see the day's 'colors' in advance...

Of Shorelines...

Here we are once more, once more

Our faces pointed to a shore

We cannot see until That Day

We put mortality away

Life is not futile squandering

Or little bitty wandering

To fall away like petal bloom

And die forever in a tomb

Here a twenty-four hour span

Is called a day in jars of man

But when we pass that Final Shore

No hours chart forevermore

…for then will be eternity

This thought should stir us soberly

How sad to wake beyond that shore

Somehow to have missed Heaven’s door…

© Janet Martin

 Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice,Do not harden your hearts...Ps. 57:6-8

Of Found Treasure

I found it there beneath the air

All sweet and summer-autumn-tossed

I didn’t think that I could spare

This thing that I thought I had lost

The innocence of sun-beam dance

First lured me to its hiding place

And I was sure midst circumstance

It disappeared without a trace

But out beneath the sighing tree

I found it there and I am glad

Life showed me unexpectedly

The Time I didn’t think I had

© Janet Martin

I have not really stopped to enjoy the out-of-doors lately. I dash through it and try to snatch beauty-glimpses on my way, but sometimes we need to STOP and find the beauty! Today felt busy, but when the hydro went out I took  time to stop, feel, listen... When I returned to the house I found myself thinking ‘I need to make up for lost time’ and suddenly I realized I felt so nourished, not by the time I lost, but by the time I found!

 “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”
― C.S. Lewis

 “How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
― Dr. Seuss

 “There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”
― Bill Watterson

Best Room in the 'House'

Its dome is blue, the carpet green

Or bronze or frosted silver sheen

There are no walls to fence us in

No dusting and no vacuuming

A theater where, from front-row

We marvel at each season-show

Sunrise, sunset, the view is free

From doorways vaulting to the sea

No ‘don’t touch this and don’t sit there’

No sticky fingerprinted air

Its welcome mat rolls to the sky

Beneath soft vesper-lullaby

Here, with our tea we linger long

And listen to Time’s perfect song

Intoned by zephyr, bird and bloom

In nature’s grandiose living-room

© Janet Martin

Guilt-free Indulgence

It is not wrong to pause a-while

And leave undone the menial task

To drink gold sun from blue-sky flask

And bask in summer’s waning smile

It is not vain to snub the clock

To lie beneath the sprawling tree

And study its anatomy

Of green to gold to scarlet frock

…and it is not slothful or sin

To indulge in a mid-day stroll

To touch the skin of nature’s soul

And feel the hand of God therein

© Janet Martin

Our brief and sudden power-outage was a blessing in disguise... I was in the middle of canning tomatoes among a few other 'electricity chores', so I stopped everything and headed outdoors. It is a perfect day and my to-do list is endless right now:)...I'll work double-quick now to make up for 'found time':)