(Micah 7: 7)
Amid this world of trouble I will wait for
The God of my salvation; He will hear me
Although the turbulence may not abate for
A moment in His goodness He will cheer me.
I rest upon His promise and His favour
Since He has told me that He will be near me:
He is my Rock, although I flinch and waver.
Tottering forth she would have found
New lands to conquer every day;
And reaping in her fields of play
Have set her feet on firmer ground.
She would have brought her faculties
Within her ego's vassalage;
Like tropes deployed upon a page
She would have been her personal traits.
But, like us, going her own way
She would have trudged the wilderness
Till met by One intent to bless
Who bent her heart and knees to pray.
And as a shepherdess her skill
Might have secured her little fold:
Her fable was more briefly told,
Since this desire was not God's will.
See https://dcbverse.blogspot.com/2017/07/marina-i.html for the rest of this.
Of the ideal village, such as will inhabit
The world to come? These are the archetypes
Which would dwell there: firstly, the priest,
For I understand that priests on earth
Will officiate again. Then the head man,
To a Scot, the Laird. Under the shepherding
Of these two will be the ploughman or peasant,
Garnering abundance; the shepherd or fisher,
Folding abundance; and the soldier or sailor,
Wars now over, pensioner of the abundance.
There will be the pilgrim, the village’s journeyer
To Jerusalem – for the nations will flow to it.
Finally the poet, or psalmist, or bard.
From this developed the custom of testing
Persons against the archetypes. King David
Or King Charles, James Graham
Or Jacob – Rosalie, and Marina and me:
We have all been measured against this standard.
And since perfection in manhood is Christ
These have been measured rather against
Him. If He is priest we have to expand the title
To Great Priest, for the quality of His priestliness,
To High Priest, for the dignity of His priesthood,
And for the scope of His service – Minister
Of the holy places. To whom else could belong
The title, Prince of the princes of the Levites!
And He is Lord of all; certainly because
Of who His is in those other dimensions
He is at home in, but because, too,
Of His worth, of His walk and of
His achievements. He has displayed Himself as Sower – but all
Of the landsman’s crafts have correspondence
In the Lord’s activities; but He has exceeded
By graciously broadcasting seed irrespective
Of the quality of the ground.
As shepherd The Good Shepherd has expended His vigour
For us, and deliberately offered Himself;
As the Great Shepherd has forged through death
A path for us; and as Chief Shepherd engaged
Shepherds for our good.
But who is conqueror
Like Christ? That constrictor death, and that
Venomous serpent Satan both dungen:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro!
Someone questioned my referring to Christ
As a pilgrim. To me a pilgrim is a person
With an objective – and who fulfils the description
As fully as Christ? For He came from the heart
Of God to the cross and pioneered for us the path
From the cross to the heart of God.
But what
Of psalmist? Each production of the range
Of poet and hymn-writer from Pentecost -
And the ancient psalmists and prophets – were makars
At the hand of the great Maker.
"To Gislebertus" was a bit of a blog before blogs had begun. Not all of the snippets from it are so positive!
