The Wordle became flesh

A ‘Wordle’ is an image or design made up of words that are some how related, usually to the design itself. Look at the Wordle below. It was composed using words about Jesus or used by Jesus to describe himself.

Look who's not changing!

The weather has been variable. Today alone we’ve had the warmth of summer then the snow of winter. The delicate shadow of the bare trees on the damp earth felt like autumn, and then I saw the green fronds of hellebore peeping through the soil, and rejoiced at spring.

       Many other things are changing at a frantic pace, from the money markets to the moods of the people I meet. Into this sense of frantic changeability, I suddenly remembered a verse from the Scriptures, ‘The stead fast love of the Lord never ceases’, which comes from the prophet Jeremiah, as recorded in Lamentations 3:22.

       It then got better, for I remembered the rest of Jeremiah’s lovely words of hope: ‘The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases: His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness’.

       All of us at times feel overwhelmed by change. Sometimes we resent the change itself because we need stability. Sometimes the change would be acceptable but for its pace or timing. Sometimes it’s simply the way that something we cherish has been superseded, which then causes a sense of betrayal as we put away an ‘old friend’.
       God (through the inspired pen of Jeremiah) speaks into this all-too-common situation by reminding us that we choose to put our trust in things that mean something to us yet are transitory or put our trust in Him. Only if our inner stability comes from trusting in God’s unchanging love can we really enjoy anything else.

       The central core of the Christian message reminds us that God works in this world and that he made it to be good. If God can create then He wants us to enjoy new things as well as old. We can rejoice in past beauties like old paintings and stone mansions. We can rejoice at new life and spring lambs. But underpinning everything is the joy that comes from worshipping a God who is utterly unchanging and whose love refuses to seep away.

Thomas Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

But I believe that the desire to please You does please You. 

And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. 

Therefore, I will trust You always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever near me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton : Thoughts in Solitude

The parable of the sower

A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the footpath; and the birds came and ate it up. Some seed fell on the rocky ground, where it had little soil, and it sprouted quickly because it had no depth of earth; but when the sun rose, the young corn was scorched, and as it had no root it withered away. Some seed fell among thistles; and the thistles hot up, and choked the corn. And some of the corn fell into good ground where it bore fruit, yielding a hundred fold (Matthew 13:4)

I guess that most of us are all too familiar with the parable of the sower, and if we hear it, we hear the ‘punchline’ before we have got half way through it. It is usual to assume that the different types of soil represent different types of people. This may be the usual interpretation but it is not the only one.

     An alternative way of seeing the parable is to assume that the different types of soil represent the same man but each type of soil describes a different stage during his conversion. While some people are converted ‘instantly’ and their pilgrimage with Jesus commences straight away, that was not my experience: like many others, I was first convinced, then believed, then was committed but had only a head knowledge and only after some further time was my heart engaged properly in the discipleship.

     Think of the parable this way, then: initially, the man hears the Gospel, but his heart is hard and he hears nothing. This is the footpath prior to any kind of conversion. After a time, though, he admits that the Gospel must have some truth: he is hedging his bets and prefers to believe only a little of what he hears … the ‘safe’ bits, so he says ‘thus far and no more’ or ‘I can believe only so much’; his commitment is only as skin deep as the layer of soil that covers the rock.

     After a further time, and this same man knows more about the Gospel and about Jesus. He wants to know more, to believe more, to have a deeper faith. It is here that his conversion is most in danger because he is sufficiently committed to be a risk to Satan keeping his soul, but insufficiently so to effect the conversion of others. Accordingly, Satan diverts his attention. The man finds that his new-found Christianity now has to compete for his time and money: he is committed to Christianity but also to other things, both to corn and to thistles.

     The man can only go forward or backward at this point in his conversion: he cannot stay still. It is a battle between saving his soul and losing it. If he falls backward, then it is a matter of him saying ‘and I used to be interested a bit in the church’ but if he understands what is happening then he will ask for help from the Holy Spirit: his commitment will increase and his soul will be saved. The soil is used solely for Jesus.

     It is worth noting in passing that the above order, albeit in reverse, explains the route taken by many back-sliders.