Newly added
My writing
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I realize that I am the only person in the world to want to find myself a very sturdy soapbox, step up on it, and proclaim my belief that the church is lopsided. And that this is a very serious matter. In my opinion, that is. Here’s my metaphor for the church (that I’ve probably shared before): The church is like a tree with two branches. The trunk is God, the Father. And the branches are Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Now the church nods reverentially to a nominal degree [...]
Thomas Merton poetry
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In honor of the death of Thomas Merton. Where are the merchants and the money-lenders Whose love sang in the wires between the seaports and the inland granaries? Is the old trader any safer than the sailor sent to drown Crossing the world’s end in a wooden schooner? Where are the generals who sacked the sunny cities And burned the cattle and the grain? Or is the politician any safer in his offices Than a soldier shot in the eye? Take time [...]
Evelyn Underhill
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From The Path of Eternal Wisdom, written under the pseudonym, John Cordelier The Eternal Wisdom Bound by Love to His World The cross, says Traherne, “is a tree set on fire with invisible flame, that illuminateth all the world. The flame is love; the love in his bosom who died on it. In the light of which we see how to possess all the things in Heaven and Earth after his similitude.” God’s way of possessing us, then, is to give himself for us: and thus only, by self-giving in the [...]
Mysticism
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When I was a teenager, I was sent to Episcopal church camp. It wasn’t my choice, really. My grandmother and the church I attended decided it would be good for me. Otherwise, I would just keep working at my summer job: scooping ice cream for laughing townsfolk and for vacationers thrilled with being on the coast of Maine. Doing anything as a child in Maine was very understated. I remember reading accounts of how children from other states would go to exotic places for vacation and [...]
The Value of Sparrows 