Tag: eternity

Infinity in the Palm of My Hand

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand,
and Eternity in an Hour.

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

~William Blake from “Auguries of Innocence”

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To fall head long into the depths
of a dandelion puff ball,
captured in its intricacy,
a seeded symmetry
lined with delicate dewdrop drizzle.

To know the cosmos is contained
within the commonplace,
the God of Light and Living Water
no further away
than my back yard
and the palm of my hand.

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Between Midnight and Dawn: The Unseen Seen

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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthinians 4: 18

 

I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.
~Mary Oliver from Bone

 

It is in the early morning hour that the unseen is seen,
and that the far-off beauty and glory,
vanquishing all their vagueness,
move down upon us till they stand
clear as crystal close over against the soul.
~Sarah Smiley

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In the moments before dawn
when glow gently pink-tints
the inside of horizon’s eyelids,
the black of midnight
waxes to mere shadow:

that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour. (from Emily Dickinson)

Gloaming dusk
fades into gleaming dawn,
a backlit silhouette stark
as the darkening earth
slowly opens her eyes
to greet in rebirth
a new and glorious morn.

 

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Between Midnight and Dawn: Eternity Awaits

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The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
~Matthew 13:44-46

 

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
~R.S. Thomas “The Bright Field”

 

The gospel is not about giving up and going without for its own sake; it is about making room for something wonderful.  Here (in Thomas’ poem) we discover that what we thought was lost and receding is in reality still ahead of us; we are not declining towards a sunset, but traveling towards the dawn!
~Malcolm Guite from The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter

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I too must learn to turn aside,
and truly see, as if for the first and last time,
the brightness that illuminates even the darkest day.
We approach the dawn, even when it is midnight.
We know the Light is there, even if hidden, buried in that bright field.

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During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

God Among Us: Space for the Uncontained God

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The Annunciation by Henry Owassa Tanner (Philadelphia Art Museum)

The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary…”
Luke 1: 28-30, 38

 

Rejoice, you through whom joy shall shine forth.
Rejoice, O Star revealing the Sun.
Rejoice, O Womb of divine Incarnation.
Rejoice, you through whom creation is renewed.
Rejoice, you through whom the Creator is born a Babe.

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
from Akathistos Hymn, translated from Greek

…

…to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –

but who was God.
~Denise Levertov from “Annunciation”

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The uncontained contained
the infinite made finite
the Deliverer delivered
the Eternal here and now.
_________________________

The angel Gabriel from heaven came
His wings as drifted snow
His eyes as flame
“All hail” said he “thou lowly maiden Mary
Most highly favored lady,” Gloria, Gloria

“For known a blessed mother thou shalt be
All generations laud and honor thee
Thy Son shall be Emanuel
By seers foretold
Most highly favored maid,” Gloria, Gloria

Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head
“To me be as it pleaseth God,” she said,
“My soul shall laud and magnify His holy name.”
Most highly favored lady, Gloria, Gloria
~Lyrics “Gabriel’s Message” 

 

Annunciation --James Tissot
Annunciation –James Tissot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSZqYn0UtNY

How do you capture the wind on the water?
How do you count all the stars in the sky?
How do you measure the love of a mother
Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry?

Candlelight, angel light, firelight and star-glow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn
Silent night, holy night, all is calm and all is bright
Angels are singing; the Christ child is born

Shepherds and wise men will kneel and adore him
Seraphim round him their vigil will keep
Nations proclaim him their Lord and their Saviour
But Mary will hold him and sing him to sleep

Candlelight, angel light, firelight and star-glow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn
Silent night, holy night, all is calm and all is bright
Angels are singing; the Christ child is born

Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger
Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay
Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation
A child with his mother that first Christmas Day

Candlelight, angel light, firelight and star-glow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn
Silent night, holy night, all is calm and all is bright
Angels are singing; the Christ child is born

 

 

God Among Us: The Paradox

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Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
Philippians 2:6, 7

For since death came through a human being,
the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;
for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
1Corinthians 15: 21

 

Man’s maker was made man
that He, Ruler of the stars,
might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that Truth might be accused of false witnesses,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.
~Augustine of Hippo

 

We too are born
as a King is delivered,
poor and homeless, in a barn:
we,
the meek, the mourning,
the weak, the persecuted,
the poor, the hungry,
the merciful and peacemakers
are given eternity
for the price of faith.
We can’t earn it, can never pay for it;
we just reach out our hearts
to grasp it tightly
as it is offered.
EPG

 

You, Lord, are both lamb and shepherd.
You, Lord, are both prince and slave.
You, peacemaker and sword-bringer
Of the way you took and gave.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, whom we both scorn and crave.

Clothed in light upon the mountain,
Stripped of might upon the cross,
Shining in eternal glory,
Beggar’d by a soldier’s toss,
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are both gift and cost.

You, who walk each day beside us,
Sit in power at God’s side.
You, who preach a way that’s narrow,
Have a love that reaches wide.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our pilgrim guide.

Worthy is our earthly Jesus!
Worthy is our cosmic Christ!
Worthy your defeat and vict’ry.
Worthy still your peace and strife.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our death and life.
Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
You, who are our death and our life.
~Sylvia Dunstan (1955-1993)

 

 

Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,
Come testify thy virgin birth:
All lands admire, all times applaud:
Such is the birth that fits our God.
–
Forth from his chamber goeth he,
That royal home of purity,
A giant in twofold substance one,
Rejoicing now his course to run.
–
The Virgin’s womb that glory gained,
Its virgin honor is still unstained.
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in his temple dwells below.
–
From God the Father he proceeds,
To God the Father back he speeds;
Runs out his course to death and hell,
Returns on God’s high throne to dwell.
–
O Equal to thy Father, thou!
Gird on thy fleshly mantle now;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.
–
 Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.
–
All laud, eternal Son, to thee
Whose advent sets thy people free,
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Ghost, for evermore.

 

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Congeries of Colored Things

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It is a fault of infinity to be too small to find.
It is a fault of eternity to be crowded out by time.
Before our eyes we see an unbroken sheath of colors.
We walk amid a congeries of colored things that part before our steps
to reveal more colored things.
Above us hurtle more things, which fill the universe.
There is no crack.
Where, then, is the gap through which eternity streams?

It is our lives we love, our times, our generation, our pursuits.
And are we called to forsake these vivid and palpable goods
for an idea of which we experience not one trace?
Am I to believe eternity outranks my child’s finger?

Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk

If we look closely enough
we see farthest
with eyes closed
to the distraction of life’s colored things,
real and imagined.

Eternity — beyond what we can know
Infinity — beyond what we can conjure

We reach for it
because we are told
it is within our grasp.

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Flung Weed Unto Weed

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morninglight

The thistledown’s flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.

The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.

Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we’re eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
~John Clare “Autumn”
As October wraps up here,
there are golden mornings,
golden nightfalls
and golden in-betweens,
all compressed
into diminishing daylight hours
more precious than gold~
may this last forever
or at least until November…
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An Immense Morning Sky

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You are the future, the immense morning sky
turning red over the prairies of eternity…

You are the meaning deepest inside things
that never reveals the secret of its owner.
And how you look depends on where we are:
from a boat, you are shore, from the shore a boat.
~Rainer Maria Rilke,  from Love Poems to God from the Book of Hours

 

 

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Tangled Threads

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Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs-

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Sunset”

 

We stand, wavering, on the cusp of light and shadow~
struggling to untangle our feet of clay from the earth
to avoid sinking like a stone, mired and stuck.
As darkness begins to claim our days again,
we seek to rise like a star illuminating the long night,
brushing eternity with our branches.

 

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Between Two Unknowns

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Between two unknowns, I live my life.
Between my mother’s hopes, older than I am
by coming before me, and my child’s wishes, older than I am
by outliving me.  And what’s it like?
Is it a door, and good-bye on either side?
A window, and eternity on either side?
Yes, and a little singing between two great rests.
~Li Young Lee from “The Hammock”

 

And so I hang in the speckled shade of this life,
swinging and singing…

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photo by Lea Gibson (in her new hammock)

 

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