Herbert’s Corner

               

What?

If only in a little corner of my little blog would like to spend a little time from time to time.  The corner will be for truth’s sake, but poetically speaking.  Call it, humbly, “a corner on truth”, though rounded with rhyme and meter and figure, and whatever words can do to put the logos and the logical lyrically.  

However stated the thoughts and the musings will be for lives lived truth fully.  Invigorating, encouraging, it is hoped, for when you have need to “turn a corner.” Liberating, for when you feel “cornered.”  Thoughtful, for the times you just need to slow down, reflect, pray, read.  And come back to life singing.

Yes, in this corner we shall be, to examine life, to ponder God, for the life worth living, the One worth worshiping.  To this corner we shall go from time to time, for a little while, yet long enough to come away from madding crowds, internet, phones, and the petty pace of devils.  Only then, and in answer to the tolling of the bell, to step back into the ring, into this world.  Now more of a peacemaker punching, now more of a believer punching in.  Now more like the Savior.  Every day.  Punch after punch.  In this world, not of it.  

Herbert’s Corner it shall be.  Named after the pious seventeenth century English thinker, poet, and Anglican priest, George Herbert (1593-1633).  Herbert, some of whose poems Wesley made into hymns, was such a godly man that the Puritan divine Richard Baxter spoke of him as one who “speaks to God like one that really believed a God, and whose business in this world is most with God.”  Of his books Baxter would write that they were pure “heart-work and heaven-work.” Of his poems Herbert’s first biographer was persuaded that they were “such hymns and anthems as he and the angels now sing in heaven.”

So to Herbert’s Corner we would now retreat.  And since Mr. Herbert was reverently known as “Holy Mr. Herbert,” and since the God Whom Herbert loved and lived for and Whom we love and live for is holy, a holy corner this will be.  And though Mr. Herbert is long dead, yet from the grave, God’s witness, he still speaks, like this:

Thou hast given so much to me,

Give one thing more,–a grateful heart;

Not thankful when it pleaseth me,

As if thy blessings had spare days,

But such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise

            Thanks

                Thanks.  One New Testament word for that means something like being “mindful of favors.”  Mindful of God’s favors we are to be, with a heart full of gratitude.

            What are God’s favors?  That would be anything He gives that He is not obliged to give, and that we do not deserve to receive.  That would be everything.  God does not owe us anything.  We deserve nothing.  But God has given all sorts of things.  He gives life.  He gives plenty.   He gives so that our bodies are cared for.  He gives and our souls are as full as our stomachs.

And we are to be mindful of that.  We are to think of all that we have, and that all is from God.  We are humbly to admit that we have no inherent right to anything, no ability to breathe one breath, nor any reason, ever, to pat ourselves on the back.  We are to believe that God gave us the ability to haul in the pass and cut into the end zone.  That He was guiding the surgeon’s hands or will guide voters to elect someone with surgeon’s hands.   Or not.  And that our children, from our own loins are not ours but His.  Then we are to be humble, and are to look up and to acknowledge The Giver of Favors, and to live a certain way that shows we are

this people of great need

who have received received received;

 and are thankful thankful thankful

till the cows come home, or in the mean time

when out onto Lake Michigan Drive they roam

and you just can not corral them all in…

            Now what I want to ask is why, oh why is being thankful so not easy, or first, or often, or from within, or seen in our lives?  Mr. Herbert, Holy Mr. Herbert had to pray for a grateful heart.  Here we are four hundred years, and a gazillion gadgets later and still not satisfied, lives far from thankful.  Thank empty.   Too much world in us, I guess.  And so little faith…

            Scripture enjoins us in everything to give thanks (I Thessalonians 5:18).  Thanks is no option, but the will of God for us.  So with our Friend, and with many godly friends of old let us join not only in fervent prayer for the grateful heart, but in remembering these things:

            Christ is our life.  No matter what else you have.  No matter what you do not.  Have.

The best benefits of all: forgiveness of sins (Ps 103!), and peace with God (Romans 5:1)

            To grace you are the greatest debtor.  Daily.

Not just some things, but all things work together for good for the lovers of God (Romans 8:28).  In Kansas.  In Oz.  Or twirling around somewhere in between.  Give thanks!

O.K.  is not biblical.  Good is.   I am not O.K.  Nor are you.  It is not O.K. to give thanks.  It is good (Psalm 92).  Because God is good.  Always.

            Thanks is for song.  Like this, from brother Herbert:

Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King!
The heavens are not too high, His praise may thither fly,
The earth is not too low, His praises there may grow.
Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King!

                In every corner.  In this little one.  In yours too.  Thanks songs!  For pulses of praise!

-Rev. Dick