The Good Riddle
“For who shall guess the good riddle Or speak of the Holiest, Save in faint figures and failing words, Who loves, yet laughs among the swords, Labours, and is at rest?” — GK Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse
The Search
Whither, O, whither art thou fled,My Lord, my Love?My searches are my daily bread;Yet never prove.My knees pierce th’earth, mine eies the skie;And yet the sphereAnd centre both to me denieThat thou art there.Yet can I mark how herbs belowGrow green and gay,As if to meet thee they did know,While I decay.Yet can I mark…
The Presence
I was praying today, and that feeling came again. – That feeling of vastness and great space. I sometimes wonder if it is somehow a feeling of that presence – of being in the presence of something infinite. I cannot stay in that space very long without finding myself out of it. Somehow I feel…
Golden in Thy Sunlight
“Lord, come to me,’ he cried in his heart, ‘for I cannot go to thee. If I were to go up and up through that awful space for ages and ages, I should never find thee. Yet there thou art. The tenderness of thy infinitude looks upon me from those heavens. Thou art in them…
Oh, Spirit
Oh Spirit — how may I enter God’s presence? How find a door that lets me in,When my heart feels tinged with the shadow of darknessAnd this flesh — burdened from the first with sin?Let there be some healing ointment —Some sweet smelling herb be found,To take away these blemished spotsThat the heart of me…
Rejoice
“Rejoice,” said the Sun; "I will make thee gayWith glory and gladness and holiday;I am dumb, O man, and need thy voice!”But man would not rejoice.Rejoice in thyself, said he, “O sun,For thy daily course is a lordly one;In thy lofty place rejoice if thou can:For me, I am only a man.”"Rejoice,” said the Wind;…
The Prayer Preceding all Prayer
All Joy Reminds
All Joy reminds. It is never a possession , always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be.’ CS Lewis, Surprised by Joy
The Secret
Oh Spirit of my Father – where art Thou? Thou Glad, Bright, Beautiful Being? Thou who makes’t the winds to blow,And the waves to roll, and mountains all trembling?Thou art in the thunder, and also in the windBut behold – a greater thing take flight,When the God of all power comes downTo whisper to a…
The Woman in the Cottage
Sometimes I wake up out of a light sleep, to find that my mind has been huddled over it’s little spinning wheel, fretting and working to spin a thread, some little yarn of a dreamy story. I don’t know if it’s only me, or if it happens to anyone else. In those moments it appears…
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