A God Desperate To Be Loved Read online

  A GOD

  DESPERATE

  TO BE LOVED

  A Poetic-Artistic Spiritual Journey

  FR. ED GRAVES

  This awesome awareness

  moves me to tears:

  how your love

  has guided all my hallowed,

  though often troubled years;

  yet even now, Lord,

  the sun of your glory rises.

  --We Reverence Your Cross

  AuthorHouse™

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  Phone: 1-800-839-8640

  © 2012 by FR. ED GRAVES. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  Published by AuthorHouse 06/22/2012

  ISBN: 978-1-4678-7684-1 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4678-7683-4 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4678-7682-7 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011960742

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them

  Contents

  TO A SKEPTIC

  The Master Painter- A Parable

  Introduction

  I A GOD DESPERATE TO BE LOVED

  A God Desperate To Be Loved

  Revelation?

  Prodigal God

  The Night-Covered Sea

  There Is A Tree In Eden

  The Day Is Born

  What Dark Monolith Is This?

  Resurrection

  Mother Of Sorrows

  We Reverence Your Cross

  II CALL OF THE BELOVED

  The Secret Streams

  Priest

  The Heart Of A God-Gilded Universe

  The Call

  Cry Of The Gentle Prophet

  Earth Sleeps

  Morning Praise

  Obscure Places

  Out Of The Depths

  Your Own Psalm

  A Sparrow’s Song

  III BETROTHAL

  Embrace

  Wing

  The Irrepressible Wing

  Abduction

  IV EXILE

  Why?

  What Is A Door But A Way

  Alone

  Far Beyond

  The Runner

  Here--Where I Am

  Transience

  Sunbright Carmelite

  Is

  Dismembered Lead

  O Maker, Let Me See!

  Silence!

  Fun

  Brief Encounter

  To Her

  I Do Not Pine For Paris

  My Loved Ones Live In Me

  V WE TWO BROTHERS (To A Lifetime Friend, John Smith)

  We Two Brothers

  Wanderers Now Reborn 1

  VI THE BIRTH OF LOVE

  The Hidden Mystery

  Melchior

  The Father’s Gift

  I Far Outshone The Stars

  I Am Emmanuel

  As We Pray At Your Crib

  VII RAPTURE

  Rapture

  Woman, Do You Not Hold The World In Your Hands?

  VIII EVENING APPROACHES

  Evening Approaches

  You Are Important

  Your Work Cannot Define Your Worth

  Every Tree Is A Burning Bush

  So Be It!

  I Have Taken Life On My Own Terms

  What Is So Bad About Old Age?

  My Life

  I Think I Shall Have Lived Well

  A POSTSCRIPT-MY ART AND POETRY

  FATHER ED GRAVES

  WORKS BY FR. ED GRAVES

  “I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I drew you to me, taking pity on you.”

  Jeremiah 31: 3

  “There are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio

  Shakespeare, Hamlet

  TO A SKEPTIC

  “I don’t believe in God,” Tom, my college schoolmate, said as he and I sat that bright September day on a stone bench in the shade of a mammoth oak. We had agreed to meet here after his last class.

  I had merely said, “God is wonderful--to make so beautiful a day!” Although shocked, I continued to admire the campus a while, then turned to him. “Tom,” I said, “no guy ever looked into the eyes of a girl he loves and said, ‘I don’t believe in love!’ No one ever looked at this beautiful campus, or, admired, as we did last night, a clear starry sky, and said, ‘I don’t believe in beauty!’ We believe in love and beauty--why not in God? Did someone not have to create them?’ How can you see all this beauty and deny its maker?

  “I don’t have to prove God exists, Tom. I don’t have to prove Jesus is God, that he loves me: I know it. I’ve experienced it. I don’t believeJesus is alive, that he rose from the dead. I’ve met him. He’s my friend, my lover.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard all the arguments, as you have; I’ve walked the ivied halls, heard the rabid professors. But I’ve also sat, still and long, and listened to the wind whisper through the trees. I have known the boundless, the sometimes ravishing presence of a loving God. And I’ve looked into his eyes. On Calvary. I’ve been bathed, as in the sunlight of this day, by his unconditional love. He is with me--a person, a friend, who gives my life meaning.

  And--just think, Tom! Jesus says that if we believe in him we will live forever. (John 6:40) Can you imagine only doing what you love, when you want--forever?

  “These poems and drawings are my love songs to God-- praising of his beauty and love. They are a witness, not a defense, a song, not an argument. As birds must sing and breezes must flow--as God’s beloved, I must sing--write poetry and draw.

  “Here, Tom. Take this book. Maybe we can sing the same song.”

  “In the beginning...God created the heavens and the earth.

  Genesisl: 1

  “I do not paint what I see; I paint what I feel.”

  Pablo Picasso

  The Master Painter- A Parable

  Sunrise glimmered gold behind the the Master Painter’s mansion, soon sending mystic beams down the high nighted mountain and seaport below where we had gathered earlier. Gazing up at the imposing edifice, we anxiously awaited the van he was sending to pick us up at St. John’s Church, and when we finally arrived and gathered on his porch, we held our breath as the tall doors opened and he appeared, his welcoming smile beaming in the waking sun. He beckoning our little group inside for a first glimpse of his work.

  As he opened the doors and greeted us, we said, “People have told us that your canvases are like nothing we have ever seen, that they reveal our deepest selves.”

  We remembered Paul Cezanne saying he would amaze Paris with an apple--and people laughed at him; but he did, and not merely Paris, but the world. The art world still reels from his genius. Needless to say, we ex
pected an epiphany.

  As he escorted us down a long hall decked with famous paintings, all of which he said he loved, he opened the double doors to a huge white vaulted studio and inviting us in. Sunlight blazed in broad shafts through the tall open arched windows, washing him in dazzling light.

  His aged, smiling face radiated kindness, his smile was childlike, his face round with gray, receding hair. Light darkly etched the creases around his smiling eyes and mouth.

  “Please, come in!” he said, eager to show us his work.

  And we expected him to be somber! After all, he was a revered genius. Instead, he was warm, inviting, and made us feel at home. And for some strange reason, we seemed to know him, as we would a beloved father or grandfather.

  We stood around gazing at the huge paintings that leaned, backs facing us, against the walls.

  “These paintings,” he said, “tell your story. They will puzzle some of you, amaze some of you, thrill some of you. But remember--I paint like no one else. My paintings are different from any you have seen. And they portray not only what my eyes see, but what I think and feel about you.

  I use one characteristic to represent you: your beauty as unrepeatable masterpieces of God. I want these paintings to show you how special you are, and each painting is of one of you and reveals the most meaningful aspects of your life. I chose each of you, and I hope you will see yourselves as special as I do.

  “My work was influenced by Cezanne and Picasso. Cezanne studied and painted Mt. St. Victorie for years, day after day, from different views. He said he could study forever and never exhaust his mountain’s beauty. He would move slightly to the right, now to the left, and see it as new. You are my Mt. St. Victorie.

  “Like Picasso. I see you from many views, and, as he said, ‘It is as if, when I paint, I touch the face of God.’

  “My paintings are a mystery to be probed, not just glanced at, to understand. They are an enigma, even a seeming distortion--or, if you will, an abstraction. But all art is distortion and abstraction: Rembrandt and I paint the same subject, but each of us has a unique vision. Neither merely paints what he sees--but what he feels and thinks. As for me, my paintings of you are poetic, the poetry of your lives as God’s beloved children--and I know you are that.”

  He began to walk slowly around the room, pausing before one painting, then another, turning each painting to face us. A deep silence seized us. Our eyes widened in amazement, our hearts expanded at our awareness of his boundless love for us.

  Each of us gazed, for a seemingly endless time, at our painting-- but then, all as one, we turned to the Master Painter and saw his eyes welling with tears, so eager he was for our response. Our eyes also began to tear up. Then, as if with one voice, as if caught up in a spiritual ecstasy, we exclaimed, “All glory, honor, and praise to you, our God, forever and ever!” For the Master Painter--was God.

  Each of us could see in our portrait, mysteriously yet clearly, the face of Jesus--not in place of, but in our uniqueness. We also saw the faces of everyone we had known, all the people we had loved--men and women, young and old. All were there in our face--and we knew: only God could paint like this.

  We finally understood: Jesus is all in all!

  Our response to this experience was seemingly timeless, an overwhelming love for God and each other, a breathtaking awareness that each of us is God’s image, each a masterpiece. It was as if our paintings showed us in eternal bliss, in the new. creation, of which John wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” (Revelation 21: 1) Heavenly music seemed to fill our souls. Each of us felt like Isaiah 38:12 when he said, “Like a shepherd’s tent my home is pulled up and removed from me.” And we, we had finally arrived at our eternal home.

  Much later, as we bade our host goodbye, as he looked lovingly into our eyes, we slowly walked out the front doors, still in a daze--and, there before us, as far as eye could see, spread a vast plain radiant with the smiling faces of all God’s children, all bathed in dazzling, multicolored light. Yes! Yes! “Look! I make all things new!” (Rev. 21:5) And how beautifully!

  As we walked down the porch to the lawn, we looked back at our host smiling and waving goodbye--but now he looked like a ghostly apparition, and instead of his mansion, we saw a sprawling graveyard full of rows and rows of empty graves and toppled, crumbling headstones bearing our names; and we knew--finally--that we had arrived at the Mansion of Eternal Joy.

  “Whoever eats my flesh and, drinks

  my bloom has eternal life. “

  John 6: 64

  “O God, you are my God--for you I long!

  ...for you my soul thirsts....”

  Psalm 63: 1

  Introduction

  An awesome silence enveloped us that moonlit night. My old green Chevy turned on the dirt road winding through the woods. There, looming before us, ghostly, dappled in moonlight, stood an old white wooden monastery. A sense of mystery seized me. Our three carloads of senior boys, coming for our end-of-the- year retreat, had entered another world, another age--and, for me, an experience that would forever chart the course of my life.

  On our last night, I stood alone after Night Prayer with the monks in the church, in the big dark shower room that smelled musty, old, refreshing myself under the shower’s cool water. I marveled at the deepening silence. Distant church bells and the shower water only deepened it.

  Suddenly, I was struck by an awesome awareness: Jesus was with me, smiling down at me from the cross. His love for me overwhelmed me. My whisper echoed in the room: “Jesus, now I know that you are alive, that you died to save me--and I give you my life.”

  Ever since that night, I have heard God calling me in the silence of my heart live centered in his loving presence. So firmly has he grasped my heart, I cannot for long focus my love on anything but him. Now, many years later, as I sit, a retired priest in Arkansas, God continues to hold me. Nothing but God seems real for long . I recall the words on the arched ivied trellis in front of the monastery, forever etched in my memory, God Alone. God, i would find, wanted to be my Spouse, my Beloved. “I will lead her,” Hosea says “ into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart.” (Hosea 2:14)

  So now...

  “as deeper night descends

  where stars like children sing,

  We make you the high priest

  of heaven’s charms,’

  I walk the breathless night

  lifting high their light--

  transformed to source

  from musty effigy.”

  from poem “The Priest”

  “You shall love the Lord your God

  with all your heart“

  Deuteronomy 6:5

  I

  A GOD DESPERATE

  TO BE LOVED

  “I have loved you

  with an everlasting love,

  therefore have I called you,

  taking pity on you.”

  Jeremiah 31:3

  “Greater love has no one than

  to lay down his life for his friends.”

  John 15: 13

  A GOD DESPERATE TO BE LOVED

  I, a God desperate to be loved?

  I, the gaping wellspring

  of original desire?

  I who cannot but love,

  I who am love itself?

  Yes! Oh, yes!

  I am desperate to give my love

  but also to have it given back to me:

  I need--and I needyou—

  oh, you, at least,

  for so few see:

  my passion to love

  is also a relentless need;

  (All lovers are like that,

  are they not?)

  and I,

  I am a passionate lover.

 
(Where do you think the idea came from?)

  Did you not see this when,

  like a master painter,

  I painted my ultimate masterpiece,

  rapacious Calvary,

  across the vast canvas of your heart;

  or when I, utterly spent with love,

  sat back in my easy chair,

  set down my well-worn brush,

  and said, “I shall never paint better?”

  Remember? It was that afternoon

  too impatient to wait for night.

  Did not my love, a crimson river,

  flash under jagged, distraught arrows

  as thunder boomed in outrage

  over the weeping, thrashing land;

  did my love not rush with intrepid desire

  from my Son’s pierced heart,

  seize grieving hearts with awe?

  Did I not seek to ravage

  all hearts--yes, even yours,

  my handiwork?

  Did I not seek

  to make all my lovers?

  Have I not, with reckless abandon,

  shown that I, your Maker,

  a crazed suitor,

  am your hopelessly

  desperate Lover,

  your fading life’s

  ultimate harbor?

  Did I not?

  Do you not remember?

  Oh, my distracted love!

  “Foryour love is better than life [...].

  Psalm 63: 4

  “[•••] I will love you and make myself known to you.”

  John 14:21