Julie E. Smith©

Sometimes

Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
and all the time
I am being carried on great winds across the sky.

Anonymous – Chippewa Indian

Let Us Pray

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, 
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

St. Francis of Assisi

Wisdom Speaks

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way,
before his works of old.
I was set up from everlasting,
From the beginning,
Or ever the earth was.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth;
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills was I brought forth:
While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields,
Nor the highest parts of the dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there:
When he set a compass upon the face of the depth:
When he established the clouds above:
When he strengthened the fountains of the deep:
When he gave to the sea his decree,
That the waters should not pass his commandment:
When he appointed the foundations of the earth:
Then I was by him,
As one brought up with him:
And I was daily his delight,
Rejoicing always before him ;
Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth;
And my delights were with the sons of men.

Proverbs 8:22-31

The Love of God

The love of God, unutterable and perfect,
     flows into a pure soul the way that light
     rushes into a transparent object.
The more love that it finds, the more it gives
     itself, so that, as we grow clear and open,
     the more complete the joy of loving is.
And the more souls who resonate together,
     the greater the intensity of their love,
     for, mirror-like, each soul reflects the others.

Dante Alighieri - Italian

Poem

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

Teresa of Avila - Spanish

Something Like The Sun

The eye must be something like the sun,
Otherwise no sunlight could be seem;
God’s own power must be inside us,
How else could Godly things delight us?

Johann Wolfgang Von-Goethe – German

Sometimes

When I take your hand
It is like a door, opening…
A garden…
A road leading out through a
       Mediterranean landscape…
Finally, a smell of salt,
the port,
A ship leaving for strange and distant countries.

Thomas McGrath, American

Secretly We Spoke

Secretly we spoke,
that wise one and me.
I said, “tell me the secrets of the world.
He said, “Sh…let silence
Tell you the secrets of the world.”

Jalal-Ud-Din Rumi – Persian