dual personalities

Tag: spirituality

March 23, 2012

Praise for the morning

by chuckofish

“Morning Has Broken” is a popular Christian hymn first published in 1931. It was not written by Cat Stevens, although it is frequently attributed to him.  He should be given credit for introducing it to a wider audience.  However, English author Eleanor Farjeon wrote the words and it is set to a traditional Scottish tune known as “Bunessan”. According to Wikipedia, the hymn originally appeared in the second edition of “Songs of Praise” (published in 1931). In Songs of Praise Discussed, the editor, Percy Dearmer, explains that as there was need for a hymn to give thanks for each day, English poet and children’s author Eleanor Farjeon had been “asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune”. A slight variation on the original hymn, also written by Eleanor Farjeon, can be found in the form of a poem contributed to the anthology Children’s Bells, under Farjeon’s new title, “A Morning Song (For the First Day of Spring)”, published by Oxford University Press in 1957.

Eleanor Farjeon (13 February 1881 – 5 June 1965) was an author of children’s stories and plays, poetry, biography, history and satire. She was the granddaughter of the American actor Joseph Jefferson and counted among her friends D. H. Lawrence, Walter de la Mare and Robert Frost. We thank her for writing this wonderful reminder to appreciate the small things (which are really the big things) in our lives and to thank our creator. After all, “this is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.” (Psalm 118:24)

Morning Has Broken
lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon

Morning has broken,
like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken,
like the first bird
Praise for the singing,
praise for the morning
Praise for the springing
fresh from the word

Sweet the rain’s new fall,
sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall,
on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness
of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness
where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight,
mine is the morning
Born of the one light,
Eden saw play
Praise with elation,
praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day

3 Comments
March 15, 2012

God be in my head

by chuckofish

"Old Sarum" by John Constable

God Be in My Head
Anonymous
(from a 1506 Sarum Book of Hours)

God be in mihede And in min vnder ston dyng
God be in myn hyyesse And in min lokeyng
God be in mi movthe And in myspekeyng
God be in my hart And in my thovgvt
God be at myneyende And ad myde partying

God be in my head
And in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes
And in my looking;
God be in my mouth
And in my speaking;
God be in my heart
And in my thinking;
God be at mine end,
And at my departing.

Old Sarum as it looks today.

And here’s a picture of the “New Sarum” also by John Constable.

2 Comments
March 8, 2012

Back to Buechner

by chuckofish

“What’s prayer? It’s shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who’s to say? It’s reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God’s grace, a prayer is heard.”
― Frederick Buechner, Godric

3 Comments
March 1, 2012

Taking the shortcut

by chuckofish

“Or you can take the shortcut and paddle to one of the passages in the Huron River, which reflects this world so clearly you can see into the next one. When wild flags blossom along the river’s edge in this world, snow whitens the banks in that one. And when trout and sunfish sleep under a skin of ice here, swamps there hum with bees and cicadas, kingbirds and vireos and warblers. Walk against the current. Follow one of the streams that spill into the river till you find the spring at the bottom. You have found a doorway into the spirit world. Be careful. It is not safe to pass through that doorway without a guide.

“But maybe you don’t travel that far. You say, Ann Arbor is far enough. Stand still in the stream. Listen. Thomas Bearheart’s cousin picks up her hammer. Can you hear it ringing as she forges copper fishhooks in Drowning Bear, Wisconsin? Put your ear to the water as if it were a train track and listen for travelers rushing toward you, invisible as the dead and noisy as a pack of dogs.”

Nancy Willard, Sister Water

2 Comments
February 29, 2012

Dying of thirst

by chuckofish

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I–could I–would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl…
“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.
“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

–C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

3 Comments
February 1, 2012

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

Saint Paul by Burne-Jones

The First Lesson appointed for use on the Feast of Brigid (today) is one of my favorites:

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Frederick Buechner writes that when he first met St. Paul and these lines, he “had the feeling that I knew something of what he was talking about. Something of the divine comedy we are all of us involved in. Something of grace.”

God turns everything upside down.

And god forbid that we should take ourselves too seriously.

6 Comments
January 10, 2012

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

“My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning, and may be many; but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother.”

Louisa May Alcott (from Little Women)

(I found this quote on the wonderful blog Hay Quaker. Check it out!)

2 Comments
January 2, 2012

A new year’s discipline

by chuckofish

Gratitude … goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
-Henri J. M. Nouwen

1 Comment
December 18, 2011

Westward leading, still proceeding

by chuckofish

The Star of Bethlehem by Edward Burne-Jones

“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:11 KJV)

I love that angel, don’t you?

4 Comments
December 16, 2011

God was man in Palestine

by chuckofish

Christmas
by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

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