Some Good News for a Change

The miners came out of the mine
Shod with infinite paths
And eyes of physical weeping,
Creaters of the profundity,
They know, from the ladder's intermittent sky
How to climb down looking up,
They know to climb up looking down

César Vellejo
Quoted by Arturo Fontaine, In Chile, Love Moves the Sun and Stars

Plant a Garden

Plant a Garden

Edgar A. Guest

 

If your purse no longer bulges
and you've lost your golden treasure,
If times you think you're lonely
and have hungry grown for pleasure,
Don't sit by your hearth and grumble,
don't let mind and spirit harden. 

If it's thrills of joy you wish for
get to work and plant a garden! If it's drama that you sigh for,
plant a garden and you'll get it
You will know the thrill of battle
fighting foes that will beset it 

 

If you long for entertainment and
for pageantry most glowing,
Plant a garden and this summer spend
your time with green things growing. 


If it's comradeship you sight for,
learn the fellowship of daisies.
You will come to know your neighbor
by the blossoms that he raises; 

If you'd get away from boredom
and find new delights to look for,
Learn the joy of budding pansies
which you've kept a special nook for. 

If you ever think of dying
and you fear to wake tomorrow
Plant a garden! It will cure you
of your melancholy sorrow
Once you've learned to know peonies,
petunias, and roses,
You will find every morning
some new happiness discloses

John Donne, Poet 1631

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated... . God employs several translators. Some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to another." As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

A limerick or two on St. Augustine's view of God

My daughter had to present St. Augustine's thoughts to her religion class at Augustana College in a "creative way" so she wrote this limerick. I think it's pretty clever:

God is completely perfect and good
But the world needs more, God understood.
God didn't have to create;
He/She was already great,
But for goodness' sake, God thought (s)he would.

So God saw there was nothing around
And out of nowhere, God made the ground.
God started with nothing
and ended with something:
fish, light, plants, us, potatoes, and sound.

Patrick, Missionary to Ireland, 461

I sing as I arise today!

I call on my Creator's might;

The will of God to be my guide

The eye of God to be my sight,

The word of God to be my speech,

The hand of God to be my stay,

The shield of God to be my strength,

The path of God to be my way

Patrick of Ireland

More about Patrick Here

Patrick's Confessions

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

I found this prayer by Safiyah Fosua from General Board of Discipleship worship website

Lord of the Mountaintop

A Prayer for Transfiguration Sunday
by Safiyah Fosua

A 21st Century Africana Liturgy Resource

Lord of the Mountaintop, God of dazzling clothes,
Be with us when we come down from the height of worship
To face a world
That didn't see what we just saw in you.
Show us what to do.

When demons rage though elementary schools
Let it not be said that your disciples could not cast the devil out.
When violence threatens to engulf our communities
Let it not be said that your disciples cowered in fear
Or walked on the other side of the road.
When there is peril or fire or flood,
Let it not be said that your disciples cleared the unwanted junk from their
garages
And called it charity….

Lord of the Mountaintop experience, God of dazzling clothes
Show us how to be.
Change us; transfigure us
So that this world might see what we have just seen, and worship you.

Amen.

Lord of the Mountaintop" Copyright © 2007 The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church, PO Box 340003, Nashville TN 37203-0003. Worship website: www.umcworship.org.

Sermon's Done