Gethsemane 1914-18 -- Kipling

The Garden called Gethsemane
In Picardy it was,
And there the people came to see
The English soldiers pass.
We used to pass - we used to pass
Or halt, as it might be,
And ship our masks in case of gas
Beyond Gethsemane.

The Garden called Gethsemane,
It held a pretty lass,
But all the time she talked to me
I prayed my cup might pass.
The officer sat on the chair,
The men lay on the grass,
And all the time we halted there
I prayed my cup might pass.

It didn't pass - it didn't pass -
It didn't pass from me.
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane.

Amazing Grace

The Psalmist once wrote,

"Deep calls to deep

In the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me"

David's poetic statement has powerful imagery and powerful implications. The depths of Gods spirit are calling and wooing to himself the depths of our spirit, the parts of our spirit that we fail to realize that we even have. We are standing in the roar and rush of his grace and presence. His spirit is always with us and his promise is that he will never leave me or forsake me. In essence, we stand in the roar of his waterfalls constantly whether we perceive it or not. God give me spiritual eyes that I may see your grace and your Holy Spirits indwelling presence this way!

This is a passage that I have been pondering for the last couple days. I have also been grappling with my own sinfulness--the spirit is willing (and perhaps wanting to some degree) but the flesh is weak--and the frustration and guilt of the non christ-centered life that is dependent on myself and my emotions rather than his unchanging Spirit. What a stark contrast from my recent experience, that God's waves and breakers are sweeping over me! I often struggle to believe these descriptions of God and his grace at a heart level during times like this.

During the change in classes I found a bench on Landis and spent some time of confession, praise and praying God's promises. One that I was claiming in prayer was 1 John 1:7-9

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all Sin... (Explaining what it means to walk in the light) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

Typically, when I confess my sin and I claim promises like this I take it by faith that God has heard me and that the promises are true. However, today after I spent time in prayer seeking the Lord God answered my prayer in an amazing way.

There was a girl from St. Peters named Kaleen that was out on Landis and the Lord led her to come and pray over me. She prayed over me for the healing of my heart, to experience the Love of christ washing over me and the fullness of the Spirit and his work in my life. What a tangible example of God's faithfulness to his promise that we will have "fellowship with one another" and "the blood of Jesus, His son, purifies us from all sin." I came away from that time singing

"T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed."

Indeed, God's grace was precious the hour I first believed and it is even more precious to me now. God has turned my despair to rejoicing as He has revealed to me in a concrete and tangible way how

"Deep calls to deep

In the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me."

September 1, 1939

My favorite poem by W.H Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade :
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives ;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god :
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave ;
Analysed them all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief :
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse :
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream ;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day :
The lights must never go out
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home ;
Lest we should see where we are
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish :
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart ;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow ;
I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work.
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game :
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the unfolded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky :
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone ;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police ;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies ;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic flashes of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages :
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.