Sunday -- The Deepest Pleasure

It is a quiet afternoon, overcast and savouring of winter. Yet, somehow, the summer heat still has its heart of warmth, so soaked into grass and sky and bricks that one can still see it beating beneath. In unconscious reflection of this created mood, I put on a red turtleneck--rare color, for me--and velvety gray sweatshirt. I look like an ember from some dying fire, and I dearly hope that I shall not lose my warmth with the season, for the season, I know, must grow colder every day.

Sundays are bellows days. Sunday breathes on the flame until it bursts out all red-lovely, and sends the ashes whirling. During the week, those same ashes seem wetted like dark snow, twenty pounds too heavy for my shoulders. But on Sunday, they are scattered as easily as a thought. What is that thought? Oh, it is Christ! Arise my soul, arise, shake off your guilty fears.

Today, C.J. spoke at Grace. God bless that gentle Christian man! Oh, God bless him! He is to me the biggest living proof that there is a God--who but God could forge such a soul from the fires of his sanctification? C.J. spoke to us words of hope and faith and love, true words, powerful words, and I drew breath again; my soul flamed up again.

This is the deepest pleasure. And, though another week will bring its layer of ashes, I believe that my red heart will go on burning beneath--not because I will keep it lively, but because its life is in Christ, and I know that that flame is an enternal one.

So, today I rest in the very white-hot of the fire, and tomorrow go out refreshed.