Into the West

Stepping Westward

"What, you are stepping westward?"--"Yea."

---'T would be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting; 't was a sound
Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right
To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake
Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye
Was fixed upon the glowing sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.

William Wordsworth

Brother Lawrence

"I began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world." ~Brother Lawrence (1614-1691)

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Practicing the Presence of God... four ways

Little interior glances -- simple moments of remembering, noticing, or just seeking God’s presence in the midst of whatever is going on.

A little phrase that Love inspires -- letting a word, phrase or image repeat itself quietly deep inside us as we go through our daily activities.

Conversing everywhere with God -- entering all situations with a sense of relationship with God, a trust in Christ being with us.

The loving gaze that finds God everywhere." -- an open, all-embracing contemplative attitude, in all times and places.

Saint Augustine ~

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.

If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.

Thoughts About Heaven ~

I.

Heaven's not a place.

Where time doth race

Across the flatted fields of edgeless space

Thou shalt not hear its news, nor its retreat discover.

No! 'tis a dance

Where love perpetual ,

Rhythmical,

Musical, 

Maketh advance 

Loved one to lover.

II.

Heaven's not a rest.

No! but to battle with new zest:

Untired, with warrior joy

The sharp clean spirit employ

On life's new enterprise.

It's the surprise 

Of keen delighted mind 

That wakes to find

Old fetters gone,

Strong shining immortality put on.

III.

Heaven is to be

In God at last made free,

There more and more

Strange secrets of communion to explore:

Within the mighty movements of His will

Our tangled loves fulfil:

To pluck the rosemary we cannot reach

With the mind's span,

And so at last

Breathe the rich fragrance of our hoarded past

And learn the slow unfolding of the plan.

Together we unroll

The blazened story of the pilgrim soul;

All the long ardent pain,

The craving and the bliss at last made plain.

Sometimes to sleep 

Locked each to each

Within his deep,

Or playing in his wave

The sudden splendour of the flood to brave:

Great tide of his undimmed vitality 

That breaks in beauty on the world's wide beach

And draws all life again toward its heart,

Stirring to new and mutual increase

Love-quickened souls therein that have their part,

Therein that find their peace.

~Evelyn Underhill  (1875-1941)

Listening Angels

Blue against the bluer heavens

Stood the mountain, calm and still,

Two white Angels, bending earthward,

Leant upon the hill.

Listening leant those silent Angels,

And I longed to hear

What sweet strain of earlthy music

Thus could charm their ear.

I heard the sound of many trumpets

In a warlike march draw nigh;

Solemnly a mighty army

Passed in order by.

But the clang had ceased; the echoes

Soon had faded from the hill;

While the Angels, calm and earnest

Leant and listened still.

Then I heard a fainter clamor,

Forge and wheel were clashing near,

And the Reapers in the meadow

Singing loud and clear.

When the sunset came in glory,

And the toil of day was o'er,

Still the Angels leant in silence,

Listening as before.

Then as daylight slowly vanished,

And the evening mists grew dim,

Solemnly from distant voices

Rose a vesper hymn.

Adelaide A. Procter, 1881

Under His Wings

'He will cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you will find refuge.'
(Psalm 91:4)

Stars ~

"The saints are like the stars. In his providence Christ conceals them in a hidden place that they may not shine before others when they might wish to do so. Yet they are always ready to exchange the quiet of contemplation for the works of mercy as soon as they perceive in their heart the invitation of Christ."

~Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)

Madonna of the Evening Flowers

All day long I have been working,

Now I am tired.

I call:“Where are you?”

But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.

The house is very quiet,

The sun shines in on your books,

On your scissors and thimble just put down,

But you are not there.

Suddenly I am lonely:

Where are you?

I go about searching.

Then I see you,

Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,

With a basket of roses on your arm.

You are cool, like silver,

And you smile.

I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,

That the columbines have overrun all bounds,

That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.

You tell me these things.

But I look at you, heart of silver,

White heart-flame of polished silver,

Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,

And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,

While all about us peal the loud,

sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.

~ Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

 

Resurrection ~

All rank on rank the tall white lillies stood,
The graceful palms against the rose-flushed sky
Showed gemmed with dew-drops, and red poppies glowed
Through the rank grass near by.

All hushed the air was - rapt and clear and still
The earth, late racked with pain
Felt it's insensate form with rapture thrill
And hope was born again

But in that garden there was silence deep,
All nature waited - till a ringing cry
'Rabboni! Master!' cleft the dewey air,
And swift the listening sky

Flashed into splendour, and the sun leaped up
And all creation thrilled with joy new-born
Hailing Our risen Lord with ectasy
On that first Easter morn.

~Alice Guerin Crist (1876-1941)

God ~

The light of our life, our sole,

eternal and infinite joy,

is simply God -

God - God - nothing but God,

and all His creatures in Him.

He is all and in all,

and the children of the kingdom

know it.

He includes all things;

not to be true to anything

He has made is to be untrue to Him.

God is truth, is life;

to be in God is to know

Him and need no law.

Existence will be eternal

Godness.

~ George MacDonald

Eternity in Heart

He hath made everything beautiful in its time: also he hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end. ~Ecclesiastes 3:11

Love ~

The longer I live and the more I see
Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above,
The stronger this truth comes home to me—-
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love,
A love so limitless, deep, and broad,
That men have re-named it, and called it God.

And nothing that was ever born or evolved,
Nothing created by light or force
But deep in its system there lies dissolved
A shining drop from the great Love source;
A shining drop that shall live for aye;
Though kingdoms may perish and stars decay.

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

Walking with God ~

(Genesis, v.24)

Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word?



What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.

Return, O holy Dove, return!
Sweet the messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made thee mourn
And drove thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known,
Whate'er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.

So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.

~ William Cowper (1731 - 1800)

~ selected art, Patrick Anderson

A Little More

Each minute of a further light
Draws me towards perspective Spring.
I fold the minutes back each night,
I hear the gossiping
Of birds whose instinct carries time,
A watch tucked in the flourished breast.
It ticks the second they must climb
Into a narrow nest.
So birds. But I am not thus powered.
Impulse has gone. My measured cells
Of brain and knowledge are too stored
And trust to birds and bells.
Yet longer light is fetching me
To hopes I have no reason for.
A further lease of light each day
Suggests irrational more.

~ Elizabeth Jennings