Bare plains of defeat; grey skies above
Rubble-strewn, windswept ground;
Crushed altars; smoke rising from cleansing fire
Gaping wounds; scorched green
A lonely farmer on the high plains;
Working to life the impoverished soil
Braving chilly gales and hovering eagles
Setting up the tree; a stark, bare cross
The first Victory, won with divine blood
A solitary monument, rising into the biting, chilly air
The only sacrifice left to be made;
The only shelter on all the plains
And though all around is defeat;
The plough still works the soil
Yet a loving hand washes the bruises
Tends the open sores
Clears the stony rubble; stokes hidden fires
Nurtures lovingly the age-old stump
Till all is vivid, exuberant green
But still the battle rages on
A ceaseless conflict on those barren plains
The old, old enemy never rests
And I, ravaged, pillaged, but still standing
Turning back the battle at the gates
For lo! the plough still works the soil
- December 1992
How barren is the plain of my soul!
My favourite colour, for reasons that I could not understand till now, is green. Now, after all these years, I do understand why. Green is the colour of life. And green....can only come after the barren plains are ploughed up and the stony ground broken. If you want to grow something, you need good soil.
When I looked within myself, I saw (and still see) a plain, extending flatly for miles and miles. There isn't an undulation in sight - not even a ripple. And there are other things I don't see - good soil for one. There are smoking fires that dot the plain, where embers smoulder. The soil looks, in parts, black, stony or ashen grey. There is no salving brown anywhere. If there is any green, it's all scorched and smeared with blood. Some fresh, some clotted over years and years. Bones - some charred, some intact, mostly human, lie about carelessly.
It's a lunar landscape with murky, grey skies. Gale-force chilly winds blow. Eagles and vultures, the only birds that can perhaps use these conditions, hover. They wait......for something to die.
There can be no life here. If anything lived here at all.....it has surely died long ago. There are a few stumps of trees hacked in some bygone age. Yet, there must have been a time when something or someone lived here. Now, at any rate, nothing lives.
How can anything live? Life hasn't a chance!!! Anything that would sprout here must brave the blood-soaked, hard, nutrition-less ground; and then the swishing swords that cut through the gales without warning. Or the fires. And no animal can find food here.
There is, also, no one here.
There is just God. And He is the "lonely farmer on the high plains". He works, and works, and works. The first thing He did was the "stark, bare cross", the "solitary monument", which commemorates the "first Victory, won with divine blood". It is the "only shelter in all the plains".
He doesn't give up just because the soil is too bad; or because the plain is too wide. Here and there, he plants green; he lovingly coaxes the "age-old stump", which he allowed to remain, to sprout life. His plough never stops. One day all around will be "vivid, exuberant green".
The battle, however, rages on. Though it can never win, it still rages.
Thank God, it can never stop the plough.
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Let me come clean a bit here. When I wrote that verse above, I drew on many sources. Of course I wrote as it came to me, and I do believe I was moved to write it. I had been reading from the book of Isaiah (he of the soaring prophetic verse!!!), and there are many such descriptions there, many likenings of the house of Israel to a barren plain where all has been destroyed and all life murdered. For instance, Chapter 5, where Israel is likened to a barren vineyard; Chapter 10, where "the remnant of Israel" is mentioned (I was fascinated with this concept of "the remnant" - of the stump of a tree long axed, but from which, a fresh green sprout could emerge anytime). It comforted me immensely to think that when you lose something inside you, or it "dies", God can bring it to life again, no matter how long it lies dead or buried, or even burned beyond recognition. You might think you've lost your dreams, or something you cherished; God never loses anything. Someday, as He works on us, all that was ever in us, our dreams, our imaginings, will be brought to fruition. Perfect restoration is not just a mere possibility, but a certainty with The LORD - you better believe it!!! This verse crowns it all:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit
( - Isaiah 11:1)
This, of course, is a reference to Jesus; and the rest of the chapter is a soaring, glorious ode, describing Jesus who was to come almost 600 years later; and Jesus was and is the fulfillment of the "hopes and fears of all the years"!!! There is very little I have ever read to compare with the divine grandeur of Isaiah 11.
One other source was that wonderful, wonderful hymn we all know and love, "Beneath The Cross of Jesus". I love that verse that talks about The Cross being a shelter from the "noonday heat":
Beneath the Cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand
the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way
from the burning of the noontide heat
and the burden of the day
There are similar images and references in the other verses as well:
Upon that cross of Jesus, mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One who suffered there for me
And from my stricken heart, with tears,
Two wonders I confess
The wonders of redeeming love, and my unworthiness
I take, O Cross, Thy shadow,
For my abiding place
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of Your face
Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss
My sinful self my only shame, and my glory all the cross
( - Elizabeth C. Clephane and Frederick C. Maker)
Yes, indeed, it isn't my unworthiness, or merely my sinful self, that I now see.....I see ALL THE CROSS. It is the only shelter, abiding place in this hostile life.........it is the only thing worth counting, the only glory, the only Victory. But, as far as victories go - this one goes all the way. It is, resoundingly, a case of losing ALL battles but winning the war.
One day, there will be green; life will bubble and thrive, and the me God made, will be whole again. That is God's promise.
It can be yours too........
