An Feithealann

Carlo Gesualdo - Illumina Faciem Tuam (5 voices)

2012-01-08T17:36:00.000Z

Text (latin):

Illumina faciem tuam
super servum tuum,
salvum me fac
in misericordia tua.
Domine non confundar
quoniam invocavi te.

Text (english):
Let thy face shine upon thy servant; save me in thy kindness. O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I have called upon you.

Before the Throne of God Above: Sung by PK7

2011-12-30T23:08:00.005Z

Grace

2011-12-24T19:02:00.002Z

Remembering A at this time

2011-12-18T22:41:00.001Z

Time Does Not Bring Relief: You All Have Lied

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Having Confessed

2011-11-16T10:34:00.000Z

Having confessed he feels
That he should go down on his knees and pray
For forgiveness for his pride, for having
Dared to view his soul from the outside.
Lie at the heart of the emotion, time
Has its own work to do. We must not anticipate
Or awaken for a moment. God cannot catch us
Unless we stay in the unconscious room
Of our hearts. We must be nothing,
Nothing that God may make us something.
We must not touch the immortal material
We must not daydream to-morrow's judgment—
God must be allowed to surprise us.
We have sinned, sinned like Lucifer
By this anticipation. Let us lie down again
Deep in anonymous humility and God
May find us worthy material for His hand.

Patrick Kavanagh

The Power of Words

2011-11-15T14:37:00.002Z

Refusing at Fifty-Two to Write Sonnets

2011-10-15T23:16:00.008+01:00

It came to him that he could nearly count

How many Octobers he had left to him

In increments of ten or, say, eleven

Thus: sixty-three, seventy-four, eighty-five.

He couldn't see himself at ninety-six --

Humanity's advances notwithstanding

In health-care, self-help, or new-age regimens --

What with his habits and family history,

The end, he thought, is nearer than you think.

.

The future, thus confined to its contingencies,

The present moment opens like a gift:

The balding month, the grey week, the blue morning,

The hour's routine, the minute's passing glance --

All seem like godsends now. And what to make of this?

At the end the word that comes to him is Thanks.

Thomas Lynch.

God is Love - Innocence Mission

2011-09-22T23:37:00.003+01:00

Rain or shine
This street of mine is golden
Rain or shine
This street of mine is golden

With the gold of hickory leaves
I can walk under these clouds
Rain or shine
This street of mine is golden

God is love
And love will never fail me
God is love
And love will never fail me

If I’m driving there today
And I really am this afraid
God is love
And love will never fail me

Some birds I know are moving on this weekend
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend
And I’m under the sky, I am on the ground, with my coat
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend

God is love
And love will never fail me
God is love
And love will never fail me

And some days I will decide
To let everything else go by
God is love
And love will never fail me
Love will never fail me

Patrick's Brestplate

2011-08-06T22:17:00.000+01:00

Life with God

2011-05-17T23:08:00.002+01:00

Life with God from DanStevers.com on Vimeo.

Brassicas

2011-04-02T15:39:00.005+01:00

There was no sex in our village there was only cabbage.
Row upon row of it filling the haggards
on high, straight ridges.
This is where babies came from
we were told, in all seriousness.
My sister still remembers
being shown the exact head that she was discovered under.

We knew everything about growing the small, limp
plants that needed constant watering.
Learned how to protect it
from root fly and caterpillar infestations.
Recognised the different varieties, from January
King to Curly Kale, sewn in sequence for year-round cropping.
Instructed that it was never harvested until
the hearts were firm and babies
were something only grown-up women found.
Of sex we knew nothing.

We all hated it; the dank smell of it cooking
that permeated through the whole house for hours
after it was eaten, the sloppy look of it on the plates,
the run-off staining the spuds and bacon.
But it was good for us so we were made to finish it.

Remember how mother would add a teaspoon of soda to the water
to soften the fibers? Years later, I learnt that this destroys
the flavour, disarms the vitamins.
The myth was easy to believe in a farming community until our hormones and
neighbours' sons, who were educated in animal husbandry,
illuminated the shortcomings in our education.

Oh my sisters, we are the daughters of cabbages and should celebrate our
cruciferae lineage; tough and sinewy of a strong variety,
adaptable to any climate, winter hardy;
never ones to take ourselves too seriously:
when I think on it, my sisters, all that green we swallowed.

Eileen Sheehan
Down The Sunlit Hall

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

2011-03-31T14:29:00.002+01:00

No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

BY ROBERT BLY

Dante's Prayer - Loreena McKennitt

2011-03-14T00:00:00.001Z

When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone

I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me

Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and fire

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me

Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me

Loreena McKennitt

One Brilliant Day

2011-03-04T18:56:00.003Z

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead."

"Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."

the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?"

Antonio Machado
Translated by Robert Bly

Kimberly and Alberto Rivera with Ruth Fazal

2011-03-01T22:18:00.003Z

When I Open My Eyes- A Christian Meditation Morning Prayer

2011-02-01T14:11:00.001Z

Rory

2011-01-02T23:36:00.002Z

Gorecki Symphony No. 3 "Sorrowful Songs" - Lento e Largo

2010-12-23T20:14:00.003Z

A Favorite Poem and a favorite Singer

2010-12-23T01:27:00.000Z

THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

by: W.B. Yeats

WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

God is Love

2010-12-22T23:39:00.003Z

Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden
with the gold of hickory leaves.
I can walk under these clouds.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.

God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
If I’m driving there today
and I really am this afraid,
God is love
and love will never fail me.

Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
And I’m under the sky, I am on the ground, with my coat.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.

God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
And some days I will decide
to let everything else go by.
God is love
and love will never fail me.

A Childhood Christmas

2010-12-22T22:52:00.001Z

My father played the melodion

Outside at our gate;

There were stars in the morning east;

And they danced to his music.

Across the wild bogs his melodion called

To Lennons and Callans.

As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry

I knew some strange thing had happened.

Outside in the cow-house my mother

Made the music of milking;

The light of her stable-lamp was a star

And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,

Mass-going feet

Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,

Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters

On the grey stone,

In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,

The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopeia was over

Cassidy's hanging hill,

I looked and three whin bushes rode across

The horizon - the Three Wise Kings.

An old man passing said:

"Can't he make it talk" -

The melodion, I hid in the doorway

And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.

I nicked six nicks on the door-post

With my penknife's big blade -

There was a little one for cutting tobacco.

And I was six Christmases of age.

My father played the melodion,

My mother milked the cows,

And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned

On the Virgin Mary's blouse.

(24 December 1943)

Give Him your Heart

2010-12-22T22:21:00.003Z

In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

God is Love

2010-12-17T16:23:00.003Z

God is love

Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden
with the gold of hickory leaves.
I can walk under these clouds.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.

God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
If I’m driving there today
and I really am this afraid,
God is love
and love will never fail me.

Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
And I’m under the sky, I am on the ground, with my coat.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.

God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
And some days I will decide
to let everything else go by.
God is love
and love will never fail me.

Oh Lord of Light

2010-12-12T23:44:00.003Z

O Lord of Light
(Traditional)

O Lord of light, who made the stars
O Dawn by whom we see the way
O Christ redeemer of us all
Make haste to listen as we pray

In lowliness you came on earth
To rescue us from Satan's snares
O wondrous love that healed our wounds
By taking up our mortal cares

To God the Father and the Son
For ages of eternal days
Together with the spirit be
All glory, honor, might and praise

Heaven-Haven

2010-12-12T22:54:00.001Z

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

Hopkins

Delight

2010-01-07T22:11:00.005Z

Trust in the Lord and do good;

Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord ;

And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord ,

Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light

And your judgment as the noonday.

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;

Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,

Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.

Cease from anger and forsake wrath;

Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.

Psalm 37

Lend me your hope

2009-11-01T20:36:00.003Z

Lend me your hope for awhile,
I seem to have mislaid mine.
Lost and hopeless feelings accompany me daily,
   pain and confusion are my companions.
I know not where to turn;
   looking ahead to future times does not bring forth
   images of renewed hope.
I see troubled times, pain-filled days, and more tragedy.

Lend me your hope for awhile,
   I seem to have mislaid mine.
Hold my hand and hug me;
   listen to all my ramblings, recovery seems so far distant.
The road to healing seems like a long and lonely one.

Lend me your hope for awhile,
   I seem to have mislaid mine.
Stand by me, offer me your presence, your heart and your love.
   Acknowledge my pain, it is so real and ever present.
I am overwhelmed with sad and conflicting thoughts.

Lend me your hope for awhile;
   a time will come when I will heal,
   and I will share my renewal,
   hope and love with others.

Anon

2009-11-01T20:28:00.000Z

Father & Son

2009-09-24T17:01:00.003+01:00

There is the family photograph

That is your father’s face,

There is your father’s father

Grey-gathering years apace;

The son, bright-eyed in the morning,

The father, lined and drawn,

The son became the father

On the day that you were born.

We’ve all set out on the highway

Our fathers wished us well,

The sons became the fathers

In the same distinctive spell;

The road of all beginnings

Is all there is to lend,

But many a twist, and many a turn

Has marred us at the end.

He was my father’s father,

I am my father’s son,

We’ve travelled as far, and farther

Than our father’s years have run;

The twists and turns of fortune

Mean nothing, lost or won,

But the love of a father’s father,

And the love of a father’s son.

David Lewis Paget

We shall not cease from exploration

2009-09-08T22:46:00.003+01:00

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

TS Elliot

From Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding

Shancoduff

2009-09-06T23:21:00.002+01:00

My black hills have never seen the sun rising,

Eternally they look north towards Armagh.

Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been

Incurious as my black hills that are happy

When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.

My hills hoard the bright shillings of March

While the sun searches in every pocket.

They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn

With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves

In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.

The sleety winds fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff

While the cattle-drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush

Look up and say: "Who owns them hungry hills

That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?

A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor.

I hear and is my heart not badly shaken?

Patrick Kavanagh

Examen of Conscience

2009-09-06T22:56:00.003+01:00

The idea behind the Examen of Conscience is to allow the Lord to search your heart. This prayer should be prayed in the spirit of Psalm 139:23-24. The idea is not to simply beat ourselves up over our sin or to do self-analysis, but rather to open ourselves to God in light of the truth of one’s heart. As with the questions for the examen of consciousness, the following questions are simply meant to trigger exploration, and can be changed or added to. Set aside twenty minutes in a place that you will not be disturbed for this prayer exercise. Allow ten minutes for reflection and ten minutes for confession. Do not be concerned with getting through all of your sins, but rather be open to whatever the Lord reveals. You may spend your entire time reflecting on one or two sins and confessing those, or you may find yourself recalling and confessing a number of them.

Open myself to God regarding:

What my idols are
What my unhealthy attachments are
What my vices are
What my desires and beliefs are that are not ordered toward God
Confess these areas of sin

A meeting in A Part

2009-09-06T22:27:00.002+01:00

In a dream I meet

my dead friend. He has,

I know, gone long and far,

and yet he is the same

for the dead are changeless.

They grow no older.

It is I who have changed,

grown strange to what I was.

Yet I, the changed one,

ask: "How you been?"

He grins and looks at me."

I been eating peaches

off some mighty fine trees."

Wendell Berry

Solitude and Silence

2009-09-04T21:15:00.002+01:00

Solitude and Silence

Among the practices that can help us attend to soul care at a basic level are solitude and silence. We practice these by finding ways to be alone and away from talk and noise. We rest, we observe, we “smell the roses”—dare we say it?—we do nothing. This discipline can be used of God as a means of grace. In it we may even find another reminder of grace—that we are saved, justified by His redeeming power—not by our strivings and achievements.

In drawing aside for lengthy periods of time, we seek to rid ourselves of the “corrosion” of soul that accrues from constant interaction with others and the world around us. In this place of quiet communion, we discover again that we do have souls, that we indeed have inner beings to be nurtured. Then we begin to experience again the presence of God in the inner sanctuary, speaking to and interacting with us. We understand anew that God will not compete for our attention. We must arrange time for our communion with Him as we draw aside in solitude and silence.

The psalmist said, “Cease striving and know that I am God” (Ps. 46: 10, NASB). And immediately following this, the writer affirms the success of God's mission on earth: “'I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.' The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold” (vv. 10-11, NASB).
Other translations of this verse read, “Be still, and know” (NIV) or “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me” (TM). God's provision for us and for His work through us is adequate. We do not have to “make it happen.” We must stop shouldering the burdens of “outcomes.” These are safely in His hands. Someone insightfully said, “The greatest threat to devotion to Christ is service for Christ.”

What a paradox! This is so easily a challenge for many ministers. Allowing service for Christ to steal our devotion to Him is a radical failure in personal soul care. But it is one from which the practice of communing with Christ in times of solitude and silence can deliver us.

Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

2009-08-20T09:19:00.008+01:00

Jesu, joy of man's desiring

Holy wisdom, love most bright

Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring

Soar to uncreated light

Word of God, our flesh that fashioned

With the fire of life impassioned

Striving still to truth unknown

Soaring, dying round Thy throne

Note: Originally by Johann Sabastian Bach

The original song continues with these words:

Through the way where hope is guiding

Hark, what peaceful music rings

Where the flock, in Thee confiding

Drink of joy from deathless springs

Theirs is beauty's fairest pleasure

Theirs is wisdom's holiest treasure

Thou dost ever lead Thine own

In the love of joys unknown

Listen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVh0-jenY6s

That you may seek your all in Me!"

2009-08-18T11:10:00.004+01:00

I asked the Lord, that I might grow

In faith, and love, and every grace;

Might more of His salvation know;

And seek more earnestly His face.

Twas He who taught me thus to pray,

And He, I trust has answered prayer;

But it has been in such a way,

As almost drove me to despair!

I hoped that in some favored hour,

At once He'd answer my request;

And by His love's constraining power,

Subdue my sins--and give me rest!

Instead of this, He made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart;

And let the angry powers of hell

Assault my soul in every part!

Yes more, with His own hand He seemed

Intent to aggravate my woe!

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

Blasted my gourds--and laid me low!

"Lord, why is this!" I trembling cried,

"Will you pursue your worm to death?"

"This is the way," the Lord replied,

"I answer prayer for grace and faith."

"These inward trials I employ,

From self and pride to set you free;

And break your schemes of earthly joy,

That you may seek your all in Me!"

John Newton

I never saw a moor

2009-07-08T14:19:00.001+01:00

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

Emily Dickinson

Evolutionary Hymn

2009-07-06T22:04:00.004+01:00

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,'
Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

Clive Staples Lewis

The Irish Cliffs of Moher

2009-06-24T21:49:00.004+01:00

Who is my father in this world, in this house,

At the spirit's base?

My father's father, his father's father,

his-Shadows like winds.

Go back to a parent before thought, before speech,

At the head of the past.

They go to the cliffs of Moher rising out the mist,

Above the real

Rising out of present time and place, above

The wet, green grass.

This is not landscape, full of the somnambulations Of Poetry

And the sea.

This is my father or, maybe,

It is as he was,

A likeness, one of the race of fathers: earth

And sea and air.

Wallace Stevens

Throw Yourself Like Seed

2009-06-24T17:57:00.002+01:00

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit

sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate

that brushes your heel as it turns going by,

the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.

Now you are only giving food to that final pain

which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,

but to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts

is the work; start then, turn to the work.

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,

don't turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,

and do not let the past weigh down your motion.

Leave what's alive in the furrow, what's dead in yourself,

for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;

from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.

~ Miguel De Unamuno ~

Fern Hill

2009-06-14T21:00:00.004+01:00

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

The night above the dingle starry,

Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

Trail with daisies and barleyDown the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

In the sun that is young once only,

Time let me play and be

Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and

cold,

And the sabbath rang slowlyIn the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

And playing, lovely and watery

And fire green as grass.

And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, thenightjars

Flying with the ricks, and the horses

Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

Shining, it was Adam and maiden,The sky gathered again

And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walkingwarm

Out of the whinnying green stable

On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

In the sun born over and over,

I ran my heedless ways,

My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

Before the children green and golden

Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

In the moon that is always rising,Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Dylan Thomas

we are running

2009-06-13T20:02:00.003+01:00

we are running

running and

time is clocking us

from the edge like an only

daughter.

our mothers stream before us,

cradling their breasts in their

hands.

oh pray that what we want

is worth this running,

pray that what we’re running

toward

is what we want.

~ Lucille Clifton ~

(QUILTING: Poems 1987-1990)

Innocence

2009-06-13T17:52:00.008+01:00

They laughed at one I loved-
The triangular hill that hung
Under the Big Forth. They said
That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges
Of the little farm and did not know the world.
But I knew that love's doorway to life
Is the same doorway everywhere.
Ashamed of what I loved
I flung her from me and called her a ditch
Although she was smiling at me with violets.

But now I am back in her briary arms
The dew of an Indian Summer lies
On bleached potato-stalks
What age am I?
I do not know what age I am,

I am no mortal age;
I know nothing of women,
Nothing of cities,I cannot die
Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.

Patrick Kavanagh

My parents kept me from children who were rough

2009-05-18T00:11:00.006+01:00

My parents kept me from children who were rough

and who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.

Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges

Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud

And I looked another way, pretending to smile,

I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

Stephen Spender

Spring Gentian

2009-05-17T23:34:00.007+01:00

One of the most beautiful flowers found in the Burren.

Flowering time: April-June. Native Perennial.

The colour is not all that makes this plant unusual its the fact that it is normally found in in high alpine meadows.

Early Purple Orchid

2009-05-17T23:25:00.001+01:00

This perennial is a native plant and it belongs to the Orchidaceae family.

Common Dog-violet

2009-05-17T23:17:00.005+01:00

'I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.'
William Shakespeare

Inniskeen Road: July Evening

2009-05-17T23:05:00.005+01:00

The bicycles go by in twos and threes -

There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn tonight,

And there's the half-talk code of mysteries

And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.

Half-past eight and there is not a spot

Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown

That might turn out a man or woman, not

A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.

I have what every poet hates in spite

Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.

Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight

Of being king and government and nation.

A road, a mile of kingdom. I am king

Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

-Patrick Kavanagh

The Bright Field

2009-05-17T22:44:00.004+01:00

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receeding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R. S. Thomas

Love is not love

2009-05-16T01:35:00.006+01:00

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,I

never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare

Old Women of the Roads

2009-05-10T23:21:00.002+01:00

O, to have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!

The heaped up sods against the fire,

The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains

And pendulum swinging up and down!

A dresser filled with shining delph,

Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day

Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,

And fixing on their shelf again

My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night

Beside the fire and by myself,

Sure of a bed and loth to leave

The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,

And roads where there's never a house nor bush,

And tired I am of bog and road,

And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,

And I am praying Him night and day,

For a little house - a house of my own

Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

Padraic Colum

The Peace of Wild Things

2009-05-10T22:48:00.006+01:00

When despair for the world grows in me,

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be --

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

or grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Ode on Intimations of Immortality

2009-05-10T01:26:00.010+01:00

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did see

Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more
.
The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;--
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happyShepherd-boy!

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:--
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!--
But there's a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
hither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendidIs on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,A
nd that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocationWere endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul's immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provokeT
he years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembersWhat was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest--
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
hose shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born DayIs lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth

IF

2009-05-10T00:57:00.005+01:00

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Pregnant

2009-05-07T16:47:00.005+01:00

Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs.
These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance.
That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us.
But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.
He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.
That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.
After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?

Paul to those at Rome (The Message)

And the days are not full enough

2009-04-22T19:01:00.001+01:00

And the days are not full enough

And the nights are not full enough

And life slips by like a field mouse

Not shaking the grass

Ezra Pound

OUR RESOURCES

2009-04-17T18:36:00.001+01:00

OUR RESOURCES
"Be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."-- Heb_13:5.

SUCH THINGS as ye have, plus! The Greek literally means that there is within us an undeveloped power only awaiting the call, and there will be enough. I may be speaking to people who wish that they had more money, or more brains, or more influence. They dream of the lives they would live, of the deeds they would do, if only they were better circumstanced. But God says No! You have present within the narrow confines of your own reach the qualities that the world is wanting. Use them, and be content with the things that you have. You have never explored the resources of your own soul.
"Such things as ye have"--Moses had only a rod, but a rod with God can open the Red Sea. David had only five pebbles, but these with God brought down Goliath. The woman had only a little pot of oil, but that pot of oil with God paid all her debts. The poor widow was scraping the bottom of the barrel, but with God the handful of meal kept her child, herself, and the prophet until the rain came. The boy had only five tiny loaves and two small fish, but with Jesus they were enough for five thousand men, beside women and children. Estimate what you have got, and then count God into the bargain! He never lets go your hand. He will never leave nor forsake those that trust in Him!
Therefore be content! The most glorious deeds that have blessed and enriched the world have not been done by wealthy men. Our Lord had none of this world's goods; the apostles had neither silver nor gold; Carey was only a poor cobbler; Bunyan a travelling tinker; Wesley left two silver spoons. It is not money, but human love and God that is needed. Therefore do not be covetous; do not hoard, but give! Be strong and content. With good courage say: "The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear"--for life or death, for sorrow or joy!

PRAYER

The soul that to Jesus has fled for repose,
He cannot, He will not, desert to its foes.
That soul, though all hell should endeavour to take,
He'll never, no never, no never forsake!
AMEN.

FB Mayer

Mid-term Break

2009-04-08T23:05:00.002+01:00

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close,

At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--

He had always taken funerals in his stride--

And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed

By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,

"Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,

Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived

With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple,

He lay in the four foot box as in a cot.

No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney

Abide with me

2009-04-02T22:48:00.004+01:00

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea-
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Henry F Lyte

Couplets

2009-04-02T22:34:00.001+01:00

Two girls found dead. My sons go to the morgue.
Two cots, thick rubber gloves, two body bags.

Too long stuffed in a culvert, raped and stabbed,
too decomposed to recognise. Too sad.

Two local ne'er-do-wells no doubt abused
too much as children themselves, stand mute.

Two caskets in a room, two families undone.
Two ministers. Two homilies. My sons

too busy with flowers and townspeople
to contemplate the problem of evil,

to shake their fists at God, regard instead
two funerals - the living and the dead

to be transported in their separate griefs -
two hearses to be washed, two limousines.

Today the wakes and paperwork details.
Tomorrow a burning and a burial.

Two girls found dead of known brutalities
together forever, precious memories

too sweet, too savage, too beautiful and bad
to keep at bay by ritual or words.

Two boys about their father's business learn
to number, comfort, witness and keep track.

Thomas Lynch

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

2009-03-28T22:08:00.006Z

It's when we face for a moment

the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know

the taint in our own selves, that awe

cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:

not to a flower, not to a dolphin,to no innocent form

but to this creature vainly sure

it and no other is god-like, God

(out of compassion for our ugly

failure to evolve) entrusts,

as guest, as brother,

the Word.

Denise Levertov

The Poet Raftery

2009-03-28T15:27:00.005Z

I AM the poet Raftery
A man of hope and love,
There's no Light in these eyes,
My peace is undisturbed.

As I wander on my way
By my hearts light I go,
I am worn out and weary
At the end of each road.

Consider me now,
With my face to the wall,
Playing music for pockets
That hold nothing at all.

Landing

2009-03-27T20:16:00.005Z

Happy the man who has made harbour,

Who leaves behind him seas and storms,

Whose dreams are dead or never born,

And who sits and drinks in a Bremen beer-hall,

Beside the stove, in peace and quite.

Happy the man like an extinguished flame,

Happy the man like estuary sand,

Who has laid down his load and wiped his forehead

And rests at the side of the road.

He fears nothing, hopes for nothing, expects nothing,

But stares fixedly at the setting sun.

Primo Levi

Holocost Survivor

Make me a captive

2009-03-23T21:48:00.006Z

Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.

Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be.

I sink in life's alarms when by myself I stand;I

mprison me within Thine arms, and strong shall be my hand.

My heart is weak and poor until it master find;

It has no spring of action sure, it varies with the wind.

It cannot freely move till Thou has wrought its chain;

Enslave it with Thy matchless love, and deathless it shall reign.

My power is faint and low till I have learned to serve;

It lacks the needed fire to glow, it lacks the breeze to nerve.

It cannot drive the world until itself be driven;

Its flag can only be unfurled when Thou shalt breathe from heaven.

My will is not my own till Thou hast made it Thine;

If it would reach a monarch's throne, it must its crown resign.

It only stands unbent amid the clashing strife,

When on Thy bosom it has leant, and found in Thee its life.

George Matheson

Fear Not

2009-03-17T21:16:00.006Z

In the exquisite Rembrant painting " The Storm on the Sea of Galiliee" our eyes are drawn first to the left, where bright yellow light shines on the sail as the disciples tug at it and the sea invades the boat. But after taking all this in, our eyes slowly move to another light in the stearn of of the boat , where a few people sit huddled peacefully in the dark, two of them fixing their gaze on the lit face oof Jesus (on the right)............

Part of what Jesus routinely did, then, was to help people move from a place of fear to a place of trust - the journey each of us takes everyday: Will I trust Jesus today with the task that's to big for me, this rancorous relationship, this physical body that no longer does what it used to do?

As we make this journey of transformation into Christlikeness, we let go of fear and learn to trust Jesus today, even if only for ten minutes at a time. One of the best ways to connect with God and find both courage and peace is to cultivate pictures in the mind such as the one just described. What happened on the sea of Galilee was not fantasy. The reality of Jesus and his power overcame the force of the wind and quieted it. Within us each day, Jesus can overpower our fear and chaos and quiet us with peace. We need to have a picture of it firmly in our minds and his words "Peace, be still" on our lips.

Jan Johnson, Invitation to the Jesus Life

April Rise

2009-03-17T20:59:00.003Z

If ever I saw blessing in the air

I see it now in this still early day

Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips

Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye.

Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round

Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod

Splutters with soapy green, and all the world

Sweats with the bead of summer in its bud.

If ever I heard blessing it is there

Where birds in trees that shoals and shadows are

Splash with their hidden wings and drops of sound

Break on my ears their crests of throbbing air.

Pure in the haze the emerald sun dilates,

The lips of sparrows milk the mossy stones,

While white as water by the lake a girl

Swims her green hand among the gathered swans.

Now, as the almond burns its smoking wick,

Dropping small flames to light the candled grass;

Now, as my low blood scales its second chance,

If ever world were blessed, now it is.

Laurie Lee

It's only today that counts

2009-01-24T20:28:00.005Z

It ain't no good to lay in bed at night

And think about the past

About how you could have done things differently

But it happened way too fast.

Just close your eyes, go to sleep

Let the angels bring you dreams.

Let that pain unwind behind you

And float away, float away on silent streams.

You gotta live your life the best you can

Though you sometimes do your worst.

You gotta laugh when you fail, it's not the end of the world

Life is a play you can't rehearse.

Don't make big plans for tomorrow,

You can't control what lies ahead.

You must try to live each moment

As it comes instead.

There is no use dreaming of a perfect future

Or regretting a troubled past.

It's only today that counts

Live it like it might be your last.

It's only today that counts

Live it like it might be your last.

It never helps to worry, it never hurts to pray,

Tomorrow will come soon enough; just pray about today.

And relax, trust your life to God,

The future is in his hand,

Only faith will help you face each day's demands.

Ain't no use worrying, life goes so fast.

It's only today that counts

Live it like it might be your last.

It's only today that counts

Live it like it might be your last.

- LARRY NORMAN -

(April 8, 1947 – February 24, 2008)

Examen

2009-01-04T23:49:00.002Z

Examen of Consciousness

The idea behind the prayer of consciousness is to open oneself to how God has been moving throughout one’s day. Traditionally the Prayer of Examen involves looking at the past, but one can also arrange this exercise to focus on the present and the future. In the Prayer of Examen we want to take notice of what God has been calling us to in our day and how he has been speaking to us. When doing this we may simply be recalling things that we noticed at the time, or we may be opening our heart to the ways in which God was moving but that we were unaware of in the moment.

The following questions are a good place to start. The questions themselves are not particularly special, but are simply meant to trigger exploration, and can be changed or added to. Set aside twenty minutes of time in a place that you will not be disturbed to do this prayer exercise. Allow four to five minutes for each question and then move on. If you find God calling you to focus your attention on one particular question, then stay with that question for as long as the Lord desires.

When did I sense your presence the most in my day?
When did your presence seem farthest away from me in my day?
How were you loving me in my day?
How were you loving me even when your presence seemed far away?
How did I respond to your love in my day?

Examen of Conscience

Open myself to God regarding:
What my idols are
What my unhealthy attachments are
What my vices are
What my desires and beliefs are that are not ordered toward God
Confess these areas of sin

Please reflect on the Prayer of Examen in light of these questions.
Was this a new discipline for you and if so was it uncomfortable?
What did the Lord bring up for your time in this discipline?
Did you feel God’s nearness during your time in the prayer, or did you find yourself feeling bored and distant from the Lord?
Is the Lord possibly calling you to spend more time in this spiritual discipline

Advent

2009-01-04T23:22:00.005Z

Advent

We have tested and tasted too much, lover-

Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.

But here in the Advent-darkened room

Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea

Of penance will charm back the luxury

Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom

The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing

When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking

Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill

Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking

Of an old fool will awake for us and bring

You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins

And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching

For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-

We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning

Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.

And we'll hear it among decent men too

Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,

Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.

Won't we be rich, my love and I, and

God we shall not ask for reason's payment,

The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges

Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.

We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages

Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-

And Christ comes with a January flower.

------------

Patrick Kavanagh

Prayer

2008-12-22T20:49:00.010Z

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

2008-12-17T17:41:00.009Z

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depreciations otherwise. It would never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try and tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it in and furnished it, we have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occassion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed – as a matter of cold, hard fact – all it’s cracked up to be, then even our best efforts are misleading.

The Word became flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you would crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is unihabitable terror. It is un- thinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space/time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God . . . who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”

Came down. Only then do we dare uncoverour eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.

Frederick Buechner

Autumn

2008-11-06T14:30:00.006Z

Conkers falling from the chestnut tree

Leaves blowing and swooshing past me

The rabbit making a burrow underthe ground

Such beautiful flowers all around

Halloween is coming soon

Wolves howl at the full moon

Sugar candy lots of treats

Crisps chocolate so much sweets

Autumn is a lovely time of the year

Children play about and cheer

Now the summer sunshine is gone

But the bright autumn days follow on

Getting ready for those cold winter days

Preparing ourselves in so many ways

Enjoy the autumn while it is here

For it won't be back for another year

By Ellen (age 12)

Winter

2008-10-25T13:30:00.003+01:00

Slowly Into Winter

the leaves slowly cascade down

to the ground

as winter turns slowly to winter

the wind blows them around

untill the cold freezes them to the ground

as winter turns slowly to winter

i return each year to find my leaf lying here

each spring it renews it's promise

this year i didn't wait! after the first spring storm

from its branch it was torn, it lied to me again

so this fall, before the free winds blew

i went to my tree and picked the loveliest leaf i could find

and kept it with mine

untill winter turned slowly to spring

francis e.rudy

John the Evangelist

2008-10-23T18:45:00.007+01:00

John was a poet, and he knew about words. He knew that all men and women are mysteries known only to themselves until they speak a word that opens up the mystery. He knew that the words people speak have their life in them just as surely as they have their breath in them. He knew that the words people speak have dynamite in them in them and that a word may be all it takes to set somebody's heart on fire or break it in two. He knew that words break silence and that the word that is spoken is the word that is heard and may even be answered. And at the beginning of his Gospel he wrote a poem about the Word of God.
When God speaks, things happen, because the words of God aren't just as good as God's deeds; they are God's deeds. When God speaks, John says, creation happens, and God speaks to the creation, what comes out is not ancient Hebrew or the King James Version or a sentiment suitable for framing in the pastor's study. On the contrary. "The word became flesh" John says (1.14), and that means that when God wanted to say what God is all about and what humankind is all about, it wasn't a sound that emerged, but a man. Jesus was his name. He was dynamite. He was the word of God.

Frederick Buechner

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.
He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.
There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1. 1-14

Coventry Cathedral

2008-10-17T16:06:00.001+01:00

Since 1043, when a Benedictine monastery was established there, parishioners at Coventry have applied the Lord’s Prayer to their own work for God in the marketplace. In the fourteenth century, the merchant guild of St. Mary built a cathedral in the town to support the laity in their work, and the prayers continued.

Twice during World War II, German air raids demolished the town center, including Coventry Cathedral. The building lay in ruins until the mid-fifties, when work on a new cathedral was started. Finished in 1962, the new structure incorporates prayer panels that were preserved through the war. The panels, representing various industries in the town, bring together worship and work in a powerful way. They read:

Hallowed be Thy Name in Industry:
God be in my hands and in my making.

[REFRAIN:]
Holy, Holy, Holy; Lord God of Hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Hallowed be Thy Name in the Arts:
God be in my senses and in my creating.

[REFRAIN]
Hallowed be Thy Name in the Home:
God be in my heart and in my loving.

[REFRAIN]
Hallowed be Thy Name in Commerce:
God be at my desk and in my trading.

[REFRAIN]
Hallowed be Thy Name in Suffering:
God be in my pain and in my enduring.

[REFRAIN]
Hallowed be Thy Name in Government:
God be in my plans and in my deciding.

[REFRAIN]
Hallowed be Thy Name in Education:
God be in my mind and in my growing.

[REFRAIN]
Hallowed be Thy Name in Recreation:
God be in my limbs and in my leisure.

[REFRAIN]

Urbana

GOD'S AID

2008-10-17T15:33:00.004+01:00

GOD'S AID
God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.

God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.

God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my hands,
God in my heart.

God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber
God in mine ever living soul,
God in mine eternity.

The Rock

2008-10-16T22:38:00.003+01:00

Opening Stanza from Choruses from "The Rock"

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

TS Eliot

Memory of a Friend

2008-10-12T23:06:00.002+01:00

"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.

Frederick Buechner

What I do is me: for that I came

2008-09-25T22:27:00.002+01:00

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Hopkins

Doing

2008-09-21T22:46:00.004+01:00

"Treat others the same way you want them to treat you."

Jesus

Quote, Frederick Buechner

2008-09-21T22:37:00.005+01:00

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Autumn

2008-09-21T21:58:00.006+01:00

Along this way
No travellers.
Dusk in autumn.

Basho

Connection

2008-09-20T16:19:00.006+01:00

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.

Joseph Scriven.

How wonderful

2008-09-18T23:33:00.001+01:00

How wonderful it would be if one could only
be worthy of hearing the song of the grass.
Each blade of grass sings out to God
without any ulterior motive and without expecting any reward.
It is most wonderful to hear its song
and worship God in its midst.

The best place to meditate is in a field where things grow.
There one can truly express his thoughts
before God.....

The best place is to meditate is in the meadows outside the city.
One should meditate in grassy field, for grass will awakent the heart

Nachman of Bratzlav

2008-09-18T23:08:00.006+01:00

Click on Picture, Where are the Bridges in your life

The Avowal

2008-09-18T22:57:00.008+01:00

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Denise Levertov