Not So Famous…

My friend over at The Ocean’s Dreams has taken to posting dark poetry on her blog.  Granted, the poetry she has been posting has been original work…but seeing as how my personal poetry is hopeless, I’ll post one of my favorite poems from all time.  This is posted from memory, so the punctuation may not be correct.  I looked up the poem for capitalization, though.  :)

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Invictus – William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced, nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears,
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years,
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

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Why do I like that poem?  Well, first of all, I do not find the sentiments expressed by Henley to be true.  He was not the master of his fate.  He was not the captain of his soul.  His poem completely ignores the God of all creation, as stoics tend to do.  But the overall tenor of the poem speaks to me for some reason.  When I read that I can see paintings in my mind that I would use to display what is going on. It just speaks to me.  In my pre-Christian days, I admired the stoic point of view, and I think it is that residual admiration that causes me to enjoy this poem.  :)

Being sick is sucky, and I am sick yet again!  This one appears to be particularly contagious, as my wife appears to be getting the sore throat I started with.  :(  She never gets sick, either.

Who belongs at church? This may seem like an obvious question with an equally obvious answer, but some people I’ve been talking with of late don’t seem to know or believe the answer.

In one case,  there is a person who has a specific sin she is struggling with. She tries over and over to avoid this sin, and she really tries hard.  She struggles with wanting to justify the sin, sometimes, which is particularly difficult, as the Bible leaves no wiggle-room in this area, despite people’s continual attempts to reconcile this sin and the Word of God.  She knows she can’t, but that doesn’t make it easier for her to stop.

The problem I am having with her is that when she backslides and commits the sin again, her reaction is to stop going to church or fellowshipping with Christians altogether.  She says that she wants to get that sin more under control before she comes back to church.  I try to tell her that the Lord Jesus said that he came to heal the sick…not the perfect.  I also tell her that we all have our sins…if we were waitng to be perfect to come to Christ and go to church, no one would ever be there. I understand that there’s an amount of shame, whether or not people know about your sin, but she needs to continue coming and partaking in the means of grace in order to have the grace to fight off this sin.  It isn’t easy of course, but we must continue to run the race.

Anyway, so who belongs at church?  Ultimately, everyone who is saved, and those who are not yet saved, but are still the elect of God.  This person of whom I have been speaking definitely needs to be at church.  I hope she goes.

Please pray for her.