prayer unites us

Nathan Nettleton Gospel version

Luke 12: 32-40
Jesus said to his followers:

“You lot may seem small and helpless, but don’t be afraid. God conceived you in love and is only too happy to give you the kingdom. Simplify your lives. Off-load your possessions and share generously with people in need. Commit yourselves to a new investment strategy, putting all your eggs in God’s basket. Such investments are not subject to the vagaries of the market. If the treasures your heart is set on are all in God, they are totally fire-proof. Nothing can ever devalue them. The fact is that wherever you make your greatest investment, your passion and energy will inevitably follow.
“Keep your boots on! Keep the lights on! Be ready for action at any moment. Be like diligent workers who are not sure when their boss will be back from his honeymoon, but are determined to be hard at work whenever he shows up. They will be glad they didn’t slack off but kept themselves industrious, because you can bet that when he comes he will throw a party for them — all on the house — and give them a generous end-of-year bonus. It won’t make any difference whether he arrives early or late in the shift, if he finds them on the job, they’ll have every reason to be thankful.
“Think about it. No one would ever let their houses get burgled if the house-breakers worked set hours and made appointments. You have got to be on the ready all the time, because you have no way of knowing when the Son of Humanity is going to show up.

©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Hope has two beautiful daughters

There is always Hope

Secrets in the Dark

Frederick Buechner unfolds this beautiful theme, this foundational truth, in his book,Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons. "By faith," he writes on this text, "we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth….Faith is the eye of the heart, and by faith we see deep down beneath the face of things – by faith we struggle against all odds to be able to see – that the world is God's creation even so. It is he who made us and not we ourselves, made us out of his peace to live in peace, out of his light to dwell in light, out of his love to be above all things loved and loving. That is the last truth about the world."

Found at

http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/august-8-2010.html

Hope

The road

Do not seek death. Death will find you.
But seek the road which makes death a fulfilment.

Dag Hammarskjöld
Markings, Faber and Faber, London 1964. p 156.

They shall be like snow

They shall be like snow

In times beyond remembering,
when stories were told and not written,
the gods were believed to hold
in their collective hands the keys to the future:
the rains, fertility, harvest and so forth,
And so, in order to keep the gods happy
and pleasantly disposed towards humankind,
holy places were marked out with stones
altars were erected, idols sculpted,
festivals declared, solemn assemblies called,
animals sacrificed, dances cavorted,
entreaties wailed and offerings made.
No evidence can be found as to the effectiveness
of all this religious activity, but the practitioners
were no doubt convinced that,
had their pious processes remained undone,
life would have been more of a struggle
than it was.
The Yahweh-God of the Hebrews, however,
wryly observing that religious devotion
could be a convenient cloak
for less than pious attitudes;
radically declared that she/he
was not much interested in such adorations.
This strange God preferred
to be pleasantly surprised by a people’s concerns
for justice, goodness, generosity and compassion.
“When this happens,” this straight-talking God
declares, “White shining divine grace
shall abound in human affairs,
overcoming all the sins and the fear,
and engendering hope.”

Ken Rookes
(I'm publishing these poems early in the week. I reserve the right to return and make improvements!)

From the Forsyte Saga

In this scene, Soames Forsyte, the "man of property," reflects upon his life as he sits near the family tomb at Highgate cemetery.

Softened by the events of the past week, affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came nearer than he had ever been to realization of that truth - passing the understanding of a Forsyte pure - that the body of Beauty has a spiritual essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks not of self. After all, he was near that truth in his devotion to his daughter; perhaps that made him understand a little how he had missed the prize. …

… And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there - the melancholy craving in his heart - because the sun was like enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yew-tree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky.
He might wish and wish and never get it - the beauty and the loving in the world!

-John Galsworthy 1867-1933
The Forsyte Saga

found at http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/proper13c.html

Ghandi quote

Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's need, but not everyone's greed.

-Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948

In the twinkling of an eye

In Ictu Oculi (In the Twinkling of an Eye)
Juan de Valdés Leal 1672