George MacDonald wrote the shortest poem ever...

George MacDonald was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1824. After studying Moral Philosophy and Sciences at Aberdeen University, he trained for the Congregational church, but his liberal views prevented him from being successful as a minister. He was, however, successful as a writer, giving expression to his religious beliefs through allegorical novels and poetry, notably Phantastes (1858). Although best know now for his classic books for children, poetry started off his life of prolific production and continued to feature during the following four decades.

George MacDonald wrote what must be the shortest poem ever. It has only two words. The title is longer than the poem itself. 

The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs by George MacDonald

Come

Home. 

------------
That is it!



Image courtesy of jannoon028 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Summer prayer

Father, Creator of all, thank You for summer!
Thank you for the warmth of the sun and the increased daylight.
Thank You for the beauty I see all around me
and for the opportunity to be outside and enjoy Your creation.
Thank You for the increased time I have to be with my friends and family,
and for the more casual pace of the summer season.
Draw me closer to You this summer.
Teach me how I can pray no matter where I am or what I am doing.
Warm my soul with the awareness of Your presence
and light my path with Your Word and Counsel.
As I enjoy Your creation,
create in me a pure heart and a hunger and a thirst for You.
Amen

- Summer prayer from ‘Ignatian spirituality’

 Image "Yellow Cosmos Flower And Blue Sky" courtesy of Sura Nualpradid / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Celtic prayer

"As this day begins Christ be with us,
Be in our hearts and in our minds,
Be in our souls and in our spirits,
Be in our thoughts and in our desires.
As this day begins Christ walk beside us,
Show us the love only you can give,
Show us the light only you can provide,
Show us the wholeness only you can reveal.
As this day begins Christ surround us,
Circle us with your presence,
Keep protection near and danger far,
Bring us the assurance of your love."
- Celtic prayer

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Hospitality

"I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.” - Attributed to Richard Hooker

 

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Celtic saints on how to live a Christian life.... (2)

If you persevere unhindered in meditation and prayer to the blessed Trinity, God will be ever with you. ~ St. Ita

Three things that please God are true faith in God with a pure heart, a simple life with a greatful spirit, and generosity inspired by charity. ~ St. Ita 

It is better to rejoice than to mourn. ~ St. Brendan

 

Live in mutual harmony with all other servants of Christ. ~ St. Cuthbert

 

Do not despise those faithful who come to you seeking hospitality. Receive them, put them up, and set them on their way with kindness, treating them as one of yourselves. ~ St. Cuthbert

Do not ever think yourselves better than the rest of your companions who share the same faith. ~ St. Cuthbert

Image "Necropolis, Glasgow, Scotland" courtesy of  Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

Celtic saints on how to live a Christian life.... (1)

See in each herb and small animal, every bird and beast, and in each man and woman, the eternal Word of God. ~ St. Ninian

 

Be at peace, and have genuine charity among yourselves. If you follow the example of the holy fathers, God, the comforter of all good, will be your helper.  ~ St. Columba (Columcille)

Always preserve divine charity among yourselves. ~ St. Cuthbert

Be joyful, brothers and sisters. Keep your faith and do the little things. ~ St. David

Image "Necropolis, Glasgow, Scotland" courtesy of  Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 
 

Christians and non violence

"The whole point of Christianity, on a personal level, is a refusal to use violence even in self-defence and even when one's own life is threatened. For centuries, this radical nonviolence was celebrated by the church in its canonisation of martyrs...Martyrdom was the first and ultimate form of nonviolent resistance to injustice and, like the Christian-rooted civil rights movement or Gandhi's campaign for independence, it was precisely this staggering refusal to defend oneself... that changed global consciousness. It was what made Christians different." - Andrew Sullivan  (http://ht.ly/hdH2P)

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Violence by Oscar Romero

“We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.” - Oscar A. Romero

Poem of the day...

Mindful by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

 

  Image "Yellow Cosmos Flower And Blue Sky" courtesy of Sura Nualpradid / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

RS Thomas poem

'Waiting' by R.S. Thomas

Yeats said that. Young
I delighted in it:
There was time enough.

Fingers burned, heart
seared, a bad taste
in the mouth, I read him

again, but without trust
any more. What counsel
has the pen's rhetoric

to impart? Break mirrors, stare
ghosts in the face, try
walking without crutches

at the grave's edge? Now,
in the small hours
of belief the one eloquence

to master is that
of the bowed head, the bent
knee, waiting, as at the end

of a hard winter
for one flower to open
on the mind's tree of thorns.

R S Thomas

 (Welsh poet and priest)

The bible

"People always took the literal sense of the Bible seriously, but a literal reading was only one of the senses in which they took the Bible... What is new in our era is the idea of isolating one, single literal sense of the Bible -- and declaring that the only way to read the Bible is literally. That's actually new in the whole history of the Bible." ~ Karen Armstrong 

Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My book on wholeness and the fruits of the spirit

In the letter to the Galatians in the New Testament St Paul outlines the fruits that can be expected to be present in the lives of believers as a gift from the Holy Spirit.

In this book I look at what each of the gifts of the spirit involves and how together they indicate what to be fully human means.

Wholeness is a word often used today and I explains that wholeness is the result of these spiritual gifts becoming our normal way of life. Jesus came to bring fullness of life and in this book this special life that is open to all is explained.

This book has been described as a spiritual treasure, and though it is a short book ( just under 16,000 words) it is full of practical wisdom that comes from my long experience of ministry in the church.

To purchase for your kindle in the UK click here

To purchase this book for your Kindle in the USA click here

The book is now available on Amazon in paperback as well as a Kindle download.

To see the amazon page in the USA click here

or to see the Amazon page in the UK click here.

Seen on facebook

A friend put this as their facebook status today and I liked it....

Our faith may waiver. Our hope may stumble. But love, the DNA of God himself, will never fail us. It's God's love that renews our faith and our hope in our weakness and times of need. "Come - all who are weary - come into God's love and you will find rest for your soul."

  Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

An inspiring quote

Desmond Tutu the influential African bishop said:          

"You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God."

Collateral damage

If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a "suspected terrorist" is inside . . . , the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is "inevitable." So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians. And when you consider that the number of innocent people dying inevitably in "accidental" events has been far, far greater than all the deaths deliberately caused by terrorists, one must reject war as a solution for terrorism.

Howard Zinn

Christianity misrepresented

The passage below is a quotation from a blog written by Rev Sally Coleman

Only recently I heard someone say - "if we truly lived as Jesus wanted us to then we would be a strange buttoned up, straight laced group of people that would confuse and repel others....."

How could anyone who has read the Gospels believe that? When I hear things like this I want to weep with frustration and anguish and anger, yes anger that we have told ourselves such lies, that we have loaded one another with so many burdens of how to and what to that we stumble around under the weight of them, and in the midst of all this confusion and stumbling we wonder amongst ourselves why we are not attracting new members! Then we feel bad and so we plan and scheme and work and strive and frankly we wear ourselves out, we take on new initiatives and struggle to keep them afloat....

Good point Sally.

Blessing

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.

- Irish blessing

Love your neighbour as you love yourself

All human beings like being treated well. So often in our modern world people treat others with discourtesy, disrespect and downright rudeness. Being treated well gives you a boost and makes you feel good.

Last week I made a long train trip and booked using a special internet offer code. As a result I got a first class ticket at a bargain price. In first class the service I received was superb. 
I had never before experienced first class! In your seat you had complimentary drinks offered and complimentary food served all day by the carriage steward. This is not the way to take a trip if you are on a diet! It makes you feel good to be pampered and treated well. The seats are wider than those in ordinary carriages and also recline. I have been on long train journeys which can be a nightmare where you spend the trip longing for the agony to be over.
The trade off we have to understand is that good service costs. If we feel virtuous about getting the best possible deal and paying the lowest possible price for everything then we cannot expect the overworked staff,  inevitably be on minimum wage, to offer the best customer service. Like all of life we get what we pay for. You cannot expect a stranger to pamper you for free!
I find it challenging to wonder if I always treat people I meet in the best way that I can? Especially when I am tired at the end of a long day I know that I am not as nice to others as I want them to be towards me. 

A prayer from Sri Lanka

O God,

make me a human being who is

strong-minded

imaginative

level-headed

sympathetic

a human who knows his mind

and is not afraid to speak it.

Amen

New Zealand Lord's prayer

Father and mother of us all,

Loving God, in whom is heaven;

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!

The way of your justice be followed

by the peoples of the world!

Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!

Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth!

With the bread we need for today, feed us.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

In the times of temptation and test strengthen us.

From trial too great to endure, spare us.

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.

Amen

From a New Zealand prayer book