A beautiful poem to match Herbert’s poem, not just in the echo of hope but in the echo of song.
Not sure it’s a title, but I am drawn to this one line again and again: ‘no more than hand can hold.’ I am so struck by the idea of God as ‘the God of just enough’. For someone with relative security and safety and abundance in the west (acknowledging my own struggles within that), the idea of ‘daily’ bread is so often lost on me. Perhaps I am heavily influenced by Bema, but as I go further into my own faith journey, I find ‘daily bread’ as challenging as it is comforting.
‘No more than hand can hold’ is very evocative and I’ll keep chewing it over as I go about my day.
Andy, I love how the first line wraps words around the Biblical concept of hope, a concept that’s often so different from how we use “hope” in today’s vernacular.
Also different from the idea of hope-as-optimism, which is something I’ve been wrestling with lately. Optimism often lands us in the unhelpful realm of wishful-thinking, which seems to blind us both to our need and to God’s grace in the moment (the daily bread Isabelle’s talking about!).
Appreciate the help these first lines give me in pondering these nuanced things 😅
A beautiful poem to match Herbert’s poem, not just in the echo of hope but in the echo of song.
Not sure it’s a title, but I am drawn to this one line again and again: ‘no more than hand can hold.’ I am so struck by the idea of God as ‘the God of just enough’. For someone with relative security and safety and abundance in the west (acknowledging my own struggles within that), the idea of ‘daily’ bread is so often lost on me. Perhaps I am heavily influenced by Bema, but as I go further into my own faith journey, I find ‘daily bread’ as challenging as it is comforting.
‘No more than hand can hold’ is very evocative and I’ll keep chewing it over as I go about my day.
Thank you for sharing your gifts!
I like it! Good thoughts. Thanks, Isabelle.
So true for me, too, Isabelle. Thank you for expressing this tension.
also good job actually following up on something lol
snowdrops be writhin underfoot again :D
Andy, I love how the first line wraps words around the Biblical concept of hope, a concept that’s often so different from how we use “hope” in today’s vernacular.
Also different from the idea of hope-as-optimism, which is something I’ve been wrestling with lately. Optimism often lands us in the unhelpful realm of wishful-thinking, which seems to blind us both to our need and to God’s grace in the moment (the daily bread Isabelle’s talking about!).
Appreciate the help these first lines give me in pondering these nuanced things 😅
Is Psalm 118 connected to this psalm in some key way? I’m see a graphic for Ps 118, but don’t see anything about that psalm in this post 🤔
Ha. Nope. That was me forgetting to change the graphic from psalm 118 to psalm 40. Thanks!