"More Lovely Than Beauty"

"More Lovely Than Beauty"  (third draft)

Still
Still,
Still more mysterious is grace,
still more profound -
than Beauty, even she
even when her charms abound.
More arbitrary, Grace, more free
mistaken for insanity
so sovereignly, gratuitously
illogical for flesh to see.*

Nothing - disquiets like the quiet,
no 'thing' disturbs like 'nothing'.
but grace, disquiets as a debt
whose earnest 'interest', can't be met.

for we adults have well unlearned
receiving that which can't be earned
so we the 'creditees' do cry
and cannot look Thou in the eye
for fear of what Thou has to say
to tell us what we'd have to pay.

O fearful foolish Pharisee
(so says Peguy)
afraid of grace gratuity.
Beauty - least she can be bought
or sold,       
or wooed,   
or for her fickle favor, fought.
But grace - but grace
(oh bless my soul)
cannot be bargained or controlled.

We know from bits of history
though tentative toward mystery
that what we would want most to see

is that which seems to happen least

and that which we desire least
seems always then the case to be
for what we would most sure prevent
is history's habit happening next.

and Yet
the more thy grace is laid before us
His desire to restore us
how close the Devil is to sore us
"ifs" and "buts" his harping chorus.

and we, leave Christ still waiting for us.

instead of grace of gift retain
though He remain, yet we refrain
for not in absence do we wain
but in His presence we abstain
content with small withdrawal of pain
as long we need not trust again.

more lovely than beauty, is His grace
God better than we think He is
who gives not as we'd think to give
whose Life is more than what we live
before me thus, the children's task
to lack, to need, to want to ask.
instead of suffering's brief relief,
I pray reprieve of unbelief.