Prayer Before Work

Great one, austere,
By whose intent the distant star
Holds its course clear,
Now make this spirit soar—
Give it that ease.
Out of the absolute
Abstracted grief, comfortless, mute,
Sound the clear note,
Pure, piercing as the flute:
Give it precision.
Austere, great one,
By whose grace the unalterable song
May still be wrested from
The corrupt lung:
Give it strict form.

--May Sarton (1912-1995), American poet, memoir writer, and novelist

Prayer for Discernment

Almighty, loving God,
We know that You are always near us:
let us turn to You and walk beside You this day.
Let us place our hands in yours,
and remember that You are our shelter, our shepherd, and our strength.
Help us not just to speak but to listen
as we seek to do your will.
Make us seekers of Wisdom by the power of your Holy Spirit,
that we may be true disciples of your Son Jesus Christ.
We thank You for this time together,
for fellowship, for guidance,
as we seek always to grow deeper in your Love.
Let all we do be done to build your kingdom,
O God, our Hope and our Help.

Amen.

Easter Week

See the land, her Easter keeping,
          Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
          Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
          Fields and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,
          While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted
          Powers to those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
          Use the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
          Each his Easter tribute bring –
Work of fingers, chant of voices,
          Like the birds who build and sing.

-- Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), English priest, poet, and workingman's advocate

Prayer (for discernment)

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-- Thomas Merton, OCSO (Father Louis) (1915-1968), from Thoughts in Solitude, 1956-- born this day in 1915.

Recorded version of prayer, read by The Rev. James Martin, SJ, on NPR's On Being with Krista Tippett

Little Gidding: V (on the feast day of Nicholas Ferrar)

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river 
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

--T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) from Four Quartets, 1943

Photos: from Friends of Little Gidding, Cherry Tree in Springtime, and epitaph marking Dame Julians anchorage site at St. Julian's in Norwich from pinterest

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations –
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

--Mary Oliver (1935- ), from Dream Work (1994)

Sonnet XIX: When I Consider How My Life is Spent

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
His state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

--John Milton (1608-1674), English poet and essayist