Spiralling Soul

                                        'Spiralling Soul' watercolour by Margaret M Brownlow



If we become indifferent to doing good, our capacity to do good will diminish.  It is difficult to do something well.  It is still more difficult to put right something we have done wrong.  But it is altogether easy to destroy something.  it takes great time and effort to grow a tree, but it is easy to cut it down.  When it is dry and dead, it is impossible to bring it back to life.
If we do not make use of the spiritual faculties we have been given, then we will lose them.  This has happened to certain fishes living in the waters of dark caves.  They have lived so long in the darkness that they have become completely blind.  The same thing has happened to certain hermits I have met in the caves of Tibet.  There fore, do not let your spiritual sight grow dull, but make full use of all your spiritual faculties and strengthen them so that you are able to sense God's presence.
The pipe that carries fresh water is itself clean by the clear water that flows through it.  in the same way, we are kept clean and pure if we allow God's spirit to constantly flow through us for the benefit of others.

Every day of our lives is like a precious diamond.  Let us at least awake now, see the value of the days that remain and use them to acquire spiritual wealth.

                                                Extract from the teachings of Sundar Singh (1889-1929)

The Soul Unfolds

                                    The Soul Unfolds - watercolour by Margaret M Brownlow

" Human beings are close to perfect, but only close.  The Unnameable created us in His image and likeness.  We are no more than an imitation of perfection.  To make us perfect, He would have had to rob us of our free spirit.  Only then would we be obedient.  But a human being without a free spirit is insignificant.  And so He took the risk of giving us free will.  It is that will that is going to destroy many of us"

                               Taken from 'In the Shadow of the Ark' by Anne Provost.

On Strangers

He and His friends were in the grove of pines beyond my hedge, and He was talking to them.
I stood near the hedge and listened.  And I knew who He was, for His fame had reached these shores ere He Himself visited them.
When He ceased speaking I approached Him, and I said, 'Sir, come with these men and honour me and my roof.'
And He smiled upon me and said, 'Not this day, my friend.  Not this day.'
And there was a blessing in His words, and His voice enfolded me like a garment on a cold night.
Then He turned to His friends and said, 'Behold a man who deems us not strangers, and though he has not seen us ere this day, he bids us to his threshold.'
'Verily in my kingdom there are no strangers.  Our life is but the life of all other men, given us that we may know all men, and in that knowledge love them.'
'The deeds of all men are but our deeds, both the hidden and the revealed.'
I charge you not to be one self but rather many selves, the householder and the homeless, the ploughman and the sparrow that picks the grain ere it slumber in the earth, the giver who gives in gratitude, and the receiver who receives in pride and recognition.'
'The beauty of the day is not only in what you see, but in what other men see.'
'For this I have chosen you from among the many who have chosen me.'
Then He turned to me again and smiled and said, 'I say these things to you also, and you also shall remember them.'
Then I entreated Him and said,'Master, will you not visit my house?'
And He answered, 'I know your heart, and I have visited your larger house.'
And as He walked away with His disciples He said, 'Good night, and may your house be large enough to shelter all the wanderers of the land.'

                                                          From 'Jesus the Son of Man' by Kahlil Gibran

Please pray for the wanderers of all the lands.

Great Spirit

                                             
                                                      'Emanation of God' by  Limonc

Oh Great Spirit whose voice in the winds I hear and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
Before you I come, one of your many children, small and weak am I.
Your strength and wisdom I need.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my heart and hands respect all you have made, my ears clear to hear all you have taught my people and the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother, but to make me able to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to stand before you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when my life fades, as the fading sunset, my Spirit may stand before you without shame.

There are many variations of the above, this is from my scrapbook in which it is attributed to Apache Chief Little Horse. Another source merely says it is Native American. 

Eternal God

Eternal God, before whose face we stand,
your earthly children, fashioned by your hand,
hear and behold us, for to you alone
all hearts are open, all our longings known:
so for our world and for ourselves we pray
the gift of peace, O Lord, in this our day.

We come with grief, with thankfulness and pride,
to hold in honour those who served and died;
we bring our hurt, our loneliness and loss,
to him who hung forsaken on the cross;
who, for our peace, our pains and sorrows bore,
and with the Father lives for evermore.

O Prince of Peace, who gave for us your life,
look down in pity on our sin and strife.
May this remembrance move our hearts to build
a peace enduring, and a hope fulfilled,
when every flag of tyranny is furled
and wars at last shall cease in all the world.

From earth's long tale of suffering here below
we pray the fragile flower of peace my grow,
till cloud and darkness vanish from our skies
to see the Sun of Righteousness arise.
When night is past and peace shall banish pain,
all shall be well, in God's eternal reign.

            by Timothy Dudley-Smith, (born 1926) former Bishop of Thetford, wrote ''Tell out my Soul''                              amongst his output of over 300 hymns.
                  This hymn was sung immediately after the poem ''The Cemetery'', see Blog
                   for 6th.August.

                                                 'Flower of Peace' photo by Kosebamse.

Commemoration of WW1

On Monday 4th. August we attended a Service of Commemoration of the 100th. anniversary of the first World War. It was a very moving service held at the Gateshead Metrocentre.
The following poem was read early on in the service.

The Cemetery

Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unknown and unmarked shrine,
A broken plot, a soldiers cemetery.

There lie the flowers of youth, the men who scorned
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.

by John William Streets, better known as Will Streets, born in Whitwell, Derbyshire.  Although academically and artistically gifted he began work as a coal-miner at the age of 14.  In August 1914 he joined the Sheffield City Battalion  (Sheffield Pals), he served in Egypt from late 1915 to early 1916.  The Battalion was transferred to the Western Front, by this time Will was a sergeant.  He was wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st.July 1916, and subsequently went missing, his body was recovered exactly ten months later on the 1st. May 1917 and is now buried at Euston Road Cemetery, Colincamps.
(ref. special memorial A.6 )

One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.  He grew up in still another village, where he worked in a carpenter-shop until he was thirty.  Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.  He never wrote a book.  He never held an office.  He never had a family or owned a house.  He didn't go to college.  He never visited a big city.  He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.  He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness.

He had no credentials but himself.  He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him.  His friends ran away.  He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial.  He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.  While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth.  When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress.

All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary Life.