Sitting on the Fence - Leunig

Come sit down beside me
I said to myself
And although it doesn't make sense,
I held my own hand
As a small sign of trust
And together I sat on the fence.

The Invitation - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

Philipians 1:9-11 MSG

"So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God."

Corny but cute

Gardening for Life

PLANT THREE ROWS OF PEAS:
1. Peace of mind
2. Peace of heart
3. Peace of soul

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF SQUASH:
1. Squash gossip
2. Squash indifference
3. Squash grumbling
4. Squash selfishness

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF LETTUCE:
1. Lettuce be faithful
2. Lettuce be kind
3. Lettuce be patient
4. Lettuce really love one another

NO GARDEN IS WITHOUT TURNIPS:
1. Turnip for meetings
2. Turnip for service
3. Turnip to help one another

TO CONCLUDE OUR GARDEN WE MUST HAVE THYME:
1. Thyme for each other
2. Thyme for family
3. Thyme for friends

Not without design

"Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the "rests." They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With an eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear.
If we sadly say to ourselves, "There is no music in a 'rest," let us not forget "there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiantly God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!"
-Ruskin

Grow old with me

“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’"
-Robert Browning

Finding Solitude

All human beings are alone. No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do. Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness. The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude. Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

Letting our aloneness grow into solitude and not into loneliness is a lifelong struggle. It requires conscious choices about whom to be with, what to study, how to pray, and when to ask for counsel. But wise choices will help us to find the solitude where our hearts can grow in love.

-Henri Nouwen

Love in corners

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." - C.S Lewise

Life

And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere: "Let us bring the child back." The child is God's gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things - to love and to be loved. In this Year of the Family we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive, because our children are the only hope for the future. As other people are called to God, only their children can take their places.

But what does God say to us? He says, "Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand." We are carved in the palm of his hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception, and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.

I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption - by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals, and police stations: Please don't destroy the child; we will take the child." So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: "Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child."

And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child. But I never give a child to a couple who has done something not to have a child. Jesus said, "Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me." By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus, but by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.

Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!

-Mother Theresa

Animal-like Church consistencies

"Challenging The Church is like goading a Rhino. Getting it pissed off is the easy part. Getting it to change direction once it’s charging is another thing altogether." (Le Pretre Noir)

Before the Throne of God Above

Before the Throne of God Above
Charitie L. Bancroft

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I Am,
King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God

Love

"I would've thought that love was the murderous thing, not the lack of it. I am never going to fall in love. Life is dangerous enough." - I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)

Safety

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person; having
neither to weigh thoughts nor measure
words, but to pour them all out, just as they
are, chaff and grain together, knowing that
a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping, and then,
with the breath of kindness, blow the rest
away.

-George Elliot

Friendship

It is the steady and merciless
increase of occupations, the
augmented speed at which we are
always tryign to live, the crowding
of each day with more work than
it can profitably hold, which as
cost us, among other things, the
undisturbed enjoyment of friends.
Friendship takes time, and we
have no time to give it.

-Agnes Repplier

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth
and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when
feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being
and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of
everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun
and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men
strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as
they turn from Praise.
I love thee with
the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and
with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I
seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I
love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life
and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee
better after death.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Psalm 116:1-2

I love the LORD because he hears
and answers my prayers.

Because he bends down and listens,
I will pray as long as I have breath!

Stock your mind

"Stock your mind. Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you were to win the Irish Sweepstake and brought a house, would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot into your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is your palace."
- Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes)

My Soul

Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.
-Kahlil Gibran

Risk

Faith in early adulthood:
The art of risk and revision

Of all the various times of crisis in the process of faith the definitive time between the ages eighteen and twenty-five. This has been called "age of conversion." The latin verb vertere, from which our word conversion is derived, means to "turn to," and the question is: Will this young adult turn from himself and his own egotistical concerns to others and to God? The capacity of a young adult to encouter God will, of course, depend heavily on his maturation as a human being. If he remains deeply immersed in himself and barricaded by his masks and facades of self-protection, true encounter with God or, in fact, with anyone will be very unlikely.

To lay one's self on the line rather than put one's act on the stage, to trust the acceptance and love of another, is to run the risk of ridicule or rejection. To listen to another openly, with is vital to both the human and divine encounters, is to run the risk of letting another change us. We are reluctant to let anyone else unknot our prejudices, or revise our delicately balanced personality structures. We resist the surrender required in true relationships, because intimacy and openness threaten us.

From "A Reason To Live, A Reason To Die! (A new look at faith in God)" Powell, John S.J.

Grace and the caterpillar

Two seventeenth-century theologians were debating on the nature of grace. One said that grace is like one parent guiding a toddler across the room to the other parent, who has an apple for the child. The nearby parent watches the youngster; if he almost falls, this parent will hold him for a moment so that he can still cross the room under his own power. But the other theologian had a different view. For him grace comes to us only in the discovery of our total helplessness. In his concept, we are like a caterpillar in a ring of fire. Deliverance can only come from above.

The only hope of liberation for a helpless, resisting caterpillar in a ring of fire is deliverance from above. Someone must reach down into the ring and take us out. This rescue is what brings us from the orphan state into that of the son or daughter. This is not mere supporting grace, but transforming grace.