Union and Communion

The Union and Communion by J. Hudson Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a surprisingly mystical work from the founder of the China Inland Mission. I found it passionately written. Taylor takes a look at the Song of Solomon through the eyes of a Christian Mystic. He identifies with the bride enraptured in her bridegroom, sick with love. In her he finds the dramatic experience of the believer, at one time caught up in union with Christ, at another feeling the pain of separation because of her own heart "prone to wander."

Taylor also betrays a glimpse of his own soul. This hero of modern missions has the heart of a mystic - not one caught up in the navel-gazing which causes many to impugn the mystics, but one whose ardent love for his Beloved stirs him to action.

When she is separated from him for the second time, the bride tells the daughters of Jerusalem how lovely he is, her heart inflamed and faint with love, growing more so as she tells it. (SS 5:9-16)

The LION of the tribe of Judah is to His own bride the KING of love; and, with full heart and beaming face, she so recounts His beauties that the daughters of Jerusalem are seized with strong desire to seek Him with her that they also may behold His beauty.

This is why Hudson Taylor went to China! His heart was so full of his savior's beauty that he had to share it. In comparing the church to the bride of Solomon, he also declares that this is the experience of every Christian, to be so wholly in love with Christ that mission flows from the heart like honey from the comb.

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A Screamo Easter

There are three Sundays in particular that cause me consternation: Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. These celebrations are so meaningful to me and the christian faith, that I struggle to communicate them with creativity and pathos appropriate to their inherent specialness.

Easter is coming in a couple days and my soul wants to scream He Lives. The music for the season communicates powerfully with their words but the tunes are reminiscent of marshmallow peeps.

The best rendition of Christ the Lord Is Risen Today that I could find is this one. It is up beat and modern, but in a smooth jazz/r&b sort of way. To communicate the joy and rapture that ought to be bursting from our hearts, the jazz should be rough and the blues sexy. I feel like if I gave voice to my soul I should scream it out half choking on the emotion - I want to hear P.O.D. or Blindside's rendition!

We cannot celebrate Easter hard enough!  Death, the grave and hell conquered by the unfathomed awful rising of the triumphant King!

Longing for eternity

Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee - St. Augustine

Last night as I was praying night prayer with divineoffice.org the beauty of the opening hymn sent me into reverie. I began to think, how often does a song, a scent, a landscape send me into a warm and fuzzy place. Call it nostalgia, call it idyllic dreaming, call it holy longing. What ever it is, it seems to me that these are glimpses of eternity. My soul resonates with these moments because they speak to me in my deepest longing for my home in God.

Ecclesiastes 3:11