Happy Birthday

I’ve taken a summer blogging break of sorts, and now the summer is almost over. This was made powerfully apparent by the arrival, once again, of your birthday. Another year has rolled on by and we find ourselves older, and dare we say, wiser? We talked about hope and transformation, and how everyone hopes for transformation. But how are such hopes fulfilled? Is it possible to rise above the fundamental concern of what we can get out of any relationship in order to focus on what we can give?

As these questions were carried along on the cool evening breeze, I thought about love. Michael Ball once sang, Love changes everything. I think about how people are changed, by the love of a mother, a lover, a friend. And if human love has the amazing ability to change us, what more the love of God?


This is one of fourteen sonnets written by Madeleine L’Engle following the death of her husband.

Sonnet 13

O God! You ask the deepest darkest things.
You blind with light more frightening than dark.
You tell me: Fly! And then you give no wings.
Your sharp sword pierces as it hits the mark.
You gave me love as human as the earth
And earth to earth you’ve gone as all must go.
So we are torn apart twixt tears and mirth
And where your you has gone I do not know.
Oh, God! your loneliness came into flesh.
You taught us love as you let all love go,
And with your life our lives are deep enmeshed.
We know you as we know we do not know.
Oh, God! you ask us all to be like you,
And what you love will truly be made new.