A thousand silent walls

The following poem, A Small Prayer in a Hard Wind by Christian Wiman, speaks a truth to me.

As through a long-abandoned half-standing house

Only someone lost could find,

Which, with its paneless windows and sagging crossbeams,

Its hundred crevices in which a hundred creatures hoard and nest,

Seems both ghost of the life that happened there

And living spirit of this wasted place,

Wind seeks and sings every wound in the wood

That is open enough to receive it,

Shatter me God into my thousand sounds …

One day, not too long ago, I sat in a man’s office. Adorning the wall were the awards and accolades of his professional and personal life. There were pictures, too. Family, celebrities, action shots and high occasions were all framed to say to anyone sitting in his office that he achieved a measure of significance, all a nice but minor monument to say he was not a regular man.

What do you think of this man? I can tell you I think he was a regular man, like anyone who wishes to assert his presence among peers, his individuality, his value. He is, I think, a man who wishes to be counted among the body of men whose only measure is a success that a hundred idols “hoard and nest.” And doesn’t this make him a regular man?

“Sever yourselves from such a man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?” (Isaiah 2: 22).

Herein lies a deception. Never do we believe we are equal in the affairs of men. We either believe we’re above the lesser or striving to be the greater or as our man – significant. Nothing shouts at God more than a thousand silent, decaying walls adorned in dust to say we are not like other men.

“Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches; give me only my daily bread, lest I be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I become poor and steal and profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30: 8,9).

In God’s eyes, we enter into grace as sinners, all of the same sort, equal, until we become fully participating members of Christ’s body. Then, our spiritual gifts, each different, uneven, united by the Holy Spirit, serve His significance, not ours. Nothing is more ordained than to awake to the idea God loves us not because we have value, but because He is love.

In His kingdom, ministers, missionaries, teachers, writers, liberals, conservatives, helpers, encouragers, sustainers and bridgebuilders serve at home, abroad, in quiet corners undetected, in board rooms and fields of play. Witness knows no division. God’s children share the same joy and are called to spread it each according to his gift.

In Christ’s body, we become who we are intended to be more fully than if we were going it alone.

“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15, NKJV).