day #600
mercy
Driving All Night – William Matthews
My complicated past is an anthology,
a long line painted on the plains.
I feel like literary history
about to startle the professors.
But it’s not true.
Days ahead, snow heaps up
in the mountains
like undelivered mail.
After driving all night
I guess what it’s like
to fly over them.
For the first time you see
how close things are together,
how the foothills push up
just past where you quit
driving. Urgencies
sputter in the exaltation
of chill air.
Your heart
begins to fall like snow
inside a paperweight.
Oh when in your long damn life,
I ask myself, when will
you seek not a truce,
but peace?
Mercy within mercy within mercy
The Voice of God is heard in Paradise:
“What was vile has become precious. What is now precious was never vile. I have always known the vile as precious: for what is vile I know not at all.
“What was cruel has become merciful. What is now merciful was never cruel. I have always overshadowed Jonas with my mercy, and cruelty I know not at all. Have you had sight of Me, Jonas, my child? Mercy within mercy within mercy. I have forgiven the universe without end, because I have never known sin.
“What was poor has become infinite. What is infinite was never poor. I have always known poverty as infinite: riches I love not at all. Prisons within prisons within prisons. Do not lay up for yourself ecstasies upon earth, where time and space corrupt, where minutes break in and steal. No more lay hold on time, Jonas, my son, lest the rivers bear you away.
“What was fragile has become powerful. I loved what was most frail. I looked upon what was nothing. I touched what was without substance, and within what was not, I am.”
There are drops of dew that show like sapphires in the grass as soon as the morning sun appears, and leaves stir behind the hushed flight of an escaping dove.
– Thomas Merton, Journal, July 4, 1952
Prayer at Sunrise – James Weldon
Now thou art risen, and thy day begun.
How shrink the shrouding mists before thy face,
As up thou spring’st to thy diurnal race!
How darkness chases darkness to the west,
As shades of light on light rise radiant from thy crest!
For thee, great source of strength, emblem of might,
In hours of darkest gloom there is no night.
Thou shinest on though clouds hide thee from sight,
And through each break thou sendest down thy light.
O greater Maker of this Thy great sun,
Give me the strength this one day’s race to run,
Fill me with light, fill me with sun-like strength,
Fill me with joy to rob the day its length.
Light from within, light that will outward shine,
Strength to make strong some weaker heart than mine,
Joy to make glad each soul that feels its touch;
Great Father of the sun, I ask this much.
and not only that…
…And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5
We went through fire…
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
~ Psalm 66:12
Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com
Who shall separate us…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? – Romans 8:35
Be still
Be still and know that I am God. – Psalm 46:10
Don’t judge a life as if you knew…
Don’t judge a life as if you knew
Like you were there and saw it through
Measure a life by what was best
When they were better than the rest
Reserve your wrath for those who judge
Those quick to point and hold a grudge
Take them to task who only lead
While others pay, while others bleed
The Little Birds of St. Francis
The little birds fly to ask me what I have seen in the heavens: I saw your little souls longing. – Tadeusz Micinski
Our feeble wings
knock against
a blue windowpane, Lord.
We wait, we sing
every day at your door.
We gaze at the sun,
above the trees flutter
and sing since the dawn.
Are we forever
to linger on earth
in this world of yours, Lord?
There is no penance,
Is there no reward?
Lost in our own song,
one day of the year
among the trees, we’ll expire,
entangled in the leaves.
The wind will lift us,
the earth will receive us
burying the dry wings.
Will none of us, Lord
sing in the heavens
facing your throne?
the earth will receive us
burying the dry wings.
Will none of us, Lord
sing in the heavens
facing your throne?
Is not our singing,
pleasing to you, Lord?
Our singing choose,
Our waiting use.
From the unknown,
deliver the birds on high, Lord.
From the ends of the earth
unbounded and vast,
from pine and beech
from our home
we’ll fly, we’ll flutter
to your side, Lord.
Whatever your will –
too deep for the birds –
on earth and in heaven
your eyes to please,
your smile to see,
we wing, crowding the trees.
– Jerzy Liebert
Edge of Atlantic 