GOD'S PLAN

Voice of the Day: Charles Summers The story goes that a North American missionary went out one day to preach in a barrio of a Brazilian city. Taking John 3:16 as his text, he stood on the corner proclaiming the love of God for all people. A crowd gathered. One man in the crowd interrupted the missionary, 'You are wrong, Senor, God doesn't love us. But the preacher was adamant. Oh, yes. God does love you. God gives all good things, including the Christ, for you. The Brazilian, waving his arms at the squalor surrounding him, replied angrily, Then somebody has been messing with the love of God! If God gave the earth for all people to share and enjoy, someone has been messing with God's plans.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Child's Thought of God - The Journey with Jesus

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) A Child's Thought of God They say that God lives very high; But if you look above the pines You cannot see our God; and why? And if you dig down in the mines, You never see Him in the gold, Though from Him all that’s glory shines. God is so good, He wears a fold Of heaven and earth across His face, Like secrets kept, for love, untold. But still I feel that His embrace Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place; As if my tender mother laid On my shut lids her kisses’ pressure, Half waking me at night, and said, “Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?”"

On Time

John Milton (1608–1674) On Time Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace; And glut thyself with what thy womb devours, Which is no more than what is false and vain, And merely mortal dross; So little is our loss, So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou hast intombed, And last of all thy greedy self consumed, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss, And Joy shall overtake us as a flood; When every thing that is sincerely good And perfectly divine, With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine About the supreme throne Of Him, t' whose happy-making sight alone When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall climb, Then, all this earthly grossness quit, Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit, Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

Prayer of Mother Teresa and Brother Roger - The Journey with Jesus

Prayer of Mother Teresa and Brother Roger Oh God, the father of all, you ask every one of us to spread Love where the poor are humiliated, Joy where the Church is brought low, And reconciliation where people are divided. . . Father against son, mother against daughter, Husband against wife, Believers against those who cannot believe, Christians against their unloved fellow Christians."

In Praise of Solid People

CS Lewis (1898–1963) In Praise of Solid People Thank God that there are solid folk Who water flowers and roll the lawn, And sit and sew and talk and smoke, And snore all through the summer dawn. Who pass untroubled nights and days Full-fed and sleepily content, Rejoicing in each other’s praise, Respectable and innocent. Who feel the things that all men feel, And think in well-worn grooves of thought, Whose honest spirits never reel Before man’s mystery, overwrought. Yet not unfaithful nor unkind, with work-day virtues surely staid, Theirs is the sane and humble mind, And dull affections undismayed. O happy people! I have seen No verse yet written in your praise, And, truth to tell, the time has been I would have scorned your easy ways. But now thro’ weariness and strife I learn your worthiness indeed, The world is better for such life As stout suburban people lead. Too often have I sat alone When the wet night falls heavily, And fretting winds around me moan, And homeless longing vexes me. For lore that I shall never know, And visions none can hope to see, Till brooding works upon me so A childish fear steals over me. I look around the empty room, The clock still ticking in its place, And all else silent as the tomb, Till suddenly, I think, a face Grows from the darkness just beside. I turn, and lo! it fades away, And soon another phantom tide Of shifting dreams begins to play, And dusky galleys past me sail, Full freighted on a faerie sea; I hear the silken merchants hail Across the ringing waves to me —Then suddenly, again, the room, Familiar books about me piled, And I alone amid the gloom, By one more mocking dream beguiled. And still no neared to the Light, And still no further from myself, Alone and lost in clinging night —(The clock’s still ticking on the shelf). Then do I envy solid folk Who sit of evenings by the fire, After their work and doze and smoke, And are not fretted by desire.

Second Coming

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Second Coming (1921) Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Dulce et Decorum Est

by Dan Clendenin Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) Dulce et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

Prayer

Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) Prayer

 Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know, To love what I ought to love, To praise what delights thee most, To value what is precious in thy sight, To hate what is offensive to thee. Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes, Nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men; But to discern with a true judgment between things visible and spiritual, And above all, always to inquire what is the good pleasure of thy will.

From the Bridge

Claribel Alegría (born 1924) From the Bridge I never found the order I searched for but always a sinister and well-planned disorder that increases in the hands of those who hold power while the others who clamor for a more kindly world a world with less hunger and more hopefulness die of torture in the prisons. Don't come any closer there's a stench of carrion surrounding me.

A Worker's Speech to a Doctor -

"Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) A Worker's Speech To A Doctor When we come to you Our rags are torn off us And you listen all over our naked body. As to the cause of our illness One glance at our rags would Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out Our bodies and our clothes. The pain in our shoulder comes You say, from the damp; and this is also the reason For the stain on the wall of our flat. So tell us: Where does the damp come from?"

DREAMS

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) Dreams Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

The Donkey

G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) The Donkey When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born; With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still. Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.

WILD GEESE

The wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

THE BEST POET

I have often maintained that the best poet is ... the baker who ... does [the] majestic and unpretentious work of kneading the dough, consigning it to the oven, baking it in golden colours and handing us our daily bread as a duty of fellowship.

- Pablo Neruda

MUSINGS ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

The Christian faith for most people is not communicated by doctrinal pronouncements ... but by what goes on in the church in its most local setting. It is here, in the church down the street, that people are caught up in the Gospel promise -- or are turned away.

- James C. Fenhagen

MUSINGS BY - Eugene V. Debs

While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

- Eugene V. Debs

MUSINGS ON the road to perfection.

However high be your endeavors, unless you renounce and subjugate your own will -- unless you forget yourself and all that pertains to yourself -- not one step will you advance on the road to perfection.

- St. John of the Cross

MUSINGS ON JESUS AS A RADICAL

Jesus’ example was radical. Over and over he tried to tell people to differentiate between tradition and truth – and he called them to follow the truth, which abolishes prejudice.

- Jill Briscoe

God does not wait for us to become perfect

God does not wait for us to become perfect and in possession of only high, pure thoughts and unmixed motives before [moving] through us. God waits only for the sign of faith.

- Eugenia Price

MUSINGS ON SCIENCE

Even as we use experimental science and mathematical logic to reveal the laws and structure of the physical universe, a series of important questions will always remain, including the sources of those laws and the reason for there being a universe in the first place.

- Kenneth Miller

MUSINGS ON CREATION

The creation is not in any sense independent of the Creator, the result of a primal creative act long over and done with, but is the continuous, constant participation of all creatures in the being of God.

- Wendell Berry

CHRISTMAS

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

- Oren Arnold

MUSINGS ON HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET

I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.

- Maya Angelou

MUSINGS ON JESUS AS A POOR JEW

It's good to remember that Jesus grew up as a poor Jew in a poor town. His life was not about having great material possessions, but about living for God in this humble and modest way.

- Stephen Chapman

ADVENT

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes ... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer German theologian and pastor (1906-1945)

ADVENT CREDO

Selected by Dan Clendenin Daniel Berrigan (born 1921) Advent Credo It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss— This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life; It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction— This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly. It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever— This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace. It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world— This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world. It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers— This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams. It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history— This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth. So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ—the life of the world. From Testimony: The Word Made Flesh, by Daniel Berrigan, S.J. Orbis Books, 2004.

Epitaph on a Tyrant

W.H. Auden (1911–2004) Epitaph on a Tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

From God Christ's Deity Came Forth

Ephrem (4th century) From God Christ's Deity Came Forth From God Christ's deity came forth, his manhood from humanity; his priesthood from Melchizedek, his royalty from David's tree: praised be his Oneness. He joined with guests at wedding feast, yet in the wilderness did fast; he taught within the temple's gates; his people saw him die at last: praised be his teaching. The dissolute he did not scorn, nor turn from those who were in sin; he for the righteous did rejoice but bade the fallen to come in: praised be his mercy. He did not disregard the sick; to simple ones his word was given; and he descended to the earth and, his work done, went up to heaven: praised be his coming. Who then, my Lord, compares to you? The Watcher slept, the Great was small, the Pure baptized, the Life who died, the King abased to honor all: praised be your glory. by Ephrem of Edessa, translated by John Howard Rhys, adapted and altered by F Bland Tucker, (Episcopal) Hymnbook 1982. From St. Ephraim the Syrian, Hymns on the Faith.