Sonnet for: January 3

“Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot,
And drifted out upon an ebbing sea!
My soul that was at rest now resteth not,
For I am with myself and not with thee;
Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn,
Where nothing is but sick-heart vanity:
Oh, thou who knowest! save thy child forlorn.”

– George MacDonald (Diary of an Old Soul).

Mornings can be hard.  Though some things are stable and unchanging, our thoughts and moods are very much “dependent variables”—meaning, they can change, and they depend on other factors to produce that change.

MacDonald, using the metaphor of the sea, describes the changing tides as illustration of both spiritual consciousness and our emotional state.  His symbolism encompasses both the permanence and variableness which contribute to our emotional state in the midst of our spiritual medium.  The permanence has to do with objective reality; variableness relates to our subjective perceptions.  What does that mean?

My days, like MacDonald’s have “tides.” When I awaken, my subjective “sea” is ebbing toward the low.  MacDonald, my fellow-melancholy in temperament, here reports the same: in soul and emotion, he has “forgot” and “drifted out” with the natural ebb-cycle.  Soul-rest, likely enjoyed before sleep, is now hard to detect.  He feels alone, “not with thee”.  Truth seems washed out in the glare of new day.  Nothing exists, but “sick-heart vanity.” (This is my “brother from another mother”!)

I don’t know if this was MacDonald’s typical cycle, but, having read some of his letters and biographies about him, I suspect that this was more typical than unusual.  For myself, it definitely is.  Lord, have mercy.

Moods and emotions for some fortunates are an annoyance, but not much more.  For the more sensitive temperaments, they can be a herd of marauding giants who face us down on a daily basis, often pushing us to the limits of desperation.

In the last line of today’s sonnet, our Scottish guide gets there.  “Oh, thou who knowest! save thy child forlorn.”  Grace is the great leveler for the different stripes of humanity.  Great-hearts have a different capacity before crying out; Little-faiths hit the panic button much quicker.  And that is not a judgment; God has both…chooses both.  In fact, there is good basis to suggest that He favors the “have-nots” as He looks over humanity (See 1 Cor. 1: 26-31).  I have always found great comfort and increased courage in meditating on that.

God is not unjust.  The Great-hearts and Little-faiths will all need to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, as St. Paul says.  For both, the campaign is to learn to make emotions our servants, not our master.  There is a race set before both, uniquely designed and, while not the same, uniquely weighted in challenge to the one running it.  Each story, each race, is different, so we mustn’t compare.  Doing so is a snare and a weight which must be cast off.

In closing, we must choose to celebrate, amongst the dependent variables of our subjective selves, the permanent reality: we are in HIM.  As the emotions come and go, as the seas of “feeling” ebb and flow, MacDonald laments, “I’m with me, not with you.”  Not true.  While it may feel that way, even at the lowest ebb, the sea is still the sea.  The alarm and craving he feels for God is evidence that feelings of loneliness arise from the permanence of authentic, established relationship. 

 “In Him we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  We are in God through his doing (1 Cor. 1:30).  It is a state protected by God.  Our position in Christ must not be confused with whether we feel high or low in the water.  In Him is permanence.

Abba, Father, thank You for my assured place in Christ–in You—whether I feel assured or not.  Thank You that, like a child in the womb, You are my world of nurture and protection.  Thank you that whatever is true at my emotional high-water mark, remains true when I’m at a low ebb.  Because You are my permanent, unchanging Home.  Amen.         —MOW

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