To The Unknown God

Once more, before my vision turns

To strange horizons, untried lands,
To thee I lift my lonely hands
For whom my spirit yearns,
To whom, within its ultimate shrine,
Are solemn altars dedicate
While yet I wait
The summoning voice to claim me thine.
Thereon is writ in characters ablaze
The deep-cut legend, “To the Unknown God”;
For his am I, although my feet have trod,
Even to this hour, in foul and miry ways,
Yea, I will know thee, great Unknown,
Who shakest the foundations of my soul,
Urgent and clamorous as the thunder’s roll.
Eternally apart, eternally my own,
Yea, I will know thee — I will serve thee.

--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher, philologist, critic, founder of nihilism, influencer of Nazism, vehement atheist and hater of Christianity, and yeah, I am just as surprised as anyone by this poem, but it was written when a young man before he denounced Christianity.

Scripture reference: Acts 17:22-31, Easter 6A

Trinitarian benediction based on 2 Corinthians 13:14

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, 

and the love of God, 

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 

Amen.

Love's Body

Lean in! I was a child, and spoke like one;
        My thought? very like a child’s.
                I gripped my reason with both
my little fists. It smelled suspiciously of milk.
        Now, as a man, I’ve learned to let it go.
                Just now, we squint to see the Image through
this latent, bleak obscurity. One day, we’ll see the Image—
        as Himself—gleaming from each face.
                Just now, I puzzle through a range
of incoherencies; but on that day,
        the scattered fragments will cohere.
                In all of this, both now and ever,
faith and hope and love abide, these
        sacred three, but the greatest of these (you surely
                must have guessed) is love.


-- Scott Cairns (1954- ) English professor at Mizzou and Orthodox Christian, reconceiving 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 by St. Paul the Apostle

Love is the essence of life

'And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.' Wonderful as our faith is, it will be of no further value when we stand in the very presence of God. Necessary as hope is in a world where we need every source of courage we can find, it is of no further application in the age to come. But there is no replacement for love. Love is the essence of the life of the age to come. And it is the element in our life here and now that already brings us most certainly into the presence of that new and blessed age.

-- L. William Countryman (1941-  ), Episcopal priest and professor of Biblical Studies, from Calling on the Spirit in Unsettling Times: Anglican Present and Future, 2012, p. 16.

Scriptural reference: 1 Corinthians 13:13

Benediction: Christ dwell in your hearts by faith

Christ dwell in your hearts through faith
—that you,
being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend
with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ
that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled
with all the fullness of God.

--Ephesians 3:17-19