The Old Chuch

The old church leans nearby a well-worn road
Upon a hill that has no grass or tree,
The winds from off the prairie now unload
The dust they bring around it fitfully.
The path that leads up to the open door
Is worn and grayed by many toiling feet
Of us who listen to the Bible lore
And once again the old-time hymns repeat.

And every Sabbath morning we are still
Returning to the altar waiting there.
A hush, a prayer, a pause, and voices fill
The Master's House with a triumphant air.

The old church leans awry and looks quite odd,
But it is beautiful to us, and God.

--"The Old Church" by Della B. Vik

Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

-Ruth 1:16 - 17

 

 

The Long Road

I love you night and day
As a star in the distant sky.
And I mourn for this one thing alone
That to love, our lifetime was so short.

A long road to heaven’s shining meadow
And never could I reach its end.
But a longer road leads to your heart
Which to me seems distant as a star.

High above the arch of heaven bends
And light so clear is falling.
Like a flow’ring tree the world is blooming.
Overwhelmed, my heart both cries and laughs.

Paulina Barda
English: Elaine Singley Lloyd
Eriks Ešenvalds: Long Road - University of Louisville Cardinal Singers

I Want to be Where Your Barefoot Walks

I want to be where your barefoot walks:
Because, maybe before you step you'll look at the ground.
I want that blessing.

I open and fill with love,
I open and fill with love and all other objects evaporate.

All the learning in books stays hid on the shelf.
Poetry, the dear words and images of song,
comes down over me like water.

This is how I would die.  Into the love I have for you.
As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.

                             - Rumi

Beautiful choral setting by David Childs

Twelfth Night

I Peters Jul fra 1866 står der i afsnit 10 (helligtrekongersaften):

Se, nu er da Julen strax forbi;

det er Helligtrekongers Aften.

Saa ender den rare Jul; men vi

er glade, at vi har haft den.

Tre Lys har vi tændte — tænk en Gang!-

for Kongerne, de, som bragte

Jesusbarnet en Julepresent;

vi ved det, for Faer har sagt det.

Her sidder vi ved vort lille Bord

og ser, hvordan Lysene brænde;

naar de er slukkede, siger Moer,

at saa er Julen til Ende.

In Peter's Christmas from 1866 states in section 10 (Twelfth):


See, now when Christmas is at once past,
 it's Twelfth Night.
So ends the nice Jul;
but we are happy that we have had it.
Three Candles, we have lit - think once!
For kings, those who brought
the baby Jesus a Christmas Present;
we know it, the finished've said it.
Here we sit at our little table
and see how the candles burn,
when they are off, says Moer
that so is Christmas to the end.

I am no priest of crooks nor creeds,
For human wants and human needs
Are more to me than prophets’ deeds;
And human tears and human cares
Affect me more than human prayers.

Go, cease your wail, lugubrious saint!
You fret high Heaven with your plaint.
Is this the “Christian’s joy” you paint?
Is this the Christian’s boasted bliss?
Avails your faith no more than this?

Take up your arms, come out with me,
Let Heav’n alone; humanity
Needs more and Heaven less from thee.
With pity for mankind look ‘round;
Help them to rise—and Heaven is found.

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar

Beginning/ The Holy Innocents

I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past--then I choose to begin at this very second.

Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives.  -Rilke

 

 

Just as bees gather honey, so we collect from all that happens what is sweetest—and we build Him. Even with the littlest, most insignificant thing, when it comes from love, we begin. We begin with effort and the repose that follows efforts, with silence or a solitary joy, with everything we do alone without anyone to join or help us, we begin Him whom we will not live to see, any more than our ancestors could experience us. Yet they are in us, those long departed ones, they are in our inclinations, our moral burdens, our pulsing blood, and in gestures that arise from the depths of time.

-Rilke

 

I have very much enjoyed writing my blog "The Outlaw Garden" and decided it would be interesting to throw together a collection of  poems and prose that I occasionally come across and find interesting that  have nothing to do with gardening.   Some of these may express spiritual thoughts.  I find beauty in all spiritual traditions and even the lack thereof,  believe that there are many paths to the divine,  and respect all who strive to make the world a better place. I understand that  religion has been responsible for horrible atrocities, for wars, for hatred,  mistrust, and exclusion.  There is also profound beauty, charity and love to be found therin.

 

There may also be humorus and somewhat irreverant  words as well.  Sacred/Profane - Yin/Yang.

 

You are cordially invited to join me, read some words, share your own.

 

Note: these royalty-free images are from dreamstime.com.

 

 

Recently, Ben Newland, the Priest of Christ Episcopal Church in Puyallup, WA sent the following to his parishioners:

 

 

Most Nativity scenes include the three Wise Men. Hardly any of them include King Herod raving in the background. I've never seen one with child murderers skulking through Bethlehem.

 

This is not a part of the Christmas tradition that we enjoy retelling. We like the crisis point of the story to be where Mary and Joseph can't find a room. "Oh no," we think, "she's about to give birth and they can't even get a bed!" That's OK though, because the accommodating Inn-keep appears and gives them a spot in the barn. This is almost better, we imagine, because we admire humility and this shows the humility of Jesus and his earthly parents.

 

And so, by the time the baby is born and the Wise Men arrive the crisis has been averted-the problem solved. "Whew! That was close, but it all turned out all right in the end."

 

Except that isn't the end. We remember that the Wise Men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but we too easily forget that they also brought a message: "Run for your lives!" They did the best they could to put Herod off the trail. They left by another road so as to avoid leading Herod's murderers back to the Holy Family. It was too late though. They'd already asked after the newborn King on the way to Bethlehem and inadvertently ignited Herod's pathological, homicidal insecurity.

 

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.

-Matthew 2:16

 

 

Holy Innocents Day is celebrated by the Anglican Church (along with the Roman Catholic and Lutheran) on December 28th each year. This is unfortunate timing if you were ever hoping to attend a Holy Innocents Day mass, as the week between Christmas and New Year's is a pretty quiet time in most parish churches. I can't recall ever thinking twice about the day except in the academic sense of noticing this odd end of liturgical tradition that falls between the Feast of the Incarnation and the Feast of the Epiphany.

 

I probably wouldn't mention it this year either, except that it was two weeks ago today that we all learned the name of Sandy Hook Elementary School.

 

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Twenty children. Six of their teachers. A mother. A murderer. One more small town that, like Bethlehem, is marked forever by the slaughter of innocents.

 

The collect for this feast day outlines our response as a community of faith. We remember the holy innocents. We pray for the reception of their souls. And we pray that the might of God would, next time, frustrate evil and establish justice.

 

The thing about that last prayer is that when God frustrates evil in this world it is through our hands. When God establishes justice in this world it is by our will. That is what I hope we can all hold to in the weeks and months to come as we seek a way to address this cancer on the system of our society.

 

 

Peace,

 

Ben