Dangerous Women Creed

Dear God,
please make us dangerous women.
May we be women who acknowledge our power
to change, and grow, and be radically alive for God.
May we be healers of wounds and righters of wrongs.
May we weep with those who weep and
speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
May we cherish children, embrace the elderly,
and empower the poor.
May we pray deeply and teach wisely.
May we be strong and gentle leaders.
May we sing songs of joy and talk down fear.
May we never hesitate to let passion push us,
conviction compels us, and righteous anger energize us.
May we strike fear into all that is unjust
and evil in the world.
May we dismantle abusive systems and
silence lies with truth.
May we shine like stars in a darkened generation.
May we overflow with goodness in the name of God
and by the power of Jesus.
And in that name and by that power,
may we change the world.
Dear God, please make us dangerous women.
Amen.

-- Lynne Hybels, cited in In the Gift of This New Day: Praying with the Iona Community, edited by Neil Paynter, 2015

Sea Canes

Half my friends are dead.
I will make you new ones, said earth.
No, give me them back, as they were, instead,
with faults and all, I cried.

Tonight I can snatch their talk
from the faint surf's drone
through the canes, but I cannot walk

on the moonlit leaves of ocean
down that white road alone,
or float with the dreaming motion

of owls leaving earth's load.
O earth, the number of friends you keep
exceeds those left to be loved.

The sea canes by the cliff flash green and silver;
they were the seraph lances of my faith,
but out of what is lost grows something stronger

that has the rational radiance of stone,
enduring moonlight, further than despair,
strong as the wind, that through dividing canes

brings those we love before us, as they were,
with faults and all, not nobler, just there.

-- Derek Wolcott (1930- ) from Selected Poems, 2007

Friendship

I think awhile of Love, and while I think, 
Love is to me a world, 
Sole meat and sweetest drink, 
And close connecting link 
Tween heaven and earth. 

I only know it is, not how or why, 
My greatest happiness; 
However hard I try, 
Not if I were to die, 
Can I explain. 

I fain would ask my friend how it can be, 
But when the time arrives, 
Then Love is more lovely 
Than anything to me, 
And so I'm dumb. 

For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak, 
But only thinks and does; 
Though surely out 'twill leak 
Without the help of Greek, 
Or any tongue. 

A man may love the truth and practise it, 
Beauty he may admire, 
And goodness not omit, 
As much as may befit 
To reverence. 

But only when these three together meet, 
As they always incline, 
And make one soul the seat, 
And favorite retreat, 
Of loveliness; 

When under kindred shape, like loves and hates 
And a kindred nature, 
Proclaim us to be mates, 
Exposed to equal fates 
Eternally; 

And each may other help, and service do, 
Drawing Love's bands more tight, 
Service he ne'er shall rue 
While one and one make two, 
And two are one; 

In such case only doth man fully prove 
Fully as man can do, 
What power there is in Love 
His inmost soul to move 
Resistlessly. 

______ 

Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side, 
Withstand the winter's storm, 
And spite of wind and tide, 
Grow up the meadow's pride, 
For both are strong 

Above they barely touch, but undermined 
Down to their deepest source, 
Admiring you shall find 
Their roots are intertwined 
Insep'rably. 


-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Sonnet 104 (To Me, Fair Friend, You Can Never Be Old)

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold 
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen, Three
April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; 
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.


-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

To a Friend

I ask but one thing of you, only one, 
That always you will be my dream of you; 
That never shall I wake to find untrue 
All this I have believed and rested on, 
Forever vanished, like a vision gone 
Out into the night. Alas, how few 
There are who strike in us a chord we knew 
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone 
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound. 
The world is full of rude awakenings 
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground, 
Yet still our human longing vainly clings 
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs. 
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs! 

-- Amy Lowell (1874-1925), from A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912)

Thinking of a Friend at Night

In this evil year, autumn comes early...
I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters,
The wind on my hat...And you? And you, my friend? 

You are standing- maybe- and seeing the sickle moon
Move in a small arc over the forests
And bivouac fire, red in the black valley.
You are lying- maybe- in a straw field and sleeping
And dew falls cold on your forehead and battle jacket.

It's possible tonight you're on horseback,
The farthest outpost, peering along, with a gun in your fist,
Smiling, whispering, to your exhausted horse.
Maybe- I keep imagining- you are spending the night
As a guest in a strange castle with a park
And writing a letter by candlelight, and tapping
On the piano keys by the window,
Groping for a sound...

- And maybe
You are already silent, already dead, and the day
Will shine no longer into your beloved
Serious eyes, and your beloved brown hand hangs wilted,
And your white forehead split open- Oh, if only,
If only, just once, that last day, I had shown you, told you
Something of my love, that was too timid to speak! 

But you know me, you know...and, smiling, you nod
Tonight in front of your strange castle,
And you nod to your horse in the drenched forest,
And you nod to your sleep to your harsh clutter of straw,
And think about me, and smile.
And maybe,
Maybe some day you will come back from the war,
and take a walk with me some evening,
And somebody will talk about Longwy, Luttich, Dammerkirch,
And smile gravely, and everything will be as before,
And no one will speak a word of his worry,
Of his worry and tenderness by night in the field,
Of his love. And with a single joke
You will frighten away the worry, the war, the uneasy nights,
The summer lightning of shy human friendship,
Into the cool past that will never come back.

-- Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), from Poems, 1970  (translated by James Wright)


Photo: Lt. Col Hermann Hesse of the Cheshire Regiment in World War I from https://diversenarratives.com/2015/01/27/lt-colonel-hermann-hesse/

A blessing on someone's journey or on a child

I bless you, darling one,
in the name of the Holy Three,
the Father, the Son, and the Sacred Spirit.
May you drink deeply from God's cup of joy. 
May the night bring you quiet.
And when you come
to the Father's palace
may his door be open
and the welcome warm.

--The Northumbria Community, Celtic Daily Prayer, Book One

Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
"Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!"
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind:
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

--William Blake (1757-1827)