My Recent Reading

Elsewhere I posted on one of my recent reads, The Secret Confessions of an Unlikely Convert.  I am also reading a lot of doctoral material, primarily; Quiet; Great Expectations and Anna Karenina; Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Sermons; and The Valley of Vision.

Having given up television for Lent allows more time for the eternal and at least the cerebral.

The first page of The Valley of Vision is below.  I have not been able to get past it.  This reading is not for the faint of heart.  It is for people who want to stop and ponder the depths of the Christ experience for a while.  '

LORD, HIGH AND HOLY, MEEK AND LOWLY,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let mefind thy light in my darkkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.