Sang my favorite Epiphany hymn this morning...it helps to be 'in good' with the hymn chooser :) To be fair, I do have an Excel data sheet on Google docs, so that the entire congregation may see that I utilize the entire hymnal over the year....
Had a pleasant dime-finding stroll down to Elliott Bay (which is moving to my neighborhood this year!) and got a new crossword book to stave off Alheizmers. A good day, all in all.
I should be doing more things to stave of Alzheimer's, since I have mislaid more things since coming home, moving the bedroom into the guest room, and unpacking. I'm driving myself crazy being unable to find simple things like hairbrushes and nail clippers.
ReplyDelete...!
um, isn't moving up there with death and divorce on the life stress scale? And moving, even across the hallway, is stressing!
ReplyDelete"Welcoming Angels," by Pat Schneider from Long Way Home (Amherst Writers and Artists Press).
ReplyDeleteBetween the last war
and the next one,
waiting for the northbound train
that travels by the river,
I sit alone in the middle of the night
and welcome angels.
Welcome back old hymns, old songs,
all the music, the rhyme and rhythm,
welcome angels, archangels,
welcome early guesses
at the names of things,
welcome wings.
I have grown tired of disbelief.
What once was brave is boring.
Welcome back to my embrace stranger,
visitor beside the Jabbok.
Welcome wrestling until dawn,
until it is my hip thrown out of joint,
my pillow stone, my ladder
of antique assumptions.
Welcome what is not my own;
glory on the top rung, coming down.
LIFE
ReplyDelete~ by, Charlotte Bronte
Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily
Enjoy them as they fly!
What though Death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!