you, a coward

 “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

You, a coward.

I do not know who you are. The world does not know.

It doesn’t matter.

You may have some reason in your mind, some justification

for what you did. 

It doesn’t matter.

You, a coward. You, a murderer.

How dare you?

Kill an innocent man, a man who speaks truth,

a good man, and you think it makes you a hero.

You fool.

You coward. 

You murdered a man with children, a man with a wife,

a man who asks questions

and tells the truth.

You do not understand, perhaps,

that you

will never

win.

———

Yesterday, a man named Charlie Kirk was murdered. Why? Because he was speaking truth and goodness to people who didn’t want to hear it. He stood firm on the Word of God and someone thought it was okay to kill him because of it.

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” John 3:19-21

It Is Finished

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (John 19:30)

it is finished

the dirt is red.

bright red, soggy

with His blood and sweat and tears.

can’t you see? can’t you see

you foolish people crucifying Him, can’t you see

Who you are killing?

an innocent man.

“king of the Jews”.

King of the world.

He breathes a ragged breath,

stares up 

into the blackening, lonely sky. 

“it is finished.”

and then 

He breathes 

no more.

—

Good Friday is only Good because by dying, Christ gave us life. Soli Deo Gloria!

- Hannah

Don't Go Where I Can't Follow

    I felt it right to share a song I wrote a few weeks ago, based on dear Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Enjoy, if you wish! It’s just the words because I haven’t recorded it yet, but I have been inspired to do some more songwriting.

don’t go where I can’t follow

“don’t go where I can’t follow” - Samwise Gamgee

[verse 1]

said I’d follow you to the end

said I’d never go from your side

a poor man’s child

but all the while

I’ll stay with you, my friend

so don’t go where I can’t follow

don’t go where I can’t follow

[verse 2]

how I loved you, now you’re gone

how I need you, at the end

we’ve travelled far

beneath the stars

don’t leave me here, it’s wrong

so don’t go where I can’t follow

don’t go where I can’t follow

[verse 3]

now your eyes are closed, please wake up

now your skin is cold, please come back

I’m with you here

I’ll stay right here

though end of times should come

but you’ve gone where I can’t follow

you’ve gone where I can’t follow

[refrain]

please, don’t go where I can’t follow

don’t go where I can’t follow

Soli Deo Gloria,

Hannah

going away

 

i'm going away for a while

though i promise i'll return.

i'm going to a place

blooming, blazoning, shining

with stories and goodness and light.

a dream within a dream. a fairytale reality.

a place to truly

live.

(but i'm coming back in a week's time

and when i do

nothing will be the same.)

---

soli Deo gloria,

Hannah

Update! (And A Wee Bit Of Poetry)

     Well, hullo there! It’s been far too long since last I’ve posted (isn’t that always the story?), and you might notice that things look a wee bit different around here. But thank you to everyone who’s submitted something to my Story Review! I will start posting the first of those soon. 

    But meanwhile, here’s a raw and unedited poem inspired by Hamlet that I thought it’d be lovely to share for some feedback. Enjoy! (But if you don’t, feel free to tell me so in polite and Christ-like terms :))

but break, my heart 

“But break, my heart. for I must hold my tongue.” —Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 2

but break, my heart—

for I must hold my tongue. 

oh, that I could cast off this

too-changèd face!

I am confused, alone, broken—

broken, like the shards of

a crystal goblet discarded—

broken, like the dead tree that falls 

when discontented winter comes—

broken, like when the sun shines brightly

but not on me. 

break, my heart!

for broken things may mend, but oh,

God, God, don’t abandon me any longer.

I don’t want to break anymore.

— 

Namarië, 

Astrya

Inklings | August Edition

    Well. 

    It’s certainly been a hot minute, hasn’t it? I was gone almost two months, and it’s such a strange feeling to be back, home, doing normal things. 

    For those of you who are completely clueless, I was away for six weeks (and some) at an intensive violin program on the other side of the country, where we performed multiple concerts every week in symphony orchestra, and on top of that I had a (fabulous and amazing and wonderful) quartet with whom I performed and recorded. Our schedule was so packed it was difficult to find time for individual practicing! And yet I loved it. We had the chance to work with world-class performers and conductors, and I’d say it was probably the best summer of my life. 

Isn’t this quote so beautiful?

    (If you are someone I knew there and you’ve somehow stumbled upon this, I just want to say… having such excellent musicians and wonderful people as my friends for six weeks was absolutely incredible and made my time there That Much Better. And made it that much harder to say goodbye. But almost no goodbye is forever—we’ll meet again, and I look forward to the day we do!)

    (Now excuse me while I go practice…)

    Kidding. At least for now. Because it’s August now, and there’s a new Inklings prompt out! This month it’s a scene by the ocean in book or film and you can find Heidi’s original post here.  

    My selection comes from medieval poet Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti LXXV, one of the earliest sonnets written in English. It dates from the mid-1580s and features this sonnet about the poet’s seemingly vain attempt to immortalise his beloved’s name by writing it on the sand at the beach—but when the tide comes in, the name is slowly washed away. 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

‘Vain man,’ said she, ‘that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And ere my name be wiped out likewise.’

    It’s beautiful, and tragic, and subtly mourning the curse all humanity must experience—that is death. How can love be immortal when no human being is? And yet—and yet. Because we are created in the image of God we are also capable of loving unconditionally—as He does. And that is a love that transcends even death. 

    So is Spenser right, that nothing mortal can, or ought to, be immortalised? Is the narrator vain for attempting to do so? 

    If he was attempting to immortalise something sinful, I would agree. But because he bears a love that transcends even death—I don’t think he is vain. He’s sentimental, a fool even, but it is not an evil to give someone you love a token of that affection, however finite. 

    What thinkest thou, dear reader? (See, Elizabethan English affects me. I can’t read more than two paragraphs without adopting it for mine own self.) Is it wrong to immortalise love in a mortal manner? 

Soli Deo Gloria!

——

Namarië,

Astrya

Inklings | May Edition

    When I first saw Heidi’s May prompt for the lovely Inklings series, my inner dialogue went something like this:

    Pearls? What a delightful idea!

    What on earth will I do?

    Because May’s prompt is, as you may know (and if you don’t you’re missing out) a scene from a book or film with a pearl necklace. And except for the odd description here or there, I know of very few pearl-necklace-scenes.

    But I do know of something with a pearl. 

    A while back I obtained a book of three poems from the middle ages, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by J.R.R. Tolkien. One of the others, aptly named Pearl, is a poem exploring a sense of deep personal loss through the metaphor of the loss of a pearl. It’s really quite profound. “Pearl is apparently an elegy on the death of a child,” Tolkien wrote. “[It is] a poem pervaded with a sense of great personal loss; but, like Gawain it is also a sophisticated and moving debate on much less tangible matters.”

     The poem begins like this:

Pearl of delight that a prince doth please
To grace in gold enclosed so clear, 
I vow that from over orient seas
Never proved I any in price her peer.
So round, so radiant ranged by these,
So fine, so smooth did her sides appear
That ever in judging gems that please
Her only alone I deemed as dear.
Alas! I lost her in garden near:
Through grass to the ground from me it shot;
I pine now oppressed by love-wound drear
For that pearl, mine own, without a spot.

    The language and metre are absolutely beautiful, and so is the subject matter. Knowing that the pearl is a metaphor for some dear person lost and never in this life recoverable makes it all the more poignant. The poem is quite long, but I’ll just provide the ending as well—which is just as, if not more, brilliant. 

To please that Prince, or be pardon shown,
May Christian good with ease design;
For day and night I have Him known
A God, a Lord, a Friend divine.
This chance I met on mound where prone
In grief for my pearl I would repine;
With Christ's sweet blessing and mine own
I then to God it did resign.
May He that in form of bread and wine
By priest upheld each day one sees,
Us inmates of His house divine
Make precious pearls Himself to please.

    As I understand it, the Prince is Christ, the Prince of Peace. Here at the end, the narrator is surrendering that terrible loss to Him, saying Thy will be done, despite how much it hurts. 

    How beautiful a message is that? And how terrifying, for the unknown is a terrifying thing. But whatever happens, we can have the confidence that the Lord is with us, no matter what, and loves us so extremely much.

    Soli Deo Gloria!

——

Namarië,

Astrya

From Daybreak to Evening

    Greetings! I hope all of you had a lovely Easter last weekend. As difficult as it is to transition from such a momentous and wonderful thing as Christ’s resurrection to, well—to anything, I decided that now is as good a time as any to share a poem I scrambled together in the last week. 

    For context, I was reading a short story of Tolkien’s, entitled Smith of Wootton Major. It tells the tale of a young blacksmith’s son who swallows a star from the land of Faery in a piece of Feast-cake. He was always a quiet lad, but he becomes merrier, brighter, and goes on long journeys here and there. Eventually he finds Faery-land, but must give up his star (which sits proudly on his forehead) to the king. It’s a beautiful yet bittersweet story, and I highly suggest reading it if you haven’t yet. 

    And now, without further ado, here’s the poem. 

  

From Daybreak to Evening

“You must have walked far.”

“Yes indeed; all the way from Daybreak to Evening.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, Smith of Wootton Major

When I was young I wandered far

from daybreak to the edge of night

my guiding light an Elven-star

through darkness it shone bright

in an age gone by I walked the path

of shining sky and starry seas

with wonder saw the fire’s wrath

in setting sun beneath the trees

I journeyed far through stream and hill

and danced with golden flowered light

that yet I think there lingers still

though the World since fell to night

but now my Elven guiding-star

has left I know not where

I have wandered here and far

from break of day to evening there

now starlit sky meets midnight sea

and here my journey’s end does lie

under shade of hill and tree

where the shining sea joins the sky.

Farewell, guiding star! My road has ended here

in Faery-land, that starry place

that ever I held dear. 

____

Namarië, 

Astrya