“This is uncanny, Lord:
a rutted sandy road
running through grass
to a railroad crossing,
a semaphore
against a blue sky
and a white cloud,
a little water color
on a piece of rough paper.
I’ve seen this all a thousand times,
but here it is,
trapped and alive and held:
the golden hue of every glorious summer day,
the everlasting simple grass and sand and sky,
a bit of the first morning,
when the morning stars sang together
and the sons of God shouted for joy.
Adam could walk across this railroad track
and eve, still nude and unashamed.
Uncanny is hardly the word for it;
call it a miracle.
I thank you Lord
for the miracle
of this artist’s eye of innocence,
this deep adoration of Your handiwork
that lets me look upon Your world again
as once Your Son could look
on lilies of the field
growing in Galilee.”
Prayer by Martin H. Franzmann, Pray for Joy
“Therefore it is for the children. The child is small and knows he is small (that is all that Jesus singles out in the child; He says nothing of his innocence, loveliness, or charm); the child is always looking up to persons greater than he; he cannot ever forget how small he is, and he has not yet learned to deceive himself into the belief that he is as big as anybody. The child receives. Children are the world’s best askers and beggars; they are the world’s best accepters of gifts and receivers of presents. – The finest characterization of our Lutheran Confessions is Schlink’s, who says that they breathe the air of child’s delight at having received a gift. “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” “Humble himself” – a child does not make himself smaller than he is; he knows how small he actually is. That is why turning, being converted, is a turning to childhood. That is why greatness comes to the childlike. The emptiest receives most; only he will be great for whom “greatness” has lost all meaning, for whom only God is great, as only God is good. God is Creator, and he works ex nihilo. He puts Himself into selfless lives; He pours the wine of His gladness into empty cups; He fills empty hands; He justifies the ungodly and raises the dead. When the brazen idol of our greatness has melted before the blaze of God’s greatness and lies a little pool to reflect God’s glory and the glory of our lord Jesus Christ, then we shall have begun to be Christians, then we have become at least apprentice theologians.” ~Martin Franzmann
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