Month: December 2019

One prays to pray

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

…it becomes very important to remember that the quality of one’s night depends on the thoughts of the day, on the sanity of the day, I bring there all the sins of the day into the light and darkness of truth to be adored without disguise – then I want to fly back to the disguises.

Tonight it is cold again and, as I came up in the dark, a few small snowflakes were flying in the beam of a flashlight. The end of an oak log was still burning with small flames in the fireplace. Came up with candles, and sugar for coffee, and a jar to urinate in so that I won’t have to go out in the snow in the middle of the night. What greater comforts could a man want?

– Thomas Merton, journal entry – 12/5/64

Willow Poem – William Carlos Williams

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.

a new history

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

When world religions become mature, we will have a new history, no longer based on competition, rivalry, cultures or warfare, but on people who are actually transformed. These people will change the world, as Mary did, almost precisely because they know it is not they who are doing the changing. They will know they do not need to change other people, just themselves, God takes it from there.
– Richard Rohr

Image may contain: plant
(photo: Fiesole, Italy – July 2002)

Moving Forward – Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
that I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can’t reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

2018_09_22_08_22_31_758_pic.png
(photo: Chama River, NM – September 2018)