Skip to content

Living Our Days

Gaining a heart of wisdom

About
Speaking
Book Review
Poetry
Privacy Policy

My Facebook Page
Twitter
Instagram

Tag: Leland Ryken

A Literary Pursuit of Beauty, Grace, and Truth

December 13, 2018December 12, 2018 Michele Morin39 Comments

John Donne is just one of the poets featured in Leland Ryken's collection of devotional poetry, The Soul in Paraphrase

It's been a long time since I browsed in a Christian bookstore. They're exceptionally rare here in Maine, but on one of my last excursions, I inquired about the poetry section hoping to lay hands on something by Luci Shaw or Marjorie Maddox. Alas, it was not to be on this day. "We don't carry… Continue reading A Literary Pursuit of Beauty, Grace, and Truth

Posted in Book Review, PoetryTagged Anne Bradstreet, Crossway, Devotional literature, George Herbert, John Donne, Leland Ryken, Luci Shaw, Marjorie Maddox, Poetry

Here's What's Happening on Instagram

The Great Compromise of 1990 is still in effect! ❤ The Christmas before Calvin and I were married, I made a quilted tree skirt--nothing short of miraculous for this craft-challenged girl. His family had always piled boughs under and around their tree. We saw that a compromise was in order to preserve the peace, so we arranged a layer of boughs and then draped the tree skirt over them. And so it continues... It's a small thing, really, but isn't it always an accumulation of "small things" that eat away at the foundation of our marriages? *** Every Christmas, this is a visual reminder and reaffirmation of the mutual submission that marriage inspires and requires.

In her Advent poem “Descent,” Luci Shaw describes the complete other-ness of Jesus’s arrival here: “Down he came from up and in from out, and here from there. A long leap, an incandescent fall from magnificent to naked, frail, small…” Committed to the Father’s plan to wrap this world in redemption, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Christmas preparations are “rolling” right along here. 🤦‍♀️ So many of our traditions feature special food and gatherings around festive meals and memories. These rolls freeze really well, so I make a big batch and throw them all into the freezer— minus the ones that get pilfered hot out of the oven. 🙄☺️ Then I pull them out as needed. What life-saving hacks help you manage your kitchen-based celebration of Jesus’s birth?

“The best way to find out whether or not you really have a servant’s heart is to see what your reaction is when somebody treats you like one.” So, what does it look like to be a servant to my family, to say “My life for yours”? I’d been reading content and listening to the podcast produced by @kindred_mom for quite some time when they announced a call for articles discussing the role of humility in motherhood. “Maybe I’ve aged out of their demographic,” I thought, but the Elisabeth Elliot quote and the perpetual struggle with my goal-oriented and prideful self sent my fingers to the keyboard, and I’m grateful to be sharing my collected thoughts on this topic today at @kindred_mom.

Apparently, the Pause and Pour feature of a coffee maker only works when the basket is in place to hold the grounds. Research like this can be messy, and laws of nature are not suspended during Advent. Gravity continues to carry sprinkles to the kitchen floor at the same rate in December as in July. Time moves at the same dizzying rate as the planet spins and tilts away from the sun. Heaven and nature sing the glory of God 365 days of the year, but perhaps we are listening more carefully during Advent.

Written by John Donne in the 16th century, Annunciation is deep weeds for the 21st century reader. Even so, a slow meandering through this poetic letter to Mary the mother of Jesus uncovers some precious theological truth that is sure to heighten your joy and deepen your Advent pondering. For example, the phrase "immensity cloistered" captures the incarnation and the miracle of Word made flesh as Donne makes much of the irony of Maker being made and infinite Light enclosed in darkness. Annunciation by John Donne Salvation to all that will is nigh; That All, which always is all everywhere, Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear, Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die, Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie In prison, in thy womb; and though He there Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear, Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try. Ere by the spheres time was created thou Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother; Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother. Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room Immensity, cloistered in thy dear womb.

WordPress.com.