accept, change, know
faith
a puddle in the pig lot
Brilliant and gorgeous day, bright sun, breeze making all the leaves and high brown grass shine. Singing of the wind in the cedars. Exultant day, in which a puddle in the pig lot shines like precious silver.
Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself – and, if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.
– Thomas Merton, journal entry – October 2, 1958
Photo by mali maeder on Pexels.com
serenity, courage, wisdom
(Photo: Grindstone, Maine – September 2019)
You know all my ways
O Lord, you search me and you know me.
You yourself know my resting and my rising; you discern my thoughts from afar.
You mark when I walk or lie down; you know all my ways through and through.
For it was you who formed my inmost being, knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you who wonderfully made me; how wonderful are your works, which my soul knows well.
O search me, God, and know my heart. O test me and know my thoughts.
See that my path is not wicked, and lead me in the way everlasting.
From Psalm 139
(photo: Grindstone, Maine – September 2019)
Take Courage
Take courage, my children, and cry to God,
for you will be remembered by him who brought this upon you.
For just as you purposed to go astray from God, return with tenfold zeal to seek him.
For he who brought these calamities upon you will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation.” – Bar 4:27-29
The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi
From “The Life of St. Francis:”
At the hour of the passing of the holy man, the larks – birds that love the light, and dread the shades of twilight – flocked in great numbers unto the roof of the house, albeit the shades of night were then falling, and wheeling around it for a long while with songs even gladder than their wont, offered their witness, alike gracious and manifest, unto the glory of the Saint, who had been wont to call them unto the divine praises.
Pace e bene to us all.
St. Francis of Assisi
There are many images of St. Francis of Assisi. This small work was in a classroom at The Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley. I saw it most every day for the three years I was there. When I think of St. Francis, and I often do, this is who I see.
St. Francis, pray for us.
This evening, followers of St. Francis of Assisi will keep a memorial of his passing on October 3, 1226. I pray that his spirit of reconciliation and love for all creation bless each one of us.
Blessing of St. Francis –
May God bless you and keep you, smiling graciously on you, granting mercy and peace, granting mercy and peace. May God bless you and keep you, May you see the face of God, granting mercy and peace, granting mercy and peace. Amen. Amen. Amen.
like birds in the sky
Those who have no accumulation, who eat with with perfect knowledge, whose sphere is emptiness, signlessness, and liberation, are hard to track, like birds in the sky. Those whose compulsions are gone, who are not attached to food, whose sphere is emptiness, signlessness, and liberation, are hard to track, like birds in the sky.
– Dhammapada 7.3-4
The immense simplicity of things
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(photo: Greene, ME – January 2019)
I thank you, my God, for having in a thousand different ways led my eyes to discover the immense simplicity of things. Little by little, through the irresistible development of those yearnings you implanted in me as a child, through the influence of gifted friends who entered my life at certain moments to bring light and strength to my mind, and through the awakenings of spirit I owe to the successive initiations, gentle and terrible, which you caused me to undergo: through all these I have been brought to the point where I can no longer see anything, nor any longer breathe, outside that milieu in which all is made one. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Consider how you have fared
Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.
– Haggai 1:5-6
Photo by Harry Smith on Pexels.com
Edge of Atlantic 