Sometimes even in the midst of our confused and broken relationships with ourselves, with each other, with God, we catch glimpses of that holiness and wholeness which, no matter how buried and unrecognized, are still part of who we are.

I managed to squeeze in a little Frederick Buechner today. Never ever a bad thing. I have recently alluded to an acceptance of defeat on the home front. I meant to say it yesterday about the Shaye and Stuart Elliot interview, but I think between that and Buechner I have found a means of looking at and talking about that “defeat.” It is, in fact, the reason that I grabbed Buechner’s The Longing for Home off the shelf in the first place. I’m not sure if it will appear on the blog or in a newsletter, but the shape of that “defeat” is coming into view and I hope to say more about it soon. And hopefully there is a kernel of Kingdom in it somewhere, some holiness of the origin within, however fragmentary.

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.

That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of Spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:

God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins