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TRIPPING OVER JOY
What is the difference Between your experience of Existence And that of a saint? The saint knows That the spiritual path Is a sublime chess game with God And that the Beloved Has just made such a Fantastic Move That the saint is now continually Tripping over Joy And bursting out in Laughter And saying, “I Surrender!” Whereas, my dear, I am afraid you still think You have a thousand serious moves. ― Hafez,
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 "If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation. Christian leaders seem to think that they need more distraction to counter the distraction. Their services have degenerated into emotional spasms, their spaces drowned with light and noise and locked shut throughout the day, when their darkness and silence might actually draw those whose minds and souls have grown web-weary." Andrew Sullivan
 Matthew Wong, "Starry Night" Two Poems for the new year:
The Peace of Wild Things Wendell Berry 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 of 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. Within This Strange and Quickened Dust Madeleine L’Engle O God, within this strange and quickened dust The beating heart controls the coursing blood In discipline that holds in check the flood But cannot stem corrosion and dark rust. In flesh’s solitude I count it blest That only you, my lord, can see my heart With passion’s darkness tearing it apart With storms of self, and tempests of unrest. But your love breaks through blackness, bursts with light; We separate ourselves, but you rebind In Dayspring all our fragments; body, mind, And spirit join, unite against the night. Healed by your love, corruption and decay Are turned, and whole, we greet the light of day "Jesus, Springing" words Kevin Crossley-Holland (1941-) music Bob Chilcott (1955-)
I am the heart that houses the cone, the cone enclosing the cedar, I am the cedar sawn for the cradle, forest of the body, body of the tree. I am the cradle rocking the baby, I am the baby containing the man, I am the man nailed on the cross, tree of the body, body of the forest. I am the cross sawn from the cedar, I am the cedar enclosed in the cone, I am the cone housed in the heart, here in my heart Jesus, springing.  "December Moonrise," Oil, Kathleen McDermott FULL COLD MOON KISS TONIGHT! The December full moon is also known as "the long nights moon" and sometimes, "the moon before Yule." This year is special, the cold moon will end the year with a "planetary kiss" between Saturn and Venus (they will appear closer in the night sky - less than 2 degrees apart). At my house this hanky-panky will occur 12 minutes after midnight.  Image by Jackie Morris in The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane "This is the traditional day to give thanks. Traditions, of course, are based on customs and beliefs transmitted from generation to generation. Those we observe at Thanksgiving are mostly rural- the bountiful harvest, the gathered family, the roasted turkey the feast, the thankful prayer. And all with the generous land close about, a world of fields made fruitful by calloused hands. The thanks were for health and strength and independence.
Looking back now, in a land whose people are largely urban, the day may seem to have only token meaning. And surely one day out of the year is not too much to think back and remember. The day of thanks goes back to a little band of immigrants fighting a strange wilderness, painfully getting a foothold there They had little enough to be thankful for, yet they were grateful for survival and hoped for better days beyond the winter that was closing in. They had faith and believe and even dreams, though those dreams could not encompass what has come after them. So the traditions are as important as the thanks themselves. The symbols are not without meaning, for they rest on the land's own bounty, on work and achievement, on obligations as well as rights. Nobody has yet outmoded harvest, or plenty or gratitude. Thanksgiving is more than a feast. It always was. It is recognition of the providence, the work, the hope and the dreams that are in our very blood and being. It is thanks for the traditions themselves." Hal Borland  painting by Maude Lewis The Faces of Deer
by Mary Oliver When for too long I don't go deep enough into the woods to see them, they begin to enter my dreams. Yes, there they are, in the pinewoods of my inner life. I want to live a life full of modesty and praise. Each hoof of each animal makes the sign of a heart as it touches then lifts away from the ground. Unless you believe that heaven is very near, how will you find it? Their eyes are pools in which one would be content, on any summer afternoon, to swim away through the door of the world. Then, love and its blessing. Then: heaven.
“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset |
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