"as is"

How easy - to see the world, recognize that
it is as it is,
and then to accept that we cannot change it.
How readily we grow accustomed to
merely trudging through this life.
"This is how it is.
Sometimes there is excitement,
and sometimes there is not."
But - but!
are excitement and passion
one and the same?
Are lives meant to be as they are?
Our existences to be merely hours?

Or are we meant
for better
and we settle for
this!
because we have no
grander vision, no
clearer picture
of a way that is better - imagination destroyed
by the toils of the world and all its myriad troubles?

I believe
this life is meant to be redeemed.
I do not believe
the great swirl of color
that was Christ's temporal existence was
a picture only of Heaven;
nor His calling
an idea only of what we will then be.
No! No, indeed: for He calls us
in the now,
in the moment,
in the passing instances -
that fill our days -
to live as He did.

Redeem the time, for the hours are evil. Walk as wise, not as unwise.

Say, "Carpe diem!" but the status quo may never change.

Status quo cannot our status remain. And yet
if we change it;
if the status quo is no longer status quo;
if all that we have come to accept
as "as is"
no longer
is as is -
if even we dare to dream as much - we tremble.
What is there but this?
The world cannot be shaken by mere men,
can it?
No! No, indeed: for He came to die
for "as is"
that as is
might no more
be "as is".

But if He came for
"as is"
and we accept
it as is
because it is,
then are we walking in

Faith?
hoped for assured,
unseen conviction:
kneels opposite
"as is"
and demands
as is bow the knee no more to
"as is".

Light the fire!
Kindle the torches!
Loose upon this world a flame
like it has never known
save in flashes 'cross the centuries:
a glimmer here, a spark there,
an explosion now, a long slow burn again...

They say "Do not expect too much.
Life is not always filled with sparkles."

And they are right -
but I dare not expect too little.
Life may not be filled with sparkles: but we may be sparks instead.
Life may not be filled with excitement: but we may fill it with passion nonetheless.
Life may not be filled with brio: but we can be - should be: are if aright - its vivace.

There is more! greater! higher! nobler! fuller! joyfuller! grander!
in every moment, yes every moment every moment every moment
of every every every day than we dare to dream of,
much less imagine,
much less hope
oh never dare to hope
and to believe is beyond belief.

Though we tread valleys,
we are the ennobled carriers
carriers of bright blazes:
we are the conflagration made flesh.

We lose our passion, perhaps because we let our eyes grow dim?

Mistake not: passion and excitement are siblings but no twins,
and the twain are not the same.
We may breathe passion in our dullest day,
persist for passion's sake not despite its absence.

And we must! We must,
oh how dreadful the need for lives
of submitted passion,
of surrendered thirst for glory divine incarnated:
feeble bodies unfeebled by their glorification of Him who glories, Whose glory is.

When fire ruled every heart, no matter how poured down the rain:
Then "as is" became as His glory is.