Roses for the Most High: Poetry Celebrating the Mystical Christian Path

By Ronnie Smith, Dr. Ed Hogan and Ph.D. Rev. Terry Sweeney

"This booklet of poetry is as rewarding as it is challenging. To start with, it helps to know that much of the imagery stems from years of flying over the ice caps of Antarctica, but the energy propelling the reader comes from the mysticism of the saints and the Holy Spirit. The first reading (of this book) is merely an appetizer inviting t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Plenus Gratia Publications
• Release date: Dec 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780998046518

Ronnie Smith

Ronnie is an avid outdoorsman. He is a gifted game caller. He is even pretty good with his natural voice. He worked for Drury Outdoors back in the mid 1990’s. He has harvested turkeys in 8 different states. He has a distinct way in which he takes a story and pulls principles out of it to apply to everyday living. Ronnie has spoken to men’s groups and churches all over the USA and in 7 foreign countries. He has been married to Delana since July 11th 1998. They have 5 children and reside in rural Lyons, GA. He has been the President of Ronnie Smith Ministries, Inc. since 2000. He continues to write, hunt, and speak upon invitation. He also has a weekly podcast entitled Rooted in the Word. www.ronniesmith.org

Book preview

Foreword

This is a fine anthology of Christian poetry!

These poems challenge us to transcend our normal patterns of speaking and thinking, even our patterns of listening and noticing, to start us on the path toward participating in a heavenly discourse, requiring the use of higher senses.

Perhaps I can explain it best this way: C.S. Lewis was once asked why he never wrote the counterpart to The Screwtape Letters, namely, archangelical advice to a guardian angel about how to lead a person on the path to Heaven. He replied:

Ideally, Screwtape‘s advice to Wormwood should have been balanced by archangelical advice to the patient‘s guardian angel. Without this the picture of human life is lopsided. But who could supply the deficiency? Even if a man—and he would have to be a far better man than I—could scale the spiritual heights required, what ‘answerable style’ could he use? For the style would really be part of the content. Mere advice would be no good; every sentence would have to smell of Heaven.¹

What Ronnie Smith is after – and has, in no small measure, achieved – is providing something of the ‘answerable style.’ The poems here smell of Heaven, to use Lewis’ words. That is a great contribution to Christian literature, and no small contribution to the reader’s growth in holiness. I have no hesitation recommending it and endorsing it.

Dr. Ed Hogan, Director,

Pontifical Paul VI Institute of Catechetical and Pastoral Studies

Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, Archdiocese of St. Louis

Introduction

A mystical experience, in its most profound meaning, is an existential encounter of a person with God. The Bible bears witness to these divine/human encounters, most notably in Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, Jesus, Mary, the Apostles and Evangelists. Many of these sacred and personal encounters were so profoundly infused with Divine Presence that the persons divinely touched later inspired religious communities and, indeed, entire nations to achieve entirely new understandings of God’s love for us. Extra-biblical testimony to these sacred encounters are found in the writings of the sages, founders, fathers, luminaries and mystics of every religion whose explicit dynamic is to consciously, freely, and lovingly unite human persons to their Creator.

The author[s] of the Creation accounts in Genesis describe a world, created by God, that was good, harmoniously ordered, and a Garden [Eden] where Adam and Eve, in their naked innocence, walked in the Garden with and spoke directly to God. The inspired truths of these Creation accounts were a radical departure from a surrounding milieu of polytheism and human subjugation to contentious deities and hostile powers of nature. First, in contrast to competing deities and hostile natural forces in need of human sacrificial appeasement, Genesis proclaimed inspired truths that the world and the heavens were created by a benevolent God. Second, Adam and Eve were created in God’s own image, sharing a unique, divine closeness. Third, evil entered the universe when the created disobeyed their Creator. This disobedience is symbolized by Adam and Eve eating fruit of that one tree in the entire Garden God expressly forbade them to eat. Adam and Eve, thinking they would become like gods, ate the forbidden fruit. Innocence gone, they covered