You're song, a wished-for song. Go through the ear to the centre where sky is, where wind, where silent knowing. Put seeds and cover them. Blades will sprout where you do your work. - Rumi
The falling away with Johnny Cash
Blessed be Your name
CHRIST: My child, let My will be your guide. I know what is best for you. Your understanding is human and your judgement is affected by your personal concerns.
DISCIPLE: Lord, what You say is true. Your concern will order my life better than I can myself. Those who do not place their anxiety on You will be very insecure. Lord, keep my will steadfast and true to You. Do with me whatever you please, for everything is good which comes to me through Your will. If you want me to be in darkness, blessed be your name. If it is light, blessed be your name. If You grant me comfort, blessed be Your name. If You wish to test me, blessed be your name forever.
Thomas à Kempis - The Imitation of Christ
Hold still
The quiet mind dissolves, the stilled heart holds - the expanse of faith envelops now and not yet. There is no yearning, and no imagined future - the silence of God moves closer.
To Whom we must give account
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 4:12
Graven image
I made an idol of my life - my expression, my activity, my achievement. I polished, perfected and worshipped my creations, failing to notice that my gifts were a gift. I rightly shored up my fortress from attack, with acts of independence and power. But with such armaments, my heart was incarcerated - all forms became hollow and dry. So my folly was exposed in a thousand myriad ways, as a choreographed play of counterfeit control. As the last in line of the daughters of Eve, it was strange relief to submit and accept: my weakness, my fragility, my dependence. I am now as I always was - helpless unless carried by the stream of the living Spirit. 6th September 2020, Somerset, England With thanks to the exhortation of A.Ha.
Hymn to matter – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock: you who yield only to violence, you who force us to work if we would eat. Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untameable passion: you who unless we fetter you will devour us. Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.
Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards of measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God. Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena.
Blessed be you, mortal matter: you who one day will undergo the process of dissolution within us and will thereby take us forcibly into the very heart of that which exists. Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless."
From Hymn to the Universe by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Prepping for end times
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”
Ephesians 14-18
My Spirit Longs For Thee – John Byrom
My spirit longs for Thee
Within my troubled breast,
Though I unworthy be
Of so divine a Guest.
Of so divine a Guest
Unworthy though I be,
Yet has my heart no rest
Unless it come from Thee.
Unless it come from Thee,
In vain I look around;
In all that I can see
No rest is to be found.
No rest is to be found
But in they blessed love:
O, let my wish be crowned,
And send it from above!
J. Byrom of Manchester, England (1692-1763)
I asked for strength
I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health, that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches, that I might be happy. I was given poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life. I was given life, that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for - but everything I had hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed. Prayer of an unknown confederate soldier (1861-3)
Being a walking question mark 