Gabrielle's comments on the seventh sonnet summarized so succinctly (I can't resist an alliteration), that I'm using them as a springboard for something else I've been thinking about lately. She said (in case you haven't explored the combox):
H, I looked it up too, and it was what I thought (a censor, for holding the blessed incense), but I read also that it is from the Greek "thyos", meaning burnt sacrifice. The "thyos" sometimes needs a "thurible"; the burnt offering sometimes needs a vessel. To be a "living thurible" - hasn't kt captured the essence of our whole spiritual journey, our "sojourn" on earth, with two words? We can be not only the living containers of the holy incense whose perfume rises to the Lord, but the actual burnt offering itself; living holocausts, living sacrifices.
St. Faustina often called herself a holocaust to the Lord, and she also said, "The bride must resemble the Bridegroom", who was the holy and perfect Sacrifice. Living thuribles. What else could one become, if one follows "the blood-paved path He trod"?
This reminded me (in an indirect way) of a verse in Mark 9:
"For everyone shall be salted with fire, and every victim shall be salted...Have salt in yourselves."
Yes, we are the burnt offering, the holocaust; fill this victim, this sacrifice, with fire.
Salt is purifying and preserving, signifying permanence and cleansing. We are salt - the salt of the earth - purifying and preserving. Salt is good, but if it loses its savor there is nothing that can take its place...
And we shall be "salted" (purified, preserved) with fire - the fire of the Spirit, the fire that consumes and transforms us, that makes our sacrifices pure and worthy offerings.
In the Spirit, we become an unbloody sacrifice, hidden in Him.
This "salting with fire" seems to lead to another implication - that we ourselves are "seasoned" and made clean by this action of the Spirit.
Ok, another poem is pertinent here -
Silversmith
“Cloud and darkness are His raiment…A fire prepares His path.”
Psalm 97
In the turbid dark where unseen sinnings steep
we seek the keys that make us free and whole,
but find a searing sword that pierces deep,
to vivisect the spirit from the soul.
The love He brings to free us must first burn;
to offer holocaust there must be fire.
He is puring flame and we in turn
must immolate our selves upon the pyre.
By cerement the conflagration’s fueled,
what light exposes, heat will cauterize.
Then healed, branded, by the King bejeweled,
freed, enslaved, like revenants we rise.
For He sits as a silversmith, refining,
vigilant till expurgation’s done;
burning off the dross till unalloyed souls, shining,
reflect the perfect image of His Son.
H, I looked it up too, and it was what I thought (a censor, for holding the blessed incense), but I read also that it is from the Greek "thyos", meaning burnt sacrifice. The "thyos" sometimes needs a "thurible"; the burnt offering sometimes needs a vessel. To be a "living thurible" - hasn't kt captured the essence of our whole spiritual journey, our "sojourn" on earth, with two words? We can be not only the living containers of the holy incense whose perfume rises to the Lord, but the actual burnt offering itself; living holocausts, living sacrifices.
St. Faustina often called herself a holocaust to the Lord, and she also said, "The bride must resemble the Bridegroom", who was the holy and perfect Sacrifice. Living thuribles. What else could one become, if one follows "the blood-paved path He trod"?
This reminded me (in an indirect way) of a verse in Mark 9:
"For everyone shall be salted with fire, and every victim shall be salted...Have salt in yourselves."
Yes, we are the burnt offering, the holocaust; fill this victim, this sacrifice, with fire.
Salt is purifying and preserving, signifying permanence and cleansing. We are salt - the salt of the earth - purifying and preserving. Salt is good, but if it loses its savor there is nothing that can take its place...
And we shall be "salted" (purified, preserved) with fire - the fire of the Spirit, the fire that consumes and transforms us, that makes our sacrifices pure and worthy offerings.
In the Spirit, we become an unbloody sacrifice, hidden in Him.
This "salting with fire" seems to lead to another implication - that we ourselves are "seasoned" and made clean by this action of the Spirit.
Ok, another poem is pertinent here -
Silversmith
“Cloud and darkness are His raiment…A fire prepares His path.”
Psalm 97
In the turbid dark where unseen sinnings steep
we seek the keys that make us free and whole,
but find a searing sword that pierces deep,
to vivisect the spirit from the soul.
The love He brings to free us must first burn;
to offer holocaust there must be fire.
He is puring flame and we in turn
must immolate our selves upon the pyre.
By cerement the conflagration’s fueled,
what light exposes, heat will cauterize.
Then healed, branded, by the King bejeweled,
freed, enslaved, like revenants we rise.
For He sits as a silversmith, refining,
vigilant till expurgation’s done;
burning off the dross till unalloyed souls, shining,
reflect the perfect image of His Son.
87 Comments:
I have to go get the dictionary again. :)
In Italy, salt also implies wisdom. So we achieve wisdom through our purification and cleansing.
Now here is some salt to ponder...
and of course, the salt of children always surprises us, but it shouldn't.
http://www.questingparson.org/2006/11/better-cloudy-day.html
Salt is such a basic in our lives. Far from our memories is the salt on our tongues from baptism, but we taste it early in tears, later in the joy of cold ocean.
Salted with Fire.. this, I cannot get my mind around. But that has never been the deciding factor for miracles.
:-) Beautiful musing-poems..
"For He sits as a silversmith, refining,
vigilant till expurgation’s done;
burning off the dross till unalloyed souls, shining,
reflect the perfect image of His Son."
My company sells melting pots for making lead alloys for the battery industry. This imagery speaks volumes to me. It reminds me of something Etty Hillesum says in her diary. "Distinguis the difference between being tempered and being hardened". We are tempered when we let God take us where he wants with our suffering. We grow hardened when we refuse God's loving hand even in our trials.
This kind of "branding" is not passive. It does not happen without the door of fiat being opened, but one wants to be returned to the King, should one be found temporarily lost.
I've been here several times over the past couple of days, wishing to comment on this wonderful poem; but it, and all your comments, have me leaping back and forth between Old Testament and New, in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way.
Your comments about the positive imagery of salt made me wonder why God turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt; that led me to think of the salt mixed with water at a Passover Seder meal to symbolize tears, which in turn reminded me of Honora's comment about salt at Baptism (where of course there is water), and the tears throughout our lives.
I looked up info about the Seder meal on the Internet, and was then surprised to see that the Matzah (unleavened bread), is the only item on the Seder table that represents both slavery and freedom (I had been wondering why kt said we were both freed and enslaved, so this description of the Matzah really struck me).
Also, kt quotes Psalm 97, and I thought of the Holy Spirit as the Shekinah Cloud and the Pillar of Fire, and earlier kt had said that it is the action of the Holy Spirit that seasons us and cleanses us. And of course, we see here the bloody and the unbloody sacrifice. I am always intrigued by the way Old Testament imagery and events often foreshadow the New, so all of this has been very rich for me. Thank you, kt.
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I have to share this with you good people. When I write, I write. The words very often pour out quickly and there is little revision, except when the poetry rhymes (as these have), which takes a little more rearranging.
But unless I have been asked to write for something specific, I never have an audience in mind. I do not write poetry for any reader, but only to express something that I cannot resist trying to express.
And sometimes, when I reread the poems (which is rarely), I wonder if they clearly express that something. I wonder if the nuances that were in my mind when I composed the poem are accessible to any reader.
And you fine people have shown me that those ideas ARE accessible, and they CAN be appreciated. This is heartily encouraging to me, and adds another layer to this conversation.
That said, I so appreciate fmn's quote differentiating tempering and hardening, Honora's reminder that our fiat is always necessary, and Gabrielle's comprehensive Old Covenant - New Covenant overview.
Moving on ;-)
We are slaves of what we want.
In this poem, we are "freed and enslaved" because we are freed by this Fire from all that keeps us from our quintessential desire - to belong wholly to Love, to live only for Love, to abide in the Kingdom of Love. To be "enslaved" by Love.
It's so much more rewarding to be enslaved by Love than by hormones, chemicals, Wall Street, Madison Ave., Washington, mirrors.. and even cheesecake.
Wait..let me think about that one..
kidding :-)
On this mountain of faith, the many need a Sherpa; and I need 16 or so. Thank you, Jesus, for the many Sherpas like all the above.
Way cool, this women rocks!!!!
kt, a couple of things I'd like to ask you. I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about the spirit being vivisected from the soul, and also, is it possible to share with us a little more about the imagery and implications of the word "revenants" in your poem?
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actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
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Calvin, we will not have an anatomically correct snowman!
Energizer Bunny Arrested! Charged with battery.
Build a watch in 179 easy steps - by C. Forsberg.
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
640K ought to be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates 81
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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Save the whales, collect the whole set
Save the whales, collect the whole set
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
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Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
C++ should have been called B
Calvin, we will not have an anatomically correct snowman!
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Thanks to author.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
C++ should have been called B
A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
Thanks to author.
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
Wonderful blog.
What is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?
What is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
C++ should have been called B
Thanks to author.
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
Save the whales, collect the whole set
What is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
Save the whales, collect the whole set
Good job!
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.
Beam me aboard, Scotty..... Sure. Will a 2x10 do?
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
What is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?
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