Lifting Sail

I feel the winds of God today; today my sail I lift,
Though heavy, oft with drenching spray, and torn with many a rift;
If hope but light the water’s crest, and Christ my bark will use,
I’ll seek the seas at His behest, and brave another cruise.

It is the wind of God that dries my vain regretful tears,
Until with braver thoughts shall rise the purer, brighter years;
If cast on shores of selfish ease or pleasure I should be;
Lord, let me feel Thy freshening breeze, and I’ll put back to sea.

If ever I forget Thy love and how that love was shown,
Lift high the blood red flag above; it bears Thy Name alone.
Great Pilot of my onward way, Thou wilt not let me drift;
I feel the winds of God today, today my sail I lift.

---- Jessie Adams

God's Truth

What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Eastern Shore Wild Turkeys

Chesapeake Ducks

Coming to Faith and a Passionate Love of God

Late it was that I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new; late I loved you! And, look, you were with me and I was outside, and there I sought for you and in my ugliness I plunged into the beauties that you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties kept me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all. You called, you cried out, you shattered my deafness: you flashed, you shone, you shattered my blindness, you breathed perfume, and I drew in my breath and I pant for you; I tasted, and I am hungry and thirsty: you touched me, and I burned for your peace.
- St. Augustine of Hippo