weight of glory

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Reflections on reflections: “Your Glory Falls”

April 15, 2009 in reviews & connections, writings by Tim by The Blackthorn Project | Permalink

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Discussion of our most recent song for free download. Here are some great quotes on the subject, some of which are referenced in the conversation:

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
- Romans 8:20-21 (New American Standard Bible)

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
- Galatians 2:20 (New International Version)

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

reflection

“For you must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.”

“In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter.”
- C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

“Your Glory Falls” – Simple Series

March 28, 2009 in music, writings by Tim by The Blackthorn Project | 6 comments

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Simple Series #01 Your Glory Falls || $.99 iTunes

“Nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one.”

So said C. S. Lewis, as if he was from the Rocky Mountains.

Thousands of years before, the ancient poet looked up and wrote what we know as the nineteenth song in the book of psalms. He had no trouble gasping at the beauty of the changing sky in one phrase, then in the next contemplating that there is something eternal and pure and beyond those skies–and realizing that his own heart and life needed to reflect it.

Not to be outdone, I wrote this song a fishing season or so back, while waiting to be picked up for a day on the river in Eleven Mile Canyon. It is a true Colorado boy’s song to the Creator. It was inspired by Psalm 19, so I thought I’d include part of that text below so you can see how I used it as a way to enter into my own song of worship.

In the next post/podcast, we’ll talk more about the ancient psalmists’ sun, wind and clouds, and their harmony with my Colorado’s quaking aspen trees and rainbow trout.

Meantime, if this song gets to you, make it a prelude to an hour on the porch with a nice beverage and a copy of “The Weight of Glory” by C. S. Lewis. If the nearest porch looks to a place where created things have been suppressed, a potted plant will do. But don’t just look at creation. Listen to her song, for as Lewis observed, “we are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.”

from Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

Who can discern his errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then will I be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.

and from Psalm 135:

The LORD does whatever pleases him,
in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and all their depths.

He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth;
he sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

–

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“Your Glory Falls” by Timothy Floyd Thornton copyright Bricklayer Music Publishing (ASCAP) 2009, registered with CCLI.