I so admire the work of Etty Hillesum – the depth of her spirituality in the face of the Nazi death camps was extraordinary. On this day, Memorial Day, that we celebrate the women and men who have fought to protect us, we pray for the day when we may all experience peace and we will “study war no more.” Perhaps Etty can show us a way there.
Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: the Journal of a Young Jewish Woman
This globe at the U.N. building in New York expresses the hope of peace in our world
To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything [God]has given us…and [God] has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of [God’s] love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from [God].
– Thomas Merton
Gratefulness for the vineyards that bring us the fruit of the vine
To find the kingdom is the easiest thing in the world but also the most difficult. Easy because it is all around you and within you, and all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it. Difficult because if you wish to possess the kingdom you may possess nothing else.
The best escape may be being present to what is in the here and now. But, oh, what a challenge!
The crowded bus, the long queue, the railway platform, the traffic jam, the neighbor’s television sets, the heavy-footed people on the floor above you, the person who still keeps getting the wrong number on your phone. These are the real conditions of your desert. Do not allow yourself to be irritated. Do not try to escape. Do not postpone your prayer. Kneel down. Enter that disturbed solitude. Let your silence be spoiled by those sounds. It is the beginning of your desert.
I remember reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson when I was in high school (seems like ages ago!). It seems we still have not learned from her wisdom.
The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Artist’s rendition of the Descent of the Holy Spirit – found in Sopra Minerva,a church in Rome
Today, on the Feast of Pentecost which signals the end of the Easter Season, I offer a poem offered among the Easter resources from Education for Justice. It was written by Richard Rolle in the14th Century. I appreciate Scott Cairns information that allowed me to correct the source material.
God’s Love
O Holy Spirit, Who breathes
where You will, breathe into me
and draw me to Yourself.
Invest the nature You have shaped,
with gifts so flowing with honey that,
from intense joy in Your sweetness
this clay might turn from lesser things,
that it may accept (as You give them)
spiritual gifts, and through pleasing
jubilation, it may melt, entirely,
in holy love, reaching finally out
to touch the Uncreated Light.
Source: Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life, by Scott
Cairns. Brewster, MA:Paraclete Press, 2007. p. 105
This is not an original poem written by me. It is published in my collection of translations and adaptations from the writings of Christian mystics. This is not the first time that folks have failed to do their homework in attributing these and other of those poems; I’m hoping, however, that it might be the last. The text from which I constructed the poem was written in the 14th Century by Richard Rolle. My adaptation also employs lineation which the above text does not resemble. Just saying.
OPreach 