Come cling to me like mist scented trees
Thou scattered droplets absorbed, restored
Fount o’er leaf tips to forest floor
Endlessly nourished ‘fore scorching breeze
Streams ne’er ceasing
Image
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Tag Archives: Faith
Αββα
Whatever you want me to do or say, I will do it… just say the Word.
בת daughter
Seasoned
Sound advice
mere human
dose taken
measure of salt
from bedrock
only reason
good taste
nor revolt
salt of earth
are we
spread to nourish
cover over
unpleasantness
foul taste and toil
measured out
abundantly
one good recipe
let us not
lose our saltiness
lest we all
may spoil
Image – Salt mine worker
Take Heart
Some stories better left untold
Others build us prison walls
but when uttered they dissolve
unchained altar call
Like a caged bird flapping
fighting endlessly
Decides to sing its heart song
then gentle hands set free.
Poem inspired by:
Prison Fellowship of Australia – Art from Inside Project
Grafted
Ever since our lives entwined / Grafted to the noble vine / Wondered whether we’d survive / The peeling bark of time
For Whom the Bell Tolls
“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume;
when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book,
but translated into a better language;
and every chapter must be so translated;
God employs several translators;
some pieces are translated by age,
some by sickness, some by war, some by justice;
but God’s hand is in every translation,
and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves
again for that library where every book
shall lie open to one another.
No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main…
any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
No man hath affliction enough
that is not matured and ripened by it,
and made fit for God by that affliction.”
Meditation #17 By John Donne From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII:
Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris (Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.)
One
It’s easy for the enemy
to strike at the heart of me
when I wear it on my sleeve
So rather than hiding it
I cover with
amour mesh of steel
righteousness, no do-good
but right feelings, intentions
thoughts, beliefs.
Devotions to
One
One-self
One-another
Nothing else matters
Seed of Creativity
A quote from Dubliners by James Joyce in “A Little Cloud”
“A light began to tremble on the horizon of his mind…
He tried to weigh his soul to see if it was a poet’s soul. Melancholy was the dominant note of his temperament, he thought, but it was a melancholy tempered by recurrences of faith and resignation and simple joy.”
Harvest
Image
I carried a scarlet cross for her
Dark as His blood
I held it high for the sake of my
Own dearest love
I heard the men I’d never marry
Judge with words in haste
Waiting for His tender mercy
As tears melt on my face
The witness of a cowering woman
Weighs nothing in this prose
The blood of the martyrs
Feeds the field as it grows
Surrender
Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner..
“To understand all is to forgive all”
– Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisted.
This quote originated somewhere else at an earlier date – Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace; I am inquisitive about it – as to its meaning.
I have reflected that to truly understand (or empathise) one must have suffered a similar situation or to a similar degree. No one would wish that upon anyone. Therefore I consider it important to note that true forgiveness is not about empathy or understanding from our own experiences, it is a giving up of one’s self – our criticisms and doubts and selfish desires – to consider another person more important than oneself. It does not require in-depth understanding but a depth of character that is reflected in Christ’s nature – to reflect the image of God.
Count the stars of heaven 