radiant
this blessing
God's love
calls us
to that elsewhere world
which only lovers
eyes alight, eyes aflame
can see at all.
only those who have
self surrendered:
once, they were flecks of fire;
now, they are
the radiant sun.
Rumi
to love and obey
Posted on by James Woodward
The French scientist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin sums it up nicely in his book “The Divine Milieu.” He writes:
“God obviously has no need of the products of your busy activity since he could give himself everything without you. The only thing that c
Feast on your life?
Posted on by James Woodward
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread.
intricate
Posted on by James Woodward
intricate
Intricate and untraceable
weaving and interweaving,
dark strand with light:
designed, beyond
all spiderly contrivance,
to link, not to entrap:
elation, grief, joy, contrition, entwined;
shaking, changing,
forever
forming,
transforming:
all praise,
all prais
Each minute the last minute.
Posted on by James Woodward
delicate
The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.
The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.
A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily
moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my ha
unspoken…..
Posted on by James Woodward
unspoken Autumn
The black moon turns away, its work done.
A tenderness, unspoken autumn.
We are faithful only to the imagination.
What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.
What holds you to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.
from Denise Levertov, E
the right word at the right time!
Posted on by James Woodward
acting with no expectations
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child's?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without
Dressing Up?
Posted on by James Woodward
We all have an ambiguous relationship with Authority or power and so we should as Christians.
I wonder when you last felt powerless? To be powerless is something we all fear briefly clothed, but God laughs when we take it too, so we anxiously remind ourselves of all our vir
Silence
Posted on by James Woodward
‘Silence’, said Seraphim, ‘is the cross on which man must crucify his ego’;
‘Silence transfigures a man into an angel; it is the spiritual practice which most surely preserves inner peace.’
He was constantly repeating the words of St Ambrose, ‘I have seen many w
Writers Rooms : David Starkey
Posted on by James Woodward
Starkey offers this commentary:
The room is in an 18th-century house and was fitted out by one of the more bizarre figures of mid-20th-century British public life, Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen. Hugessen retired here in disgrace to write his family memoirs
Writers Houses : Karen Blixen
Posted on by James Woodward
Karen also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen was born at Rungstedlund in Denmark on 17th of April 1885 as the second child of Wilhelm and Ingeborg Dinesen’s five children. She came to Africa in 1914 to marry her half cousin and carry out dairy farming in the then British Col
Surprise
Posted on by James Woodward
surprise
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
opening
Posted on by James Woodward
opening
The Opening and the Close
Of Being, are alike
Or differ, if they do,
As Bloom upon a Stalk.
That from an equal Seed
Unto an equal Bud
Go parallel, perfected
In that they have decayed.
Emily Dickinson, The opening and the close
Peace
Posted on by James Woodward
The peace of wild things
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds
water !
Posted on by James Woodward
water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;
My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-ang
Don't tame me !
Posted on by James Woodward
the shout
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains
of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
from Walt Whitman, Song of myself
awakening
Posted on by James Woodward
awakening
Enter the turret of your love, and lie
close in the arms of the sea; let in new suns
that beat and echo in the mind like sounds
risen from sunken cities lost to fear;
let in the light that answers your desire
awakening at midnight with the fire,
until its
eternity …..
Posted on by James Woodward
wild flower
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
From William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
you will greet yourself…..
Posted on by James Woodward
LOVE AFTER LOVE
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine.
wondering
Posted on by James Woodward
wondering
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with lin