A New Year Poem

With grateful hearts the past we own;
The future, all to us unknown,
We to Thy guardian care commit,
And peaceful leave before Thy feet.
 
Philip Doddridge 
(1702 - 1751)

A Christmas Poem

CHRISTMAS
Benjamin Copeland
(1896)

O HOLY, happy morning,
That saw the Saviour's birth!
The star, thy brow adorning,
Beams mercy on the earth.
For shepherds, and for sages,
Thy cheer, impartial, free,—
The travail of the ages
Finds recompense in thee.

My soul, be thou believing,—
No more thy past deplore;
In Christ all loss retrieving,
Rejoice for evermore.
By love unknown attended,
Thy weary watch and ward,—
Behold! the vision splendid!
The angel of the Lord!

And hark! the herald angel!
The radiant, rapturous throng!
The ravishing evangel
Floods all the hills with song:
"To God in heaven, glory,
Good will to men below;"
Speed, speed the blessed story,
That all the world may know.

My Christmas Letter

‭🍂‬

“Familiar in his mouth as household words.” - Shakespeare

24 December 2024 

Dear P_ and M_: 

Many are beholden to various aspects of the
“A-train to Zarathustra” (i.e., A to Z).
‭‬They pined for spring and particularly summer. 
Summers are the peaks of activities. 
A circling glorious summer is always anticipated
and yearned in the “winter of our discontent”,
whether or not the son of York has anything to do with it. 
Regardless, even the psychopathic duke, Richard III, 
believes it.

Three days ago on 21 December 2024, it was winter solstice.
It marked the first day of winter and the shortest day in 
the northern hemisphere. From then on, the days or daylights
will gradually get longer.  Still, it is winter.  
The vicissitudes of winter weather in our valley apropos 
of these Shakespearean words, “the rain and wind beat 
dark December.”  Surely, it is cold and wet here in the 
valley but nothing like my pharmacologist friends who 
reside and teach in Pullman, WA.  Their winter trough 
could be epitomized by the song at the end
of ‭Love’s Labor’s Lost. Brrr…! ‬

The winter solstice last Saturday accentuates Christmas Day.
Because of the birth of Christ, the “Sun of Righteousness.”
Thus the Lord has expressly promised the redeemed 
that “night will be no more”, and He shall be their light
for ever and ever. Until He returns again, in the meanwhile
His general mercies provides for ‭all‬ of His creation.
So it is “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”  Excepting 
for Christendom, however, most of the world will ignore 
His mercy of “daily bread”, and seek ‭possession‬ of wealth‭ ‬
and‭ ‬security instead. Further, in its self-righteousness,
the Christmas season is circumscribed foremost 
by pleasantry. So the greetings of “Merry Christmas” 
are familiar household words for laughter of gifts, 
Santa Claus, and ideates of the season. After all, it‬ is ‭
sine qua non. To the unbelieving, life ‬is “…a walking 
shadow…struts and frets…And then is heard no more.”   

Lest we forget, God dwells “in the high and holy place, and also 
with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.” 
His birth is “to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive 
the heart of the contrite.” He is life eternal. 

By any means, I am not a haiku poet.  Nevertheless, here is 
my Christmas haiku for you: 

This winter solstice 
Accenting John Three Sixteen 
His unstinting love 

May the Lord make His face to shine upon you 
and be gracious to you.  Merry Christmas! 

L’

‭🍁‬

If - In God's Keeping

•If the Lord didn't lead me beside the still water,
  Who Then would satisfy my heart's need?

•If the Lord didn't make me lie down in green pastures,
 I would never know His perfect peace.
 I would never know His perfect peace.

 I will lie down and sleep though I'm lonely;
 I will lie down and find resl far from home.
 I will know peace though the dark night surrounds me;

 I'm in God's keeping wherever I go.
 I'm in God's keeping wherever I go.

•If the Lord didn't lead me thro' the dark valley,
 How would I find the way on my own?

•If the Lord didn't give me the love for the Savior,
 I could never call heaven my home.
 I could never call heaven my home.

•You have declared me as perfect in Your eyes.
You always cared for me in my distress.
Lord, see in me a sacrifice pleasing.
Send me contentment and perfect rest.
Send me contentment and perfect rest.

 I will lie down and sleep though I'm lonely;
 I will lie down and find rest far from home.
 I will know peace though the dark night surrounds me;

 I'm in God's keeping wherever I go.
 I'm in God's keeping wherever I go, wherever I go.

Will Leave the Light on for You

Where the Spirit Shall Bask in the Summer of Heaven

'Tis the Last Day of Summer

'Tis the last day of Summer,
    Now fading away,
As behind yon blue mountain,
    The sun hides its ray;
And the low breeze is sighing,
    So chilly and drear,
That, methinks, the wood whispers,
    Stern Autumn is near!

'Tis the last day of Summer,
    And sad is the smile,
That now lights up the gloom,
    Where it lingers awhile;
Whilst the cloud that is wreathing,
    So gaily the west,
But reveals by its brightness,
    The tempest's dark crest.

'Tis the last day of Summer,
    And fleet as its ray,
Hath departed, so fleetly,
    Doth life speed away!
But beyond this drear gloom,
    Is a resting place given,
Where the spirit shall bask,
    In the summer of Heaven.

T.J.S., 1836
Frederick County, Aug. 31st, 1836.

Poeta Non Fit Sed Nascitur

Dusk in Tuscanny by Stephen Hannock

Dear B:

An eminent English Renaissance playwright and poet says this about Shakespeare. He is “not of an age, but for all time.” Surely, the latter is poeta non fit sed nascitur. Indeed, the English Bard was not made, but a borne poet and playwright. Therefore, on your upcoming birthday, I like to quote this Bard verse, “in honor of whose birth these triumphs are.”

As God says, “gray hair is a crown of glory.” Even so at our different stage of life, we are ever the contingents of God. So it is, you filled my heart with quiet joy in this milestone. May you continue to embrace His wisdom where you are,“where the vine and fig bask hand in hand.”

In shadow or shine, in flower and thorn, I leave you this birthday thought and evermore: a gentleness of heart, a firmness of mind, and a simplicity of life.

in gratia Dei,

L’

‘A’ Train to Zarathustra

12 August, 2024

Dear B_: 

I wish you a very special birthday coming very soon; soft years ahead; a long life fill with the God’s love. As His truth is innate, wait for God and surely He will guide your journeys on the path of life (cf. Psalm 52:9; 16:11).

Shakespeare writes, “So that as clear as is the summer’s sun”. Far be it that I can (no one can) write like the Bard, much less in poetry. So then, I will impart these thoughts to you. 

Life’s tapestry in this world is constantly as Yates says, “stitching and unstitching.” Mankind in God’s tarnished image is always building a better mousetrap on earth from time immemorial. Furthermore, since east of Eden, one sees the Godless culture and the Goliathan shadow of humanism. Parallel with humanism is the violence and self-righteousness garnered in a technological world. From the ‘A’ Train to Zarathustra, i.e., A to Z, mankind is always striving against self and God (cf. Genesis 4:16-24). The palimpsest of man has two elements in its vicious circle: the joyful or vacuous days of wine and roses, and days of despair and bitterness of the souls. For the redeemed, however, time and again God has shown pleasure to adorn or glorify them (cf. Psalm 149:4; Isaiah 60:9). In accordance to His divine will and mercy, anthropomorphically speaking, He has kept count of the tosses and tears in a bottle (cf. Psalm 56:8). With or without the modern version of balms and physicians of Gilead, God in His timing always provides exodus to the afflicted. With tender mercies, He guides the redeemed into an everlasting peace (cf. Jeremiah 8:22; Ezekiel 37:26; Luke 1:78-79). 

Therefore, B_, the recherché on your upcoming birthday and forevermore is this: may you 

utmost embrace not man’s but God’s wisdom and His power (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:5).

 

Take care. 

in gratia Dei,

L’ 

More Firmly Bound to the Country We Inhabit

July 4th

“...We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim
as our fathers and grandfathers;they were iron men, 
they fought for the principle that they were contending for; 
and we understood that by what they then did it has
followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us.
We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done 
in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we
are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings
in better humor with ourselves---we feel more attached the one
to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit.
In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country 
in which we live for these celebrations...”

- Abraham Lincoln, Chicago, ILL., 10 July 1858.
   

First Day of Summer, Northern Hemisphere, 2024

  
The Woods in Summer

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amidst some sylvan scene,
Where the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen,
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves,
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

- Longfellow


It is only in heaven that Christians shall find metaphorically 
the abiding beauty of spring, 
the recurring enjoyment of summer,
the constant fruition of autumn. 
There, the redeemed shall have no winter at all. Because  they shall have the ever shining Sun of Righteousness, 
and invariably the river of nourishing Living Water.