Everything is spiritual
The Nelsonia blog is now closed. I won’t be making new entries, but I’ll keep the blog up for several months, in case anyone wants to save or print a post.
I’m currently working on another project, which will be published under a new domain. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.
Thank you for reading Nelsonia the past six years. I appreciate your support.
Blessings,
Eric Nelson
Lean toward Love,
As a plant leans toward Light.
Without thought
Yet knowing your life depends on it.
— Eric Nelson
An Advent song
Jesus, are you coming?
Jesus, my sweet Lord.
To light this dark world
The Lord blessed a girl
With grace from above
Gave flesh to God’s love
In Jesus, sweet Jesus.
Jesus, are you coming?
Jesus, my sweet Lord.
Not only to be born
In hay on Christmas morn
But birthed in our hearts
Let your love impart
Sweet Jesus, O Jesus.
Jesus, are you coming?
Jesus, my sweet Lord.
Come open our hearts
Come make us your art
Descend as a dove
On wings of God’s love
In Jesus, O Jesus.
Don’t let our hearts roam
Come rest in our homes
We wait here on earth
For the day of your birth
O sweet Jesus. Come down Jesus.
Text: Eric D. Nelson
Fragile Father,
man made of clay.
Nightmare monster,
glaring dismay.
Brooding boulder
shaman of my soul,
rock turning older
my heart grows colder.
Tender Father,
“Your eyes blaze with night!”
Farther, Father,
“This darkness, too bright.”
— E. D. Nelson
This poem originally appeared in Hummingbird, Volume XXIX, Number 2.
Commentary: I wrote this poem in my middle twenties. Like many sons I had a difficult and complicated relationship with my father. When I was a boy I used to have nightmares about him. They weren’t linked to abuse or other biographical events, but rather the tenor of our relationship. By the time my father died, much had changed. I was twenty years older, and our relationship had deepened and became more understanding. I had taken care of him during his final illness, and had chosen to enter the ministry, a vocation we now shared. I couldn’t write this poem today; it would feel disloyal to the man my father became. Farther, Father reveals our early relationship, and how I felt about this man who was the shaman of my soul.
In the calendar of the Catholic Church, the second Sunday of Easter is reserved for Divine Mercy Sunday, which honors the work of Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, a polish saint who emphasized God’s mercy during her brief but influential ministry. She wrote a series of journals that chronicle her visions of Jesus. She also commissioned the painting shown above. You will find this painting in Catholic churches everywhere.
Life as a Catholic features this sort of thing–honoring saints, imitating their words and deeds, kneeling before paintings and statues–not to worship them, but to aid our spiritual life, and to encourage us to ask for help.
At the church where I have membership, we maintain a small candle shrine with the painting. I make regular visits there and recite the simple prayer Sr. Faustina recommends: “Jesus, I trust in you.” I draw solace from the so-called Divine Mercy chaplet, which are brief prayers about mercy that replace the usual rosary prayers. I often pray the Litany of Trust , written by a contemporary religious sister, Sister Faustina Maria Pia.
When I was confirmed as a Catholic I was asked to select a saint. St. Francis of Assisi had been with me since my late teens, when I first become interested in historical Christianity. For my confirmation as a Catholic I chose St. John Henry Newman because he was a convert, a great theologian, and a humble priest. Metals of St. Francis and St. John Henry are attached to the rosary I commissioned after I joined the Church. Lately, I’ve been contemplating who to add next. I keep coming back to Sr. Faustina, who reminds us that we all need divine mercy, and that God desires to grant mercy, if we will trust him.
“Jesus, I trust in you.” The hardest part of this prayer, for me, is trusting that God wants to forgive me. The hardest part of mercy is acceptance. Forgiveness is a gift from God, one I must accept willingly. Yet, mercy is surprising, even shocking. Does God really wants to forgive me? Me and my actual sins that I alone know?
This what I have learned. Yes, God wants wants to forgive me, and my actual sins, that I alone know. Those sins that stab me with guilt at random hours. Mercy wants to forgive those sins. Mercy also wants to forgive my worst sins, especially those I feel worst about. Mercy sweeps our sins off the floor and mops up the guilt. You’d never know any sin had ever been committed from the point of view of God. We remember our dirty floors, God does not. That is the quality of mercy.
Mercy is meant to restore our relationship with God. To restore confidence and trust.
Mercy wants us to say, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
— E. D. Nelson
Treetops sway in the wind
outside the hospital breezeway.
Crude brooms
hastily assembled from the litter of fall
lash the leathery sky.
Secure behind a window
I watch them at work,
sweeping what cannot be swept,
a futile protest against the snow
surging from the sky in tumbling gray heaps.
Creatures here below yield to the storm,
hiding in hovel and home.
Hoping for reprieve,
they ponder their chances:
Positivity fails.
Philosophy shatters its delicate bones.
Old dreams clatter then crack,
like so many iced limbs.
The wind makes fools of them all.
This heaving of trunk and root–
This karmic dance of limbs–
These branches lashing heaven–
They accomplish nothing.
The sky will outlast their angry demonstration.
The storm is stronger than the trees–and knows it.
But I would rather pray for the fragile trees
than worship the fierce gods of winter.
I would rather be a falconer releasing God’s raven
than prepare a sacrificial fire to Odin.
I would rather join the trees rioting for their redeemer,
calling out for him who stilled the storm and quenched all fear
And left all creatures here below, praising.
— E. D. Nelson
IV. Avatar
A bright light that’s far away can’t be distinguished from a dim light that’s near
God’s glory was attenuated by a thousand spheres of unspoken prayer
So the Ancient Splendor came down among the people and healed their bodies
He stood in the temple, His ruddy face glowing like rosy Aldebaran.
The Lord of Glory stares at the full Moon–the Star beholding its Reflection.
Moonlight washes my face to a silver sheen.
I spread my arms and embrace the Ancient of Days.
III. Soma
A bright light that’s far away can’t be distinguished from a dim light that’s near
The sunlight blooming at my feet warms me more than a faraway field of sunflowers
I prefer coffee with my love to a theophany of the crystalline spheres
Even though Yahweh could burn my despair away, if His flame were near
Even though His faraway love makes me pine and swell with spiritual desire
I would take five minutes by His side, I would ask my love to leave
If only His dim love would grow brighter than my perpetual grief.
II. Spiritus
A bright light that’s far away can’t be distinguished from a dim light that’s near.
It’s only when their distances are the same that brightness can be compared.
An idol on the closet shelf inspires more devotion that a glorious god at infinite remove.
An inferior teaching practiced with dedication
Can be as transformative as a superior tradition not put into practice.
Only careful devotion can demonstrate which one is truly the brighter light.
Therefore, make use of the starlight at hand without regard for absolute magnitude.
I. Empiricos
A bright light that’s far away can’t be distinguished from a dim light that’s near
I learned that driving down a country road one night.
There were faint headlights in the distance, approaching rapidly I believed.
I waited 20 seconds, then a minute, then three.
The car drew no closer, but rather floated on an ethereal plane.
My car hurtled toward the distant lights, as through space. I never did meet them.
Finally, the ethereal car turned away, and my earthly vehicle flung into the night.
