Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

The first in a series of works by other authors which I am unimaginatively calling "Poems for the Christmas Season." We begin with one of the most well known poems in modern American literature.


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.


He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.


The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost.

Jesus went around saying crazy things.

"

You must be born again.

"

How are we supposed to do that?

"

Drink my blood and eat my flesh; in this there is life

.

"

Eww.

"

If you'd like to be in first place, go to the last. Choose the worst seat, become the servant.

"

Unrespectable.

"

Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you. If someone hits you in the face, offer the other side your face for his fist.

"

Unhealthy, unrealistic.

"

You must hate your father and mother. I didn't come to calm conflict; I came to bring a sword.

"

Wha?!

"Whoever tries to keep her life will lose it, and whoever loses her life will preserve it." 

How can we lose what we're hanging on to, but get what we've let go? And Jesus Christ!--  Did you come to bring us life or to bring us death? I thought you came as Life to bring us life, but you want us to let go of it? . . . You are asking us to

die in order to live

, to follow you to the grave, to follow you into the grave, to lay down in the grave, to be wrapped up in the grave cloths, to close our eyes in that tomb and to LET GO OF LIFE. And then in that moment of death, here comes the angel of white who forces the earth to tremble, rolling away the stone. We receive not mere life, but Resurrection Life.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, she must deny herself and

take up her cross and

follow me

. 

For whoever wants to save her life will lose it, but whoever loses her life for me will find it."

I want to follow You, Jesus. Right into the grave. Right into the light of life. 

The Most Dangerous Woman

The most dangerous woman on earth is the woman who has reckoned with her own death. All women die; few women ever really

live

.*

Finding out that you have a terminal illness is possibly the worst moment of a person's life, to be sitting there, on the edge of the doctor's hard plastic office chair and hear her say in a low voice, "I'm very sorry." In that moment, is it life that flashes before your eyes? Or is it death?-- death flashing before your eyes? 

But why should she be so very sorry? You're dying. I'm dying. We're all dying. Forever walking toward the grave, though lifted up by life and living all along the way. . . . I know I don't have to wait for the sympathetic murmur of a physician for this. My death sentence came when I took my first breath, 26 years ago. Death will come. I know it will. 

So now I am free. I am free to live

recklessly

. I can throw my life into other people, throw my life away for the poor or the proud or the mean or the hungry. I can be used up for the Gospel, poured out on the feet of the King, washed away by ridiculous acts of grace. I am free to be dangerous, a dangerous woman.

*John Eldredge's words: "The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really

live

." But I can't ever hope to be a dangerous man; I hope instead to be a very dangerous woman.

"How's it going?" Or "Sometimes Life is Just Good."