ADVENT

ITs that time of year again and from the National Gallery an advent calender for art lovers.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/features/advent/default.htm

blessings

Atonement

This guy has been blowing my mind with a theology which seems to articulate a lot of what i've been feeling for a long time without properly being able to express it .

check out this on the atonement

http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng11.html

and may it rock your world[view]

blessings

The Holy Ground Between Us

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Walt Whitman
US poet (1819 - 1892)

Have been musing about friendship since my recent north american sojourn and return home to live in Belfast. CS Lewis said that people need not so much to be taught as to be reminded. The last little while I’ve been reminded just how many amazing people I can call friend. Within a few weeks I reconnected with a lot of incredible people both in Canada and in Nashville. And honestly wondered what I’ve done to deserve to be part of their lives.

And yet the strangest thing is that those who I admire the most and have learnt from - people who have shaped my life and thinking - are perhaps the ones who need your friendship most . It is a scary and humbling thing and one I’m very thankful for. To the good people of Nashville you have my love and respect. There is holy ground between us and always will be. Thank you for continuing to live generously.

Back in Belfast realising how much our community needs each other is reassuring and makes me feel I am in the right place now. The right place to give and to recieve, to push the boundaries and break out of the old ways of thinking ....to listen to our lives and realise what incredible things they are.

I leave you with this from Papa John O’Donohue. May it lift your morning and rain upon your day.

Matins

I
Somewhere,out at the edges,the night
is turning and the waves of darkness
Begin to brighten the shore of dawn

The heavy dark falls back to earth
And the freed air goes wild with light,
The heart fills with fresh, bright breath
And thoughts stir to give birth to colour.

II
I arise to day

In the name of silence
Womb of the word,
In the name of stillness
Home of belonging,
In the name of the solitude
of the soul and the earth
I arise today

Blessed by all things
Wings of breath
delight of eyes,
wonder of whisper,
intimacy of touch,
eternity of soul,
urgency of thought,
miracle of health,
embrace of God

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Gentle in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in Love .



Amen says me .......... blessings

Yay Yeats

I've always been a fan of the WB -Irelands greatest poet [in the english language] . My good friend Mister Tumnus ( http://mistertumnus.blogspot.com/ )reminded me of this poem recently on her blog and It resonates deeply within the foul rag and bone shop of my own heart . Enjoy




The Circus Animals' Desertion

I
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

II
What can I but enumerate old themes,
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride.

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
'The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it;
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.

III
Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

The Power and The Glory [of Broadband]

I apologise for my absence. It was mainly due to a lack of internet access at home. That has now been remedied by the good people of NTL who have installed broadband in my humble home. Since my time in North America I have been musing much on the nature of friendship and one quote keeps popping up again and again.

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Walt Whitman
US poet (1819 - 1892)

The last month has made me sure of that . I have to go to work now but the next post will develop that thought more .

Blessings.