Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) and her family helped Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and, by all accounts, saved nearly 800 lives in the Netherlands. They were devout Christians.
On February 28, 1944, a Dutch informant told the Nazis of the ten Booms’ activities and the Gestapo raided the home. They kept the house under surveillance, and by the end of the day 35 people, including the entire ten Boom family, were arrested, Although German soldiers thoroughly searched the house, they didn’t find the half-dozen Jews safely concealed in the hiding place. The six stayed in the cramped space for nearly three days before being rescued by the Dutch underground.
All ten Boom family members were incarcerated, including Corrie’s 84-year-old father, who soon died in the Scheveningen prison, located near The Hague. Corrie and her sister Betsie were remanded to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp, near Berlin. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944. Twelve days later, Corrie was released. None of the other members of her family had survived.
In 1971, she wrote a best-selling book of her experiences during World War II, entitled The Hiding Place in which she recounts her extraordinary experiences through World War II and illustrates how Christ’s strength sustained her.
“I have experienced His presence in the deepest hell that man can create. I have really tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.”
Corrie ten Boom
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
Corrie ten Boom
“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you’ll be at rest.”
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
John Owen (1616-1683) was a theologian and Independent minister, and one of the more prolific writers of his time. He had one of the greatest minds of the seventeenth century, and engaged in the scholarly debates then current. He was a defender of high Calvinism, a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and an administrator for the University of Oxford. His works were widely read in his lifetime and continue to be published today.
“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”
John Owen, Communion with God (1657)
The excerpt below is from the same work by Owens, quoted in Randall J. Pederson, The Puritans Daily Readings (pp. 258-259):
“By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with God. God is light and we are darkness; and what communion has light with darkness? He is life, we are dead; He is love, and we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us? Men in such a condition have neither Christ, nor hope, nor God in the world, “being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them” (Eph. 4:18).
Now, two cannot walk together unless they be agreed, (Amos 3:3). While there is this distance between God and man, there is no walking together for them in any fellowship or communion. Our first interest in God was so lost by sin, as that there was left unto us (in ourselves) no possibility of a recovery. As we had deprived ourselves of all power for a returnal, so God had not revealed any way of access unto Himself; or that He could, under any consideration, be approached unto by sinners in peace. Not any work that God had made, not any attribute that He had revealed, could give the least light into such a dispensation.
The manifestation of grace and pardoning mercy, which is the only door of entrance into any such communion, is not committed unto any but unto Him alone in whom it is, by whom that grace and mercy was purchased, through whom it is dispensed, who reveals it from the bosom of the Father. Hence this communion and fellowship with God is not in express terms mentioned in the Old Testament. The thing itself is found there; but the clear light of it, and the boldness of faith in it, is discovered in the gospel, and by the Spirit administered therein. ‘And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.’Ephesians 5:11
Communion is the mutual communication of such good things as wherein the persons holding that communion are delighted, bottomed upon some union between them. So it was with Jonathan and David; their souls clave to one another in love, (1 Sam. 20:17). There was the union of love between them; and then they really communicated all issues of love mutually. In spiritual things this is more eminent: those who enjoy this communion have the most excellent union for the foundation of it; and the issues of that union, which they mutually communicate, are the most precious and eminent…
Our communion, then, with God consists in His communication of Himself unto us, with our returnal unto Him of that which He requires and accepts, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with Him. This communion is twofold: it is perfect and complete, in the full fruition of His glory and total giving up of ourselves to Him, resting in Him as our utmost end; which we shall enjoy when we see Him as He is; and second, it is initial and incomplete, in the first-fruits and dawnings of that perfection which we have here in grace.
It is, then, I say, of that mutual communication in giving and receiving, after a most holy and spiritual manner, which is between God and the saints while they walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified in the blood of Jesus. We thus pray that the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has, of the riches of His grace, recovered us from a state of enmity into a condition of communion and fellowship with Himself, that we may have such a taste of His sweetness and excellencies as to be stirred up to a farther longing after the fullness of His salvation, and the eternal fruition of Him in glory.”
“So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.”
Psalm 104: 10-13 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
I’m loving the Psalms this morning, especially those whose words have sunk deep into my heart. Of them, Psalm 121 always comes to mind. And how it causes me to say, in the words of Psalm 13: 6, “I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me.”
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 121 (ESV)
Audrey Assad, “Good To Me” (lyrics below)
Good To Me (Audrey Assad)
I put all my hope on the truth of Your promise And I steady my heart on the ground of Your goodness When I’m bowed down with sorrow I will lift up Your name And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me
And I lift my eyes to the hills where my help is found Your voice fills the night – raise my head up to hear the sound Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, yeah
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Yeah, Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I trust in Your promise
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Because You’ re good (You are good to me, good to me) So good (You are good to me, good to me) You are good to me
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden wrote “September 1, 1939” at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. It’s a poem that’s often quoted during times of crises such as ours, and only seems to highlight the recurring cycles of political dissimulation and media exacerbated fury that escalates into tragedy. While battling a virus, we’ve “cancelled” each other and branded each other racists and bigots. We’ve listened to politicians and oligopolies wildlydenounce opponents of their agendas as terrorists. We’ve been witness to unchecked brutality this past year as our cities burned with mob violence during which thirty people were murdered, and neighborhoods and livelihoods went up in smokewhile governors and mayors watched.
Auden began the poem with these words:
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
In the penultimate stanza he cautions: “We must love one another or die.” The same holds true today.
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
excerpt from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
Read the complete poem at poets.org. And hear the poet Dylan Thomas read it below.
This Jolly Beggar 