Among the Redwoods

Farewell to such a world! Too long I press
   The crowded pavement with unwilling feet.
Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatefulness,
   And both are poisons. In the forest, sweet
The shade, the peace! Immensity, that seems
To drown the human life of doubts and dreams.

Far off the massive portals of the wood,
   Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene,
Waited my coming. Speedily I stood
   Where the sun wall rose roofed in plumy green.
Dare one go in?— Glance backward! Dusk as night
Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light.

--E. R. Sill (1841-1887) published in The Atlantic in 1884)

Today's Adventword was "peace."

Honestly

I have searched for God
in the dry echo of tall stone buildings
where the laws are written upon the walls.

I have found God
in the broken bread of light across the moorland,
as it silvers from the miracle of the earth.


--Kenneth Steven, Scots poet, from Iona: New and Selected Poems (Paraclete poetry)

Finding

It is not about going on a particular night in the knowledge of finding a foal;
it is the chance of it, the perhaps – the making of time to try.
The struggling up at three in the morning in the strangeness of the dark
to get ready in soft voices; the going out into the fields on padded feet,
no longer worrying about what tasks have been completed, which left undone.
It is about walking together leaving silvery trails, uneven, through long lush grass;
about coming at last to the place where you hoped it might happen,
for some things are not certain – in this world where almost everything
is written down and long decided – and always it has been that way.
This water meadow where there is always scent of something not quite known;
a bowl made of low hills and round it the ancient trees held in the still dark.
However many yards away the foal already trying to hobble onto legs ridiculously big,
and she pouring into him all the love that she possesses.
Unselfconsciously and with reverence
it is about kneeling in the long wet grass to watch, to wonder.

--Kenneth Steven, Scots poet, from Iona: New and Selected Poems (Paraclete Poetry).

A Prayer for Spiritual Illumination

Hear us,
never-fading Light, Lord our God,
our only Light, Fountain of light,
Light of your angels,
thrones, dominions, principalities, powers,
and of all intelligent beings.

You created the light of your saints.

May our souls be your lamps,
kindled and enlightened by you.

May they shine and burn with the truth,
and never go out in darkness and ashes.

May we be your house,
shining from you, shining in you.

May we shine without fail.
May we ever worship you.

In you may we be kindled and not be extinguished.

Being filled with the splendor
of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
may we shine forth inwardly.
May the gloom of sins be cleared away,
and the light of constant faith abide within us.

--adapted from the Mozarabic Sacramentary, 7th Century Spain/Portugal

The Contemplative Life

Abba Jacob said:
Contemplation is both the highest act
of being human, and humanity’s highest language.
If the language of things reaches beyond things
to designate the Absolute,
the silent interior mantra
bespeaks a profound communion
with that Someone further than ourselves—
and communion within
ourselves, for the two go together.
When we meditate, we enter
paschal mystery, the frontier between death and life.
Egyptian mythology has a wonderful image
of the pass from life to death: a great ship
which bears us to eternity. Charon
is the great passer of Greek mythology,
helping souls cross the River Styx from life to death.
Christianity turns it around: Christ
is the greatest passer, helping us pass
from death to life.
Contemplative life is always making the passage
from death to life, from humanity to divinity.
It is always taking the risk of being human.

There is an extraordinary message from the grave
as to what it takes to be human: a letter
from a Cistercian monk, one of seven
who had their throats cut
by Muslim fundamentalist terrorists
in their monastery in the mountains of Algeria
about ten years ago. Their prior
left a letter, just in case:
they knew it was probably coming,
they knew they were at great risk.
The letter was found and published.
Here is how it ends:

     To the one who will have killed me:

     and also you, Friend of my final moment,
     who would not be aware
     of what you are doing,
     yet, this: Thank you.
     And adieu to you.
     For in you, too,
     I see the face of God.

Abba Jacob wiped his eyes.
Interval of birdsong from the veranda.

He’s seeing not an abstract God,
but a God who has assumed a face,
a God who shows him this face
in every one of those Muslim brothers and sisters,
including the one who kills him.

Contemplative life has no frontiers.
And it is the heritage of all humanity.
Through contemplation we enter
into communion with everybody.
And this leads to service.
But that’s a subject
for another day.

--Marilyn Nelson (1945- ), African American poet, teacher, author, children's author, and poet laureate of Connecticut 2001-2006, from Best Spiritual Writing 2009.