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Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now I remember only the flavor –
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes –
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.
~Dorianne Laux “Dust”

…I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together…

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord:
Not borne on morning wings
Of majesty, but I have set My Feet
Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat
That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod.
There do I dwell, in weakness and in power:
Not broken or divided, saith our God!
In your straight garden plot I come to flower:
About your porch My Vine
Meek, fruitful, doth entertwine;
Waits, at the threshold, Love’s appointed hour.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord:
Yea, on the glancing wings
Of eager birds, the softly pattering feet
Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to Meet
Your hard and wayward heart.  In brown bright eyes
That peep from out the brake, I stand confest.
On ever nest
Where feathery Patience is content to brood
And leaves her pleasure for the high emprize
Of motherhood–
There doth my Godhead rest.

I…

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction….
The chain reaction of evil —
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars —
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
~Dr. Martin Luther…

What is a more powerful expression of the power of the Holy Spirit than His work in our personal lives, especially in our areas of weakness?  This Sunday’s poem is by Mother Mary Francis about that very thing.

A Scriptural Commentary

“For power is made perfect in infirmity” (2 Corinthians 12.9)

Predictable Your power, God,
Who shake the heavens into thunderous roar
And split the skies with lightning at Your glance.

You gaze at oceans and they leap
To speak response in crash of waves
And then subside in wonder at Your feet.

Only to think on seed need You
To see a thousand forests rise to praise You,
Hear treble of small blossoms find their voice.

Wave of Your raised almighty hand’s
Enough to call the sun to rise or set,
To light the sky-dome with ten million stars.

Never will skies impediment Your power
Nor oceans strain Your…

Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?
~J.R.R. Tolkien from The Return of the King

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
~J.R.R Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

Yet again unspeakable terror strikes down ordinary people living their lives–once again our soil is soaked with the blood of our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers.

In our minds, we want to rewind and replay the events of a tragedy in a way that would prevent it from happening in the first place.   We want to bring the dead and injured back to health again.  The major devastating earthquake becomes a mere tremor, the flooding tsunami is only one foot…

Yesterday, I had one of those days that did not go according to “my” plans.  It did make for a good story later, but at the moment I found myself quite frustrated and irritated that I had to drop everything for someone else and that I didn’t get to eat lunch until mid-afternoon.  I had to do something on the computer that I really didn’t know how to do.  I had someone on the phone walking me through it, but the phone cord was too short to reach to the computer so I had to keep dropping the receiver, go work on the computer, and then back to pick up the phone. (I hope you’re laughing at this point–but let me assure you, I wasn’t.) I did have the brilliant idea at one point to switch a cord and handset from another phone–but when I went to hang it up…