The Consolations of Writing

Catechism 33

Should those who have faith in Christ seek their salvation through their own works, or anywhere else?

No, they should not, as everything necessary to salvation is found in Christ. To seek salvation through good works is a denial that Christ is the only Redeemer and Savior.

(New City Catechism)

Understand:

the chasm is too wide, the gap

too vast for any Good to bridge.

All vain

attempts to straddle death with works,

however beautiful, are only

puddles

in an infinite sea.

And know this:

all the ladder-clambering to

which the dying soul will turn

cannot

ascend the smallest rung,

can only slip, and slander grace

which lifts

the sinner from her knees.

And nothing

in our best attempts, our finest deeds,

our kindest actions, whitest fleece,

can near

the width of grace’s arms which span

the heavens and the earth to take

our filth

into its cleansing grip.

Catechism 32

What do justification and sanctification mean?

Justification means our declared righteousness before God, made possible by Christ’s death and resurrection for us. Sanctification means our gradual, growing righteousness, made possible by the Spirit’s work in us.

(New City Catechism)

First, declared –

altogether

undeserved.

First a righteousness which comes

from above

in shower, blood,

avenging love.

First the gavel’s pound upon

the bench declares

salvation.

Then the change –

“As you are, and

have been called –

now be each day. Now live a life

worthy of

this calling, worthy

of this Life.”

First the calling, first New Life,

then life transformed

by Spirit.

Catechism 31

What do we believe by true faith?
Everything taught to us in the gospel. The Apostles’ Creed expresses what we believe in these words…
(New City Catechism)

We believe:
Almighty Father –
      maker of
all living things,
      all things
             sustaining,
      holding all.

We believe:
One Son, one Lord –
       Jesus Christ, virgin-born,
Spirit-conceived,
       the beaten,
             suffering,
       dying King.

We believe:
Christ crucified –
      died and buried,
rose again,
      ascended now to
            heaven’s throne
      to judge and ever reign.

We believe:
One Holy Ghost –
      one holy, whole,
Apostle-church,
      all saints communing,
            sins forgiven,
       everlasting

life to come.

The teachers of the law deceive, devour;
The humble king is quizzed on His own law.
The pure in heart see God; the kingdom’s poor
Inherit what the rich lose with their power.
Great David’s greater Son knows that His hour
Is soon to come; He knows the loving score
Composed and tuned by Father’s plan. Before
The throne to come, there must be crowning thorns.
To those who, poor in spirit, turn toward
The face of favour – spat on, slapped and scorned –
By the tender mercy of our God,
In promise, faithful, sure in all darkness,
His dawn will break from high all over us.

Catechism 30

What is faith in Jesus Christ?

Faith in Jesus Christ is acknowledging the truth of everything that God has revealed in his Word, trusting in him, and also receiving and resting on him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel.

(New City Catechism)

Price paid – rest.

The promise lies in deepest past:

Adam’s offspring crushes heads

of serpents

with his heel.

Rest, receive:

the Word tells all a soul must know.

Adam’s stain to stainless death,

many sons

brought glory.

Trust the truth:

though sin clamours at our ears,

better words are spoken in

the blood which

pleads for us.

Catechism 29

Francisco de Zurbarán -Agnus Dei — Francisco de Zurbarán – Agnus Dei

How can we be saved?

Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross; so even though we are guilty of having disobeyed God and are still inclined to all evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of our own but only by pure grace, imputes to us the perfect righteousness of Christ when we repent and believe in him.

(New City Catechism)

Without excuse, I

testify within me to

this daily sickness,

this ever-reaching backward

to the garden’s first death-fruits.

Without excuse, I

cannot grasp my way towards

what once should have been.

Too late, I have only death;

but rich mercy intercedes.

No excuse and no

justice: righteousness given

to the least righteous.

Perfect life lived in my stead,

lived on this beggar’s behalf.

How can we be saved?

No excuse, we cry, desperate.

The answer, senseless,

replies: only faith, only

grace which pays infinite price.

Late Winter

I fought against the wind and, though I won,

It threw its debris all about the place,

Tossed hair asunder, tug-of-warred my face

And left me with a sense of being stung.

The wind did battle with the joys of sun,

Though still the early spring bore marks of grace

And, pulled this way and that, I caught the trace

Of hope which nonetheless had surely sprung.

While now I may be caught in gusts which fling

My fickle self wherever wind may blow

(And in my mind a battle may still fare

Though all the gales have settled), still I know

The smell of spring when it enters the air

And feel firm rock beneath in everything.

Sonnet

Image from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, "A Thousand Plateaus" — Image from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, *A Thousand Plateaus*

Your mind’s a rhizome and your head’s at sea.
Stray flotsam, jetsam drift in it; its roots
Run deeper than the ocean bed and shoots
Burst out of it, this way and that. The key
To tracing thoughts back to their unity
Lies not in system or in sticking boots
Into the wildness of your thought. The fruit
Will show the truth for judgment of the tree;
Meanwhile, your wild plurality of thought
Unsettles – let it. In your fragments, turn
To where one Word encompasses it all.
Within these blowing winds, the truth’s a squall,
But in my calm, confusion will be caught.
Disintegrate in me; to me, return.

Apology

If perhaps in sullen days I might slide back

to where I fell, a child, into the dark,

please wait with me as slowly I am brought

again into the light. Your love has brought

the truth to bear in silent corners, back-

rooms where thick lies have festered in the dark.

Although not whole, I’m neither lost in dark;

I mourn this languid baggage that I’ve brought,

yet every night and morning I come back

to see how far from dark I have been brought.

Change

To the odd square peg, the round hole said,
“You really just don’t understand;
The picture’s big, your needs are small.
Shape up, or else ship out.”

“The trouble is,” the round hole said,
“That pegs like you just don’t fit in.
Holes like this are not made of mes,
Nor is there I in TEAM.”

The odd square peg said, “Yes, I see;
But you once sought out pegs like me.”
The hole said, “Quite! Now take this saw
And shave until you’re round.”

To the odd square peg, the carpenter said,
“You are fearfully made.
I use the round to curve the square,
The square to shape the round.”

The odd square peg then saw the hole
And saw that it was good.
It chafed against him, but he stood
To shape, be shaped by it.