Drink This Cup

Drink This Cup, originally uploaded by Laurence Barber.

I am aware of the cup of suffering all Kenya is experiencing at this moment, due to a violent and split election result, with rigging and fraud no doubt figuring in the results. Slums like Kibera and Mathare have erupted, in Nairobi, as well as dissent and disatisfaction as expressed by violence elsewhere and throughout the nation. Innocent people are losing their lives - much of the violence being carried out along tribal lines.

I worry for friends, in the midst of the reality of such turmoil, burning, pillaging and other acts of violence.

It reminds me of a visit to the Iona Community at Iona Abbey, Scotland. There, as depicted on one of the cloister columns, a black man is drinking of the Communion Cup. That Cup is a cup of suffering, taking solidarity in and with the Christ who died for us.

May the Saviour , who suffered - and suffers, also in solidarity with us all, bring His comfort, purpose and shalom. May God's peace and prosperity come to this troubled nation, and also to all of the Horn of Africa and, indeed, to all the peoples of that warm but troubled continent.

Blue Boat

Sometimes it's great to not have to be anywhere on any particular schedule. Just to relax, rest and gently meander on the ripples and tide of one's moorings . . .

Imagination

"We cannot have faith (belief in that which is unseen) unless we have imagination; imagination is the vehicle through which faith is expressed. Nor can we understand our world without active imaginations...The only way to apprehend a mystery is through imagination. Our metaphors and paradoxes attempt to make concrete, at least a little, the faith presented in Scripture."

- Cheryl Forbes

The Third Day of Christmas . . .

Turkey left-overs, cold potatoes and squash, tiny mince tarts, a glass of cranberry cocktail . . . a brief but pretty snow flurry - whispy cotton, gentle on the neighbour's recently new fence . . . getting over arthritic aches of playing trains on the floor with our grandson . . . we love this time of the year !

And still pondering the gifts brought that first Christmas - perhaps the sheperds, a lamb and the magi their gold and frankincense and myrrh . . . now: What can I give Him? . . .

The People That Walked in Darkness . . .

The darkest time of the year, 
the poorest place in town,
cold and a taste of fear,
man and woman alone,
what can we hope for here?

More life than we can learn,
more wealth than we can treasure,
more love than we can earn,
more peace than we can measure,
because one child is born.
- Christopher Frye

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
- Isaiah 9:2

Light in the Dark

Any kind of light, any kind of hope, following a Star, seeking the One who enlightens everyone who comes into the world. Martin Luther King wrote that "it is when the night is darkest that the stars shine most brightly."

Off the Blanket

I suppose one of my most vivid pre-school memories was of summer afternoon naps on a prickly picnic-blanket, under spreading elm in our backyard, under the sometime watchful eye and window of Mrs. Cairns, our neighbour. Mom, of course, was out in the field helping Dad, on our three and a half acre market garden farm.

My mother was especially protective – overly protective (?) of us three kids, and so as I grew I was forbidden passage: ‘Don’t go outside the fence!’ ‘Don’t go near the road; don’t cross the road!’ Don’t go near the water; don’t go in the water!’

It’s made me more of an observer of life instead of a participant in life. Because, to actually risk drowning – even in learning to swim, to go someplace that necessitated ‘crossing the road’ was fraught with all kinds of uncertainties and dangers. (I’ve since noticed that some kids that literally play on the road seem to live forever while some who are kept more secure get hit randomly when they dare venture forth.)

So, I’ve spent a good part of life trying to get off the blanket, out of the backyard, across the road. It’s made me an adventurer of sorts – but often in my own mind – encyclopedically lateral rather than linear; curious, observant, linking to everything and everyone I can on the web – a watcher, journalist, recorder, writer, artist (but too often not a true participant in the actuality of life).

To be sure, I’ve been a traveller on four continents and all over North America, smelt diesel fumes in Nairobi, sat under spreading acacias near Garissa in North East Kenya, crossed the Bosporus from Europe to Asia, scoured lands and villages in Ireland, Scotland and England pursuing family roots. But too much, I feel, I remain limited, intimidated (?) by possibilities of what might happen if I were to get off the blanket, actually go -- and not only see the world, but enter more deeply into its dangers and its glories.

Advent Prayer

God of the watching ones,
give us Your benediction.

God of the waiting ones,
give us your good word for our souls.

God of the watching ones
the slow and the suffering ones
give us Your benediction,
Your good word for our souls
that we might rest.

God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones,
the slow and the suffering ones,

and the angels in heaven,

and the child in the womb,

give us your benediction,
your good word for our souls,
that we might rest and rise
in the kindness of your company.

Worship in Beauty of Holiness - and vice versa? . . .

Beauty is related to holiness. "Beauty is our sensory access to holiness. God reveals himself, that is, God's life in creation and in Christ, in ways that we can see and hear and touch and taste - in place and person."

- Eugene Peterson

To Be With Friends . . .

My dear grandson, Nathan, has learned some of the songs of the Season, and the following makes perfect sense - to him, given that he'll be four in a week and has not yet seen that many and that much of the passing and rhythm of the years. The conclusion of his happy song makes me smile - and stirs my hopes:

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy Near You !

Love Blooms Bright . . .

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd been no room for the child

- Madeleine L'Engle

Hope

I like the fact that Christians 'keep score' and 'tell time' in another way besides the usual bottom line(s) of life and the mere chronology of the passing hours and days. The Advent Calendar, part of 'the Christian Year' draws us into a time of yearning, longing, waiting - for the Fulfilment of the Promise that is Good News for this world. It's come and is yet coming just as Christ has already appeared (say, about 2,000 years ago) but also will come again at the end of the Age - to bring in the fulness of all that we have yet had only rumours and mere glimpses - some of us, anyway . . . And still it's as if the whole house was in darkness, waiting for someone to turn on the lights - or Someone to enter Who is Light Himself !

Tech Times . . .

1,244,440,600 - Estimated number of internet users worldwide at the beginning of November 07, representing 18.9% of earth's population - a growth of 245% since 2000.

110.8 million - The number of blogs identified by tracking site Technorati in early November, up from 69.2 million in February 06.

70 % - The number of North Americans aged 15 to 34 who use social networks, according to research by Fox Interactive.

- from TQ Magazine

Winter of the spirit . . .

Perhaps there are times when our faith is weak. But Jesus explicitly states that it is not how much faith we have that counts but whether we simply do our duty and exercise whatever faith we do have; and an infinitesimal amount, he says, is enough. The issue, after all, is not whether we are spiritual giants but whether God really is able to do anything. Faith is not a feeling or a capacity we conjure up but trusting that God can act decisively in the world.

- Walter Wink

Stories

“Stories unveil the holy purposes at work deep within life together. Where stories are told, community emerges and new worlds come into being.”

– John S. Mogaahgah, ‘Weavings’

Needing things . . .

Deliver me, Lord, from the endless desire
to acquire
the urge to heap possessions on possessions.

Set me free to enjoy the blessings
I already have received: this world in
all its wonder,
my friends and family, my church,
this self
you have entrusted to me with all its
possibilities and challenges.

And
fix my eyes on you,
and on the prize you have prepared
life eternal in your presence and your
grace.

 - J. Barrie Shepherd

Being There

Thinking back to the Peter Seller's movie, 'Being There' and through the lines of the following, I rebuke myself at the many times in which I am not mostly nor fully present.

“Sometimes I am amazed when I realize how rarely I am where I am. More often than not, my body is in one place and my mind is in several others. That, I know, is energy diffused. But there are times when I can just be where I am and do what I am doing. There are times when I can just be where I am and do what I am doing. There are times when I am not engaged in maintaining a self-image – that is, when I am able just to do what needs to be done, and to forget myself in the doing; when I am not thinking at all about how I am doing or looking. When my energy is concentrated in the given of the moment, then it flows freely from the centre, without diversion into folds or side pockets. Then, I think, the light shines brightly. Then there is a kind of pure power in what is done . . .”

- Elaine M. Prevallet, S.L.

Something larger . . .

“The saint is a saint not because he is good, but because he is transparent for something that is larger than he is.”

- Paul Tillich

Getting out of the way . . .

“As long as my centre is occupied with the marshalling of my own feeble powers, there will be no space for God’s power to flow through me. As long as I am in my own way, I will not live in the power of God’s way.”

 - Martin Luther King

Where to begin . . .

"All art begins with the artist's wound."

 - John Gardner

God dances ? . . .

Joy is divinity dancing within us.

- Wendy M. Wright

Created anew . . .

"The poet enters into himself (or herself) in order to create; the contemplative enters into God in order to be created."

- Thomas Merton

Worship

"so to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit, that (all) may put their trust in Him as Savior and receive Him as their Lord, in the fellowship of the Church.

To quicken the conscience by the Holiness of God,
To feed the mind with the Truth of God,
To purge the imagination by the Beauty of God,
To open the heart to the Love of God, and
To devote the will to the Purpose of God. "

- William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury

Hypocrites in Church

"Sometimes people tell me how disappointed they are to find so many hypocrites in the church. I suppose the same things are sometimes said about synagogues and other places of worship. It is foolish to deny it; and I make no attempt to do so. But it astonishes me that people expect the church to be perfect. They forget that if the church were perfect it wouldn't let them in. I couldn't belong to a church of perfect people, because I wouldn't qualify. Would you? When we complain of the church's imperfection, we complain of the very thing that allows us to belong. There are a great many hypocrites in the church. But then, places of worship are very good places for hypocrites to be. For the message that is heard there is one of Truth and Grace. And that is just what hypocrites need."

-Dr. R. Maurice Boyd

In Debt . . .

I am still enormously in debt to Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the founder of the L'Abri movement and at one time a co-pastor in St. Louis with one of my Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary professors' - Dr. Elmer Smick.

I began reading Schaeffer in my mid-teens and discovered that there was a whole way of seeing, a world-view of which I had no idea - that the Christian faith was more than 'Are you saved, brother?' and constant reiterations of John 3:16 and various biblical stories (to be illustrated mostly in flannel graph - remember that?). I discovered there was skeleton-structure, bones, sinew and flesh to the faith - a philosophy for my life and for anyone seeking to become truly, fully 'human' - and I have been curiously pressing into the Mystery ever since.

Schaeffer and his wife Edith Schaeffer (as the British Grace Magazine puts it) were "determined to demonstrate, in the ministry of L’Abri, a true outworking of trust and dependence on God in all circumstances – a demonstration that the unseen supernatural world really exists. So, for example, they committed themselves to prayer, asking that God would send the individuals to them that would find their ministry helpful, and that God would provide all necessary resources of money, housing personnel and so on. They saw, and the work continues to see, real and powerful answers because, as he would often say, ‘God is there’.

"Francis’ book ‘True Spirituality’ (again another superbly helpful book) was born out of the desire to show what really living a Christian life looks like when we ‘moment by moment rely on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who is given to us because of the finished work of Christ on the cross’.

I Hate it that it Hurts, however . . .

In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wrote, “You would like to know how I behave when I am experiencing pain, not writing books about it. You need not guess, for I will tell you; I am a great coward. But what is that to the purpose? When I think of pain – of anxiety that gnaws like fire and loneliness that spreads out like a desert, and the heart-breaking routine of monotonous misery, or again of dull aches that blacken our whole landscape or sudden nauseating pains that knock a man’s heart out at one blow, of pains that seem already intolerable and then are suddenly increased, of infuriating scorpion-stinging pains that startle into maniacal movement a man who seemed half dead with his previous tortures – it ‘quite o’er crows my spirit.’ If I knew any way of escape I would crawl through sewers to find it. But what is the good of telling you about my feelings? You know them already: they are the same as yours. I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made ‘perfect through suffering’ (Heb. 2:10) is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design.”

Pay Attention

Again, Frederick Buechner: What makes me a believer is that from time to time, there have been glimpses I've had which have made me suspect the presence of something extraordinary and beyond the realm of the immediate. You encounter the Holy in various forms, which, unless you have your eyes open, you might not even notice.

Lost and Found

Recently Christian writer, Frederick Buechner, was recognized and interviewed by his peers, at the Washington Cathedral.

The following words, that he had written some years ago in his Pulitzer Prize nominated novel, 'Godric,' Beuechner noted, he wouldn't mind having inscribed on his tombstone: What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was set next to life would scarcely fill a cup.

True Self Breaking Free

Created in the image of God, we arrive in this world with an inborn hunger for the transcendent, even for heaven. Something in us is born knowing. In such a time as this, when the Western world finds itself in the horrors of a spiritual and moral freefall, many come out of this culture to our conferences trapped in the ugliest of sinful compulsions, having forgotten this inborn holy craving. And it is in the presence of the Holy One, the very coming into sacred space filled with true worship, that these dread bonds begin to break and fall away from them. The true self that yearns for the good, the beautiful, the true, and the noble then begins its heroic journey up and out the false self, with its layers and layers of sordid behavior, and breaks through into God's light with His pathway in sight.

- Leanne Payne, Pastoral Care Ministries

Snowball chance-in . . .

I love this picture by Arthur J. Eisley (as I love all paintings that tell a story, that suggest and probe); not sure why. Perhaps the early snowfall this year here has made me think of it. The kids - snowballs ready, lie in wait to pelt the old man.

The aged traveler is unaware. His dog is alert, however, standing stock-still, worried, protective, ready to defend - if not too bark and scold.

The other, smaller dog of the children seems bemused, unaware of what they intend, enjoying perhaps their muffled laugher, their eager waiting.

The naughty boy, laden for torment, hands a fully formed ball to the golden haired girl, perhaps his sister. Delighted, she reaches out for it, unaware yet of its potential, its danger, its cold welcome.

What is the old man carrying? Like a shepherd he trudges through the cold and snow, staff in hand, carrying his bundles, his burden, though clearly not a sheep.

What’s in the bag? Gifts, food, belongings? Perhaps he is Grandad bringing treasures at Christmas time, his Santa beard white with age and frost.

It is bleak mid-winter; the children, eager, play; the dogs, alert, sense and wait. The adventure, the fun (?) Is about to begin.

What difference will it make?

Robert and Harriet

Robert and Harriet Barber

Robert Barber married Harriet Oakes (nee Oakes) in Guelph, Ontario, in 1836. He helped to carve what would become the Royal City of Guelph out of the forest, working for a time for Mr. Fergusson-Blair. Gradually he would realize his dream of owning his own farm.

Robert and Harriet rented and mortgaged land (ownership going back and forth to creditors as they fought to establish farming 'footage') initially, farming just a few miles north of Eden Mills on the south-east quarter of Concession 2, Lot 4, Eramosa Township, Wellington County, Ontario - the name appearing on an old county map of 1852. The land bordered swamp and stream and seems not to have been very productive. Or maybe it just wasn’t ‘enough.’

Finally he was able to buy a 100 acre farm at Lot 12, 7th Concession. The road bordering Eramosa and Erin townships connects with today’s Regional Road 24, just east of Everton. The Barber name appears there in 1875 and in 1901; descendants live there to this day.

From the area of Fressingfield in North East Suffolk, where Barbers have lived since at least the early 15th Century, to farm in Wellington County, the journey has taken the family many miles and through many adventures.

Words . . . Actions . . .

Bulcamp

In late 1835, a riot occurred at the despised Blything Union Workhouse, a few miles to the east of Blyford, Suffolk. Following this fracas at ‘Bulcamp,’ my great-great grandfather Robert Barber was arrested.

Court testimony revealed that a man named Edwards, Jacob Pretty and Robert Barber were amidst the rioters ‘at Bulcamp House, on the 21st of December.’ Edwards and Barber had Picks or Mattocks in their hands (in order to pull it down.)

Robert was employed on the farm of Mr. Churchyard, of Cratfield (as his horse-driver), whom the authorities considered charging with 'incitement to riot' for alleged comments in the local pub, The Bell, owned by Robert’s maternal uncle, Joshua Moore.

Witnesses, some later very reluctant to testify, including Joshua Moore, overheard Churchyard to the effect that he wouldn't mind if ‘someone would go over and tear the place down - and he'd be glad to pay them for it.’

Initially, Churchyard denied he'd said any such thing, but finally admitted saying, 'If they pulled the House down he would pay them for their days work - meaning by 'them' his own labourers.' Apparently, with the heated zeal of youth, his 'labourers' (including Robert Barber) had taken him seriously.)

Preliminary trial documents indicate that at least one authority wanted to proceed with charges against Churchyard; the others, reluctant, argued that anyone could say such things in the heat and frustration of the moment, without real or criminal intent – insufficient grounds to prove guilt in ‘incitement to riot.' Time, effort and money trying to prove otherwise would be fruitlessly spent; Churchyard was never formally tried.

Robert was bound on his own recognizance and good behaviour for 6 months. His father, William, paid the14 pounds ‘surety’ bond.

This probably precipitated Robert's coming to Canada the following Spring, in the company of the Jonathan Oakes family, whose daughter he would marry that year.

Perhaps he came frustrated by the turmoil in agriculture in that time, so much changing due to new machinery inventions - and the inadequate attempts of the government to address attending realities and social evils occasioned by the new ‘Corn Laws and ‘Poor Laws, and clearly angered by attending treatment and conditions suffered by workhouse ‘inmates’ (perhaps family members). Perhaps he saw no hope of meaningful employment, of ever being able to farm his own land, or have the future he desired. Maybe, already, he was in love with Harriet Oakes and wanted to forge a life with her in this new land of opportunity.

Chance words in a pub may have spurred these actions and decisions of my fore-bearer. On such little words and relatively insignificant turn most of the larger issues of life.

Seeing . . .

The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. I return from one walk knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name. Litanies hum in my ears; my tongues flaps in my mouth Ailinon, alleluia! I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.

- from Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Suddenly . . .

Away grief's gasping joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam, Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash:
IN A FLASH
AT A TRUMPET CRASH,
I am all at once what Christ is,
Since He was what I am, and
This jack, joke, poor potsherd,
patch, matchwood
IMMORTAL DIAMOND,
IS immortal diamond.

 - Gerard Manley Hopkins

He Knows My Name

This display at a Fall Fair reminded me - contrary to the similarities of mass production - of the uniqueness of each one of us, fashioned by the Creator who not only knew us but loved us, uniquely - before ever we saw the light of day . . .

I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
and He hears me when I call

I have a Father
He calls me His own
He'll never leave me
No matter where I go

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
and He hears me when I call

-- Words and Music by Tommy Walker

Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew you."

Starting over . . .

Hope spring fresh from the garden of new life . . .

Love, Light, Joy, Life

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

- George Matheson, 1882

Purpose

Intricacies - all weaved - on purpose . . .

Inter-related . . .

There's no accident, no chance bumping into someone or something, no part of your life that touches - or is touched, but what it's all inter-related. Mostly beautiful, sometimes gripping, compelling - all things somehow arranged and planned - all for the best.

Tied Up . . .

Important to keep our moorings in changing times . . .

Life that Counts

All lives count and some seem to touch very many others, also, as we are reminded from this grave in the grounds of Glasgow Cathedral, Scotland. May that be true of more of us.

Here It Comes . . .

So, we're past 'frost on the pumpkins' and moving right on to snow on the apples. I hate this time of the year, though I love (in another overall sense) the passing of the Seasons. But there's something especially sad, poignant about the end of Summer and finally of Fall. I've over-committed usually for the Fall months and am majorly 'out of gas' by November. The leaves go, the days shorten, the grey, cold, blustery wind and rain descend - and it is not yet Christmas !

This year my discomfit is attended by a dose of first-time shingles - apparently from the long-dormant chickenpox-virus of childhood hiding in my backbone, coming out and affecting nerves and skin. Supposedly it's caused by stress or aging, medication or lack of care of schedule and body . . .

I feel like I've been punched and pumelled, front and back on my left side, and there are attending angry red spots and rashes - kinda like pressing five or ten thumb-tacks randomly into various swatches of skin.

Not at all pleasant; though its mostly passing now, leaving weakness and some lingering pain (not like the PAIN that was first experienced).

And, yes, this too shall pass - and another November, to be sure. It will soon be Advent and then Christmas - so hope springs eternal (if I may be permitted to mix Seasons).

Hurtin' Song

Is it okay for an older man to like the Corrs? I just like the way they sing - and the way they look . . .

When your day is long
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough of this life
Well hang on

Don't let yourself go
Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts
Sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
(When your day is night alone)
Hold on, hold on
(If you feel like letting go)
Hold on
If you think you've had too much of this life
Well hang on

Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand
Oh, no
Don't throw your hand
When you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you're not alone

If you're on your own
In this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life
To hang on

Well, everybody hurts
Sometimes, everybody cries
And everybody hurts
Sometimes

And everybody hurts
Sometimes

So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
(Everybody hurts
You are not alone)

Tares and Tears

Sometimes you just miss people - I’m feeling that way, just now; missing loved ones departed and dear ones alive - but so far away . . . .

Sarah MacLauchlan sings of such moments, so I hum the tune . . . Can't Cry Hard Enough -

I'm gonna live my life
like every day's the last
Without a moment to lose
it all goes by so fast

And now that you're gone
I can't cry hard enough
No I can't cry hard enough
for you to hear me now

I'm gonna open my eyes
and see for the first time
I'm gonna let go of you like
a child letting go of his kite

There it goes
up in the clouds
There it goes beyond the skies
For no reason why
I can't cry hard enough
No I can't cry hard enough
For you to hear me know

I'm gonna turn around
to see you standing there
When all that remains
is an empty chair
And now that you're gone
I can't cry hard enough
No I can't cry hard enough
For you to hear me now.

— by the Williams Brothers

Old Clock

This clock belonged to my great aunt, Mary Willoughby Potter, who lived with her husband Jim at Freeman’s Corners (now part of Burlington, Ontario) early in the last century. When she died she left enough money to my grandfather, Gordon Barber, for him to purchase a farm on the Upper Middle Road (now the Queen Elizabeth Way), just east of the Guelph Line. The farm is now the property of Tamarack Lumber.

Aunt Mary is long gone now, as is my father who enjoyed the clock for many years, always desiring it to be placed in a place of prominence - honouring not only the time it kept but also the kindness of an aunt who helped to launch and stabilize a family that otherwise would have continued moving around, just trying to keep afloat in depression times.

The times change, dear ones go, but clocks themselves keep ticking.

Beatrix at Essendon

Beatrix Potter (standing), Camfield Place, 1873

As a girl, Beatrix Potter used to visit her grandparents at Camfield Place, often staying there over the summer. It was at an estate adjoining Essendon Place (near Essendon, Hertfordshire, England), where earlier in the century my ancestors, Sarah Lawman King and her daughter, Mary Ann King Frost, worked as laundresses. Mary Ann’s husband, William was employed there as a bootman (a shoe and boot maker).

In the last century Camfield Place was the home of Dame Barbara Cartland, writer of numerous Harlequin novels and step-mother of Princess Diana.

The parish church in Essendon was damaged during WW I by a bomb dropped from a German zeppelin.

 

I suppose, right about now, I really ought to be in church - but there are sometimes things that just get in the way. In my case, this morning - ta, da - shingles. You don't ever want to get this, believe me!

Words

It's not so much the lush, colourful, viscous or viscious things one says - it's just that, well, having said them they're very hard to retract.

Climbing

Chinook salmon at man-made fish ladder, Thornbury, ON, moving from the river into Georgian Bay.

Orchard

There is a new way of creating orchards and producing good fruit. The old orchards had trees that were taller, difficult to harvest. So, newer, dwarf varieties were tried. Now, the branches of the trees are cut away and pruned, having been planted in laser-straight rows. Wires and poles provide support for them, much as one would find in a vineyard. Apparently the yield is very rich and plentiful. The above picture was taken near Blue Mountains, Ontario.

Wonderfully fruitful, but something seems wrong with all of this . . .

Fading Autumn

Too soon the Summer goes and then the bright Autumn, fading into the cold and snow of Winter. I love the Seasons - but it's all going far too quickly 'round . . .

Barber

Thought I might comment on my last name - BARBER . . .

The Greek name for a barber was κουρεύς, and the Latin tonsor. The term employed in modern European languages is derived from the low Latin barbatorius, which is found in Petronius. The barber of the ancients was a far more important personage than his modern representative. Men had not often the necessary implements for the various operations of the toilet; combs, mirrors, perfumes, and tools for clipping, cutting, shaving, &c. Accordingly the whole process had to be performed at the barber's, and hence the great concourse of people who daily gossiped at the tonstrina, or barber's shop. Besides the duties of a barber and hairdresser, strictly so called, the ancient tonsor discharged other offices. He was also a nail-parer. He was, in fact, much what the English barber was when he extracted teeth, as well as cut and dressed hair. People who kept the necessary instruments for all the different operations, generally had also slaves expressly for the purpose of performing them. The business of the barber was threefold. First there was the cutting of hair: hence the barber's question, πῶς σε κείρω (Plut. De Garrul. 13). For this purpose he used various knives of different sizes and shapes, and degrees of sharpness: hence Lucian (Adv. Indoct. c29), in enumerating the apparatus of a barber's shop, mentions πλῆθος μαχαιριδίων (μάχαιρα, μαχαιρίς, κουρίς are used also, in Latin culter); but scissors, ψαλίς, διπλῇ μάχαιρα (Pollux, II.32; in Latin forfex, axicia) were used too (compare Aristoph. Acharn. 848; Lucian, Pis. c46). Μάχαιρα was the usual word. Irregularity and unevenness of the hair was considered a great blemish, as appears generally, and from Horace (Sat. I.3.31, and Epist. I.1.94), and accordingly after the hair-cutting the uneven hairs were pulled out by tweezers, an operation to which Pollux (II.34) applies the term παραλέγεσθαι. So the hangers-on on great men, who wished to look young, were accustomed to pull out the grey hairs for them (Arist. Eq. 908). This was considered, however, a mark of effeminacy (Gell. VI.12;º Cic. Pro Rosc. Com. 7). The person who was to be operated on by the barber had a rough cloth (ὠμόλινον, involucre in Plautus, Capt. II.2.17) laid on his shoulders, as now, to keep the hairs off his dress, &c. The second part of the business was shaving (radere, rasitare, ξυρεῖν). This was done with a ξυρόν, a novacula (Lamprid. Heliog. c31), a razor (as we, retaining the Latin root, call it), which he kept in a case, θήκη, ξυροθήκη, ξυροδόκης, "a razor-case" (Aristoph. Thesm. 220; Pollux, II.32; Petron. 94). Some who would not submit to the operation of the razor used instead some powerful depilatory ointments, or plasters, as psilothron (Plin. XXXII.10.47;a acida Creta, Martial, VI.93.9; Venetum lutum, iii.74; dropax, iii.74; x.65). Stray hairs which escaped the razor were pulled out with small pincers or tweezers (volsellae, τριχολάβιον) The third part of the barber's work was to pare the nails of the hands, an operation which the Greeks expressed by the words ὀνυχίζειν and ἀπονυχίζειν (Aristoph. Eq. 706; and Schol.; Theophrast. Charact. c26; Pollux, II.146). The instruments used for this purpose were called ὀνυχιστήρια, sc. μαχαίρια (Pollux, X.146).

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Late Fall

I love the Autumn, but hate to see it go. I usually over-commit come September and by the time November comes - with its grey, leafless, rainy landscape, I can find myself soon depressed - no longer Summer - not yet Christmas - and too much on the go. It's not so much that I fail to plan as that I work best in cycles - and at the end of very creative, busy, productive cycles - well, I've about had it . . .

Hallelu Yah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

- Leonard Cohen, from 'Hymns of the 49th Parallel'

Prayer

PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner's towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood.

- George Herbert

Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty

Kingfishers and Dragonflies

‘As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme’
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.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)

Grand

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 - Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'God's Grandeur'

Christ's Presence in Creation

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice - and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

- Joseph Mary Plunkett (killed by the British in the Irish Easter Rising of 1916)

Know What I Mean?

The following lyrics for 'Hurt' come with all of the hurt, pain, and crying-out-loud honesty of an Old Testament psalm. Sung and publicized by Johnny Cash shortly before his death, these words hurt in the singing, in the reading and in the remembering. The hope of keeping oneself and finding another way if given more time, another chance - is gone. O, if only to have another shot at getting life right.

All the many ways we hurt ourselves and others (reality check !! - all the many ways I hurt myself - and others), till there comes a time, an age when we are past feeling even our hurts.

Though Johnny Cash was a Christian - after many years of wandering and wondering and trying to find love (often, as do we all, in all the wrong places) the deep feelings and memories of past failures haunt him, as maybe they do us, too. 

Better a living dog than a dead lion, says the proverb and one who is alive may yet hope again but only, only through Him who is Hope and Life himself.

Here's the song - Jesus in the Hope, the Healer.

I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that’s real

The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything

What have I become?

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

You could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns 

Upon my liar’s chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time

The feelings disappear

You are someone else

I am still right here

What have I become?

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

You could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way

- written by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails

Shared

Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased - thus do we refute entropy.

- Spider Robinson

Circle of Quiet

We all need such a place . . . what Madeline L'Engle meant, in the book of that name - My special place . . . a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings. . . . [there] I move slowly into a kind of peace that is indeed marvelous, 'annihilating all that's made to a green thought in a green shade.'"

How I Managed to Get Up Today

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness, 

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of Cherumbim,

to obedience of angels,

to the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward.

In prayers of patriarchs,

In prediction of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendour of fire, 

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me, 

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak to me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to be before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me,

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all those powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolotry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation

- ascribed to St. Patrick, 5th Century Apostle to Ireland

Not Fun . . .

Some folk are interesting - exciting even, to know - but they're not fun to walk with . . . 

Heart Ache

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said - that to be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.

Crying . . .

Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tanguni.

These are the tears of things,
and the stuff of our mortality cuts us to the heart

- Virgil

No Belief Without Passion

Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.

- Madeleine L'Engle

Stumbling Heavenward

I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.

- Madeleine L'Engle (who, sadly, died yesterday, aged 88)

Hope, Faith, Love

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

- Reinold Niebuhr

Comin' at Us

We think we are headed toward the future. The truth is, the future is headed toward us. And it's in a hurry (we now know the universe is speeding up, not slowing down). We also generally think that the present makes sense only in light of the past. Again, we need to check our thinking. The present makes clearest sense in light of the future. We humans write history by looking at the past. God creates history ahead of time. He never forecasts. God always broadcasts. He began with the end in mind. The future is always incipient in the present. Before the foundation of the world, the Lamb was slain. Calvary was anticipated in God's kiss of life into Adam. The cross gains dimension silhouetted against the empty tomb. The empty tomb confirmed the invasion of the future into the present. When Paul encountered the resurrected Jesus, he realized the future had been fast-forwarded. That changed everything.

It still does

- Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church

The Guiding Light

O God, who broughtst me from the rest of last night
Unto the joyous light of this day,
Be Thou bringing me from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.
Oh! from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.

Now I Lay Me Down . . .

God with me lying down
God with me rising up,
God with me in each ray of light,
Nor I a ray of joy without Him,
Nor one ray without Him.

Christ with me sleeping,
Christ with me waking,
Christ with me watching,
Every day and night,
Each day and night.

God with me protecting,
The Lord with me directing,
The Spirit with me strengthening,
For ever and for evermore,
Ever and evermore, Amen.
Chief of chiefs, Amen.

Scottish Blessing

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within.

May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.

And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.

Lights Along the Shore

Sometimes the 'lights along the shore' are not lighthouses, per se, but places of quiet and refuge where one simply takes time to watch the setting sun and linger into the dark, comforted with the fact that sometimes we at least can choose to shine the light we have on the situation - or not.

Old Lights

I like things that are old - sometimes more than that which is new -- old paths and old lights that still work and are helpful, still, for today's travel.

Rather

I love my house, our property - but there are also places where sometimes I think I'd rather be living . . .

Dawn or Dusk

Leonard Sweet says that the Church today will either see the future as a new dawn and therefore embrace it as opportunity. Or, it will see the future as dusk and therefore hide from the darkness of the world.

Sweet believes that God will be in the future, with or without us,

Sloppy in Prayer

Scot McKnight, author of the helpful book: Praying With the Church, describes his first ever encounter with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Two things, he says, stood out in those days: (1) those prayers were mighty prayers and (2) lots of spontaneous prayers were, no matter how sincere, well … sloppy.

Where God Shows Up

“God always shows up in the most God-forsaken places.”

- Alan Roxburgh

How Rude !

"I've often thought people treat God rather rudely. Trillions and trillions of prayers every day, asking and pleading and begging for favors. ‘Do this; give me that; I need this; I want that.' And most of this praying takes place on Sunday, his day off! It's not nice, and it's no way to treat a friend."

- George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty (Hyperion).

Masked and Unmasked

Unasked, Unmasked

Always a mask
Held in the slim hand, whitely,
Always she had a mask before her face -
Smiling and sprightly,
The mask.

For years and years I wondered
But dared not ask.

And then -
I blundered.
I looked behind the mask,
To find
Nothing -
She had no face.

She had become
Merely a hand
Holding the mask
With grace.

- Helen Joseph ' The Mask'
Sunday Review, 13 August 1932

There comes a midnight hour when all must unmask.

- Soren Kirkegaard

Soul Friendship

What do 'soul friendship' relationships depend upon? — They depend upon how much each person in the relationship is willing to stretch and grow. These friendships require both men and women to call upon parts of themselves that are usually less accessible when relating to their typical same-sex friends. For a man, a woman who is just a friend allows him to express his more emotional side, to experience his vulnerability, to treat himself and his friend more tenderly than is permissible with male friends. What is typically missing for him in this cross-gender relationship, however, is the kind of rough camaraderie he can have with another man.

For a woman, a man who is just a friend helps her express her independent, more reasoned and tougher side - the harder edge that's kept under wraps in relationships with women. The down side for her is the relative absence of emotional reciprocity and intensity she normally shares with a female friend.

Soul friends share common values – a common vision of reality. Soul friendships include not only affirmation, but the ability of each to challenge the other when necessary. This facility is sometimes the most difficult aspect of any intimate relationship, but without it the friendship can soon become superficial, stunted, and eventually lost.

Soul friendship is associated with great affection, intimacy and depth. Soul friends share what the Greeks and Romans, as well as early church Fathers and Mothers, equate with true friendship itself: one soul in two bodies, two hearts united as one.

Soul friend relationships are characterized by mutuality: a profound respect for each other's wisdom, despite any age or gender difference, and the awareness that the other person is a source of many blessings.

Soul friendship is centred on God, the soul friend in whom all other friendships are united. True soul friends do not depend on each other alone, but root their relationship in God.

Soul friendship survives geographical separation, the passage of time, and death itself. They separate and go their own ways but never forget what each has meant to the other.

Human and Christian Destiny

"Man as created was already crowned with glory and honor, for made in the likeness of the enthroned Glory, a little lower than the angels of the divine council, man was invested with official authority to exercise dominion as priest-king in God's earthly courts. Yet, the glory of man's royal functioning would be progressive as he increasingly fulfilled his historical task of subduing the earth, his ultimate attainment of functional glory awaiting the eschatological glorification of his whole nature after the image of the radiant Glory-Spirit. Ethical glory also belonged to man as created and in this respect man would have gone from glory to glory had he not sinned, moving on from a state of simple righteousness to one of confirmed righteousness.

Man in the Fall became destitute of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) -- at least such was the effect of the Fall apart from the intervention of divine grace. Actually, by the common grace of God, a measure of the glory-image was preserved in spite of the Fall. Scriptural references to postlapsarian man as still the image of God (Gen. 9:6; James 3:9) show that man continues to be the image of God after the Fall and that he is so even without personal experience of redemptive renewal. According to Genesis 3:22, man had in the very course of the Fall manifested the official-functional glory he had been given by engaging in judicial action after the manner of the divine council. Of course, he did so in such a way as to be guilty of gross malfeasance and forfeited his right to continue in office. But by the common grace of God this official glory of man was perpetuated and constitutes the primary if not the total basis for the Bible's attribution of image-of-God status to fallen man even apart from re-creation in Christ. By falling into sin, man lost his ethical glory. The covering of glory was replaced by the nakedness of shame. Though still possessed of an official glory by common grace, man was stripped of righteousness, holiness, and love of the truth. Whatever semblance of ethical glory was maintained by common grace, such does not clearly figure in the Bible's identification of postlapsarian man as still the image of God. Fallen man is a naked Image.

Man re-created in the image of God is restored to the hope of the formal-physical image-glory of resurrection immortality and Spiritual existence. Meanwhile, God, who has prepared for the new man the covering of eternal glory, gives him the earnest of the Spirit (II Cor. 5:5). In his redemptive renewal man is re-created after the image of God in true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3: 10) and with respect to this ethical glory-likeness to God man is transformed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord (II Cor. 3:18; 4:16; Rom. 12:2). Beyond the official-functional glory the new man has in the realm of common grace, he has through his union with Christ in the Spirit a part in Christ's enthronement in the heavenly sphere (Eph. 2:6). In this respect too there is movement from glory to glory, for the blessedness of Christian death is the “first resurrection," the intermediate state, where the believer, perfect in righteousness, is present with Christ to live and reign with him (Rev. 20:4-6), [53] and beyond the second (i.e., bodily) resurrection the overcomers, possessed of the fulness of formal and ethical glory, participate with the enthroned Christ in the consummation of man's official royal glory (Rev. 3:21)" Images of The Spirit, 31-32.

-- An excerpt from Dr. Meredith Kline's book, Images of the Spirit

God, Personal

"Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder... It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. 'Look out', we cry, 'it's alive!'...An impersonal god, well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads - better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap - best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband - that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly was that a 'real' footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that. Worse still, supposing He had found us?"

- C.S. Lewis:

Near Enough to Catch Life

" . . . Christ was also a tiger, the denouncer of a narrow and loveless piety, the scourge of the merely moral, the enemy of every religious tradition of his day, no matter how sacred, that did not serve the Kingdom as he saw it and embodied it in all its wildness and beauty. Where He was, passion was, life was. To be near Him was to catch life from him the way sails catch the wind."

-- Frederick Buechner

Sing ! Wee Bird

O Little Sister Bird, that brims with full heart, and having nothing possesses all, surely you do well to sing! For you have life without labour and beauty without burden, and riches without care. When you wake, lo, it is dawn; and when you come to sleep it is eve. And when your two wings lie folded about your heart, lo, there is rest. Therefore sing, Sister, having this great wealth, that when you sing you give your riches to all.

- adapted, St. Francis of Assisi

Meaning and Beauty

You take the pen - and the lines dance,
You take the flute - and the notes shimmer,
You take the brush - and the colours sing.
So all things have meaning and beauty in that space beyond time
where You are. How, then, can I hold back anything from
You?

- Dag Hammarskjold

Tune Up

Tune me, O Lord, into one harmony
With Thee, one full responsive vibrant chord;
Unto Thy praise, all love and melody,
Tune me, O Lord.
- Christina Rossetti

Cautious

A lot of people tip-toe through life so that they can arrive safely at Death's door.

- Tony Compolo

Finding, Telling the Truth

Jesus said: And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

But also remember Emily Dickenson: Tell all the truth but tell it slant . . . / The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.

And Friedrich Nietzsche: We have art in order not to die of the truth.

If I found the Truth - could I handle it? If Jesus is the Truth, how close can I possibly get?

From the Garden of . . .