tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post4362759309618346678..comments2024-03-26T17:44:29.168+00:00Comments on The Mercy Blog: Sink down to the seedMike Farleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06732248182662167951noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-30975146074028224672020-05-20T17:05:02.949+01:002020-05-20T17:05:02.949+01:00Thank you, Thomas. Yes, isn't it hard "to...Thank you, Thomas. Yes, isn't it hard "to be patient and silent and let things slowly grow? CS Lewis said somewhere, "We must leave God to dress the wound and not keep on taking peeps under the bandage for ourselves." And an old poet friend of mine - from Vermont as it happens - said that at least 3/4 of writing a poem was doing nothing whatever. And she was right about more than poetry - her favourite Christian author was Jonathan Edwards, who memorably sad, "You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary"! (I'm not sure about the Calvinist assumptions that probably underlay that remark of Edwards', but still...)<br /><br />I grew up by the sea, and though I spent my early adult life in London, and travelling, I've always been drawn back to natural processes, to the changing seasons, and their demands and blessings. Hence the farming side of my life, I guess!<br /><br />Every blessing<br /><br />MikeMike Farleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06732248182662167951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-85882690774987157532020-05-19T23:08:21.976+01:002020-05-19T23:08:21.976+01:00Thank you so much, Mike, for this post. Yes.
It&#...Thank you so much, Mike, for this post. Yes.<br /><br />It's the hardest thing in the world for me, a big-city American whose teenage years coincided with the era of MTV, to be at rest, to let things germinate and gestate, to be patient and silent and let things slowly grow.<br /><br />I have a dear poetfriend in Wisconsin who grew up in very rural Illinois. Her poetry combines alertness and patience so beautifully. She lets her observations develop and mature into fullness. (I'm always thrusting my early drafts on my unfortunate friends, as if tugging at their sleeve and saying "whaddya think?")<br /><br />But certainly, in prayer as in the arts, nothing is to be gained by haste or by a frantic spirit. To trust that we are sustained. (That last word is big with me nowadays.) To trust that there is an inexhaustible font of sustenance from which we can draw our strength and restore our flagging powers. And yes, this means letting words subside for a time, and racing thoughts, and agitations and distractions and jollies and kerfuffles.<br /><br />Thanks again for this salutary reminder.Thomas Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13217297262702709978noreply@blogger.com