The Long Walk Home

“We are reminded again that at the heart of being with God is not successful performance, but a relationship of love. We have to get straight that love is the crucial thing in discipleship. It is what God wants from us. Believe it or not, God doesn’t actually need an extra pair of hands! He isn’t short of bright ideas, nor of strength, nor of creative power. It’s not our accomplished performance at certain good works that he sent his Son to redeem. It’s us he wants, to love us and to receive from us answering love- such love, and nothing less will yield all our giftedness to him. It will motivate wholehearted and costly service, ‘obedience glad and true’.”

(Dominic Smart – When we get it wrong)

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost,
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
(J.R.Tolkien- Lord of the Rings)

“Though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we will be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.” C.S. Lewis

From the excellent writing in the sleeve notes of the Fleet Foxes album going around in my cd player right now.

“This leads me to something weird about the power that music has, its transportive ability. Any time I hear a song or record that meant a lot to me at a certain moment or I was listening to at a distinct time, I’m instantly taken back to that place in full detail…I can listen to music and instantly be anywhere that song is trying to take me. Music activates a certain mental freedom in a way that nothing else can, and that is so empowering, you can call it escapism if you like, but I see it as connecting to a deeper human feeling than found in the day-to-day world.”

From “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, the white witch approaches Aslan after Edmund has returned to camp and talked things over with Aslan.

“You have a traitor there, Aslan, said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he had been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.”

And to go with that:

Martyn Joseph and a line from “I have come to Sing”

“Grace: can you tell me love, where are your accusers now?”