The Pulley by George Herbert

I feel a post coming on, it will probably get done late one night sometime this weekend. I'm going to talk about some stuff that's been going on with me and try to figure out how pain can be used by God, not caused-see angry Piper rant. Anyway as a sort of epigraph to the post I'll later put up, here's "The Pulley" by George Herbert, a 17th century English minister-poet, the poem talks about how God uses restlessness like a pulley, He converts the downward pull of restlessness into the upward movement towards Himself (by the way, as seems to be my habit on this blog, I'm going to recommend you buy some sort of metaphysical poetry collection that has at least Donne and Herbert. Don't be turned off by "metaphysical", it just what they called the 17th century poets, and even if you don't like poetry, you may like this...)

The Pulley
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
"Let Us," said He, "pour on him all We can:
Let the worlds riches which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span,"

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay
Perceiving that alone of all His treasure
Rest in the bottom lay

"For if I should," said He,
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature
So both would losers be

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep it with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast!"

Little update- I tried to write a post, but so far it has been far too much complaining and too little that would be worth reading, so here's a Sufjan Stevens song from the Illinoise album, Casimir Pulaski Day.  It's both a very honest and in my opinion very Christian response to loss.  Anyway it always gives me something to think about...