“Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes…”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes…”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Tag Archives: quotes
Back into Joy
Sunday evening was clear and luminous so we went to the star-watching rock and welcomed the arrival of each star with a blast of trumpet. We lay there, in an odd assortment of coats; I had on an embroidered coat a friend had bought in Dubrovnik; the two girls had on ancient fur coats; and we were covered with blankets. We needed them, even though the rock itself still held the warmth of the sun, our own star, and radiated a gentle heat to us as we lay there and watched the sky, blowing the trumpets and sharing a can of insect repellent and listening to the crickets and the katydids and trying to identify the other night singers, and then outsinging them with all the nursery rhymes and songs and hymns we could think of which had stars and alleluias in them.
And I was totally back in joy. I didn’t realize I had been out of it, caught in small problems and disappointments and frustrations, until it came surging back. It was as radiant as the rock, and I lay there, listening to the girls trumpeting, and occasionally being handed one of the trumpets so that I could make a loud blast myself, and I half expected to hear a herd of elephants come thundering across the far pastures in answer to our call.
And joy is always a promise.
– Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet
Pentecost!
Knowing Christians By Their Love
How often we children have been unwilling, unwilling to listen to each other, unwilling to hear words we do not expect. But on that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit truly called the people together in understanding and forgiveness and utter, wondrous joy. The early Christians, then, were known by how they loved one another. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could say that of us again? Not an exclusive love, shutting out the rest of the world, but a love so powerful, so brilliant, so aflame that it lights the entire planet — nay the entire universe!
I had such an experience once, in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, when I was with a group of Christians from all over the world and from all denominations. We celebrated Holy Communion together in an upper room, and we sang “We’re one in the Spirit, we’re one in the Lord,” and I knew it to be true. That gathering was an icon of love for me, and icon of Pentecost, and icon of what Christians ought to be, known by our love.
The icon becomes and idol when any one part of the body wants the rest of the body to be just like it. In that upper room we ranged from Seventh-day Adventist all the way through to Roman Catholic, and we rejoiced in our individual ways of proclaiming our faith; at the same time we honoured the ways of the others whose expression of faith was different from ours. The icon did not become idol because no one person or group professed to have the only truth or the only way to affirm that truth. How odd it would be if the body were all hands or knees or teeth!
– Madeleine L’Engle, Glimpses of Grace
Thought to Ponder
“The kind of conversation I like is one in which you are prepared to emerge a slightly different person.” -Theodore Zeldin
Salutation of the Dawn
Listen to the exhortation of the dawn
Look to this day, for it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence,
the glory of action – the bliss of growth
the splendor of beauty.
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
(I copied this into my journal ages ago from something I was reading and neglected to write the source.)
This is what God says,
the God who builds a road right through the ocean,
who carves a path through pounding waves,
The God who summons horses and chariots and armies—
they lie down and then can’t get up;
they’re snuffed out like so many candles:
“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands.
Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’
—the coyotes and the buzzards—
Because I provided water in the desert,
rivers through the sun-baked earth,
Drinking water for the people I chose,
the people I made especially for myself,
a people custom-made to praise me.
(Isaiah 43:16-21 ~ The Message)
The search for the divine turns people into nomads. Their vitality depends on movement. – Bruce Chatwin
Perhaps that is my problem.
Epiphany
Light-giving God –
We are magi on a caravan of lumbering hope,
traveling through grinding wind and glaring sun,
chill clear nights and skin-baking days.
We come to seek Your light.We come lumbering in hope, each of us on our own life’s journey
– traveling through times of loneliness and fear,
through heartbreak and anger,
through grief and loss,
through economic uncertainty,
through fear for loved ones caught up in war,
through our own private crises,
through the extended shock of horrific images of hurricanes and genocide,
through struggles with the mental illness of a child,
the disintegration of a parent,
the simple letting go of a child more ready to be an adult
than we are ready to allow their growth,
through the changes in a new marriage,
the welcoming of a new child,
the completion of a degree,
the vision emerging in a new work of art.We come lumbering in hope on a journey of joys and sorrows.
We come as magi to seek Your light.But Light-giving God,
we admit that we are also Herod the King,
trembling in fear at the news of the rising of Your light.
We admit that we are afraid that the light of Your truth may indeed rise,
and it may be threatening to us.
Like Herod,
we fear the rise of the truth of the harm we have done to others to build
our own palaces and to fortify our own power;
we fear the rise of the truth that lies beneath the political spin we put on
our own lives;
we fear to admit to ourselves the truth that may rise within us as we
acknowledge the pain of what we have done to others and what others have
done to us.Light-giving God,
we come as trembling Herod, afraid of Your light.
But Light-giving God,
we are also magi wrapped in joy to arrive at the manger that cradles Your light.
We greet the rising light that Herod so fears.
We, too, fear this light, this truth.
For here we meet Your light and truth, the truth of our own powerlessness.
We are magi, wise and respected sages.
We are Herod the King, holding wealth and power.
Yet we are no more than this helpless infant,
no more than human flotsam on the tidal wave of time,
human beings, no more and no less.Light-giving God,
let us sit in stillness in the light of this truth of our powerlessness,
until we can see Your real light cradled here,
until we are enveloped in the assuring light of this truth,
until we shine in the light of the common humanity You reveal to us here.Light-giving God.
We lumber together in hope as Your church to lift Your Light.
Let the light that we lift be this light visible in the manger.
Let us lift not the light of our congratulation of ourselves,
not the light of belief in our own superiority,
not the light of our belief in our own narrow presuppositions,
not even the light of our own church.
Let us lift the light from You that we can encounter here,
the light of the power You make known to us
in the truth of our powerlessness,
the light we can see as we sit quietly as magi at the manger
learning to be at ease with our common humanity,
learning to be at ease with You.Let this be the light we lift as a beacon in the darkness we know best.
As we lift that light,
may we too be lifted to know the true power that lies among us
waiting to rise as a beacon of our true hope.Amen.
The Word of the Lord (Advent #4)
God’s story is true. We know that God’s story is true because God gave us his Word – that Word who came to us as one of us, and died for us, and descended into hell for us, and rose again from the dead for us, and ascended into heaven for us. The Word became the living truth for us, the only truth that can make us free. Part of that freedom is mortification. Part of that freedom is the Cross, for without the Cross there can be no Resurrection.
When was the last time anybody asked you, “Do I have your word?” Or when was the last time anybody said to you, “I give you my word,” and you knew that you could trust that word, absolutely? How many times in the last few decades have we watched and listened to a political figure on television and heard him say, “I give you my word. . .” and shortly thereafter that word has proven false. In the past year alone, how many people have perjured themselves publicly? Sworn on the Bible, given their word, and that word has been a lie? Words of honour are broken casually today, as though they don’t matter.
Small wonder that when God tells us, “I give you my Word,” few people take him seriously.
“I give you my Word,” said God, and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
– Madeleine L’Engle, The Rock that is Higher
Christmas Carol Errata
Little Drummer Boy
As infants rarely exhibit social response behavior until the sixth week of life, it is unlikely that Jesus was truly smiling at the little drummer boy. We now believe that the son of man was experiencing gas.
Frosty the Snowman
Due to trends in global climate change, Frosty’s vow to “be back again some day” can no longer be guaranteed
Deck the Halls
We have revised the description of your apparel to the less derogatory “whimsical”. To be fair, though, that sweatshirt you wear every December, with the kittens in Santa hats and the puffy “Meowy Christmas” lettering, really is pretty gay.
Silent Night
Just to clarify, the directive to “sleep in heavenly peace” was intended for the holy infant only. It is well-known that the parents of a newborn can expect no sleep whatsoever for a minimum of seven months, especially when people keep showing up at all hours of the night bearing myrrh.
Christmas is Coming
Since 1997 the donation amount suggested by this song has been adjusted annually for inflation. Given the recent economic meltdown however, this year the old man will again be accepting pennies and ha’pennies.
Feliz Navidad
Please disregard all previous errata for this song. Apparently it is in Spanish.
Let It Snow
This song may erroneously lead the listener to believe that snow is a enjoyable and desired meteorological phenomenon. In fact, it is a huge fucking pain in the ass. We regret the error.
From defective yeti
gillian's island 