Eternal rest grant unto them
O LORD,
and let perpetual light
shine upon them.
Amen.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
the room of love
The room of love is another world. You go there wearing no watch, watching no clock. It is the world without end, so small that two people can hold it in their arms, and yet it is bigger than worlds on worlds, for it contains the longing of all things to be together, and to be at rest together. You come together to the day’s end, weary and sore, troubled and afraid. You take it all into your arms, it goes away, and there you are where giving and taking are the same, and you live a little while entirely in a a gift. The words have all been said, all permissions given, and you are free in the place that is the two of you together. What could be more heavenly than to have desire and satisfaction in the same room? If you want to know why even in telling of trouble and sorrow I am giving thanks, this is why.
-Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter
the well
You can go all the way to the bottom of the well,
because you know who holds the rope.
-Joshua Stamper
eternal weight of glory
Now the days and hours and moments
Of our suff’ring seem so long;
And the toilsome wait and wond’ring
Threaten silence to our song.
Now our pain is real and pressing
Where our faith is thin and weak,
But our hope is set on Jesus;
And we cling to him, our strength.
Oh eternal weight of glory!
Oh inheritance divine!
We will see our Lord redeeming
Every past and future time.
All our pains will be transfigured,
Like the scars of Christ our Lord.
We will see the weight of glory,
And our broken years restored.
Chorus:
For behold! I tell a myst’ry:
At the trumpet sound we’ll wake
“Death is swallowed up in vict’ry!”
When we meet our King of Grace
Every year we thought was wasted
Every night we cried “How long?”
All will be a passing moment
In our Savior’s vict’ry song
We will see our wounded Savior.
We’ll behold him face to face;
And we’ll hear our anguished stories
Sung as vict’ry songs of grace.
Christ’s Cross
Christ’s Cross over this face, and thus over my ear. Christ’s Cross over these eyes…this mouth…this throat…the back of this head…this side…to accompany before me…to accompany behind me…Christ’s Cross to meet every difficulty both on hollow and on hill…Christ’s Cross over my community. Christ’s Cross over my church. Christ’s Cross in the next word. Christ’s Cross in this world.
-10th Century Celtic Prayer (Micha Boyett, Found)
for the beauty…
-Hymn: For the Beauty of the Earth
gardens
It started in a garden.
The Father’s agenda reigned.
Life.
Fullness of Life.
Fruit on a tree grew plump
and a lie entered with a hiss.
Darkness’ agenda spilled out
like a cup overturned.
Death.
The lush space now empty.
Exiled and saddened.
No longer able to enter.
Cut off.
A second garden.
Sweating blood and another hiss.
The Father’s agenda reclaimed.
Love.
Love that fosters Life.
A second tree.
The fruit of salvation displayed
for the world to observe at noon.
Death turned into Life.
Darkness’ agenda overturned.
A second empty space.
Alleluia, for the stone is rolled away.
‘Why do you look for the living
among the dead?’
A third garden.
Look around and see the fertile ground
desperately needing Life to spring forth.
Trees thirsty for living water,
needing wisdom to live, grow.
See the empty hearts,
hollow eyes?
Give us strength to fill them.
Fill them with the story
of the garden, tree,
and empty tomb.
Fill them with Life, Lord.
Cultivate the garden anew.
-MCS, 2013
when you don’t give the answers…
“When You don’t move the mountains I’m needing You to move
When You don’t part the waters I wish I could walk through
When You don’t give the answers as I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You”
-Lauren Daigle “Trust in You”
…”in the great hands of your heart”
I am praying again. Awesome One.
You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.
I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.
In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.
I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.
I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as thought someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.
It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart-
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God-spend them however you want.
-Rainer Maria Rilke “Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God”
when it’s too big (repost-rachel held evans reflection on syria)
When it’s just too big….
All that’s left is prayer and fasting.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
All that’s left are tears and ash.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
All that’s left is to acknowledge your smallness.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
All that’s left is to sit in quiet with the world and beg for peace and wisdom and clear paths.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s enough because it’s all that’s left to do.
So be faithful, and do it.
Be helpless for a while.
Be at God’s mercy and pray.
-For the rest of this beautiful piece view here
peacocks for pilgrims 