:To Still the Striving:

Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendour of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. ~ abraham heschel

"i have not been called to be successful... but only to be faithful." ~ mother theresa

the nature of faith, true faith, is a mystery to me, excepting that i have experienced it. on rare occasion it felt pure ~ it is like... peace. Being faith-full _is_ being faithful to what you've been given to work with, and we have all been given enough somehow, i think, to Believe in Life and move forward as faithful people, whether we have "all the information" or not / Being faithful is Being, being _connected_ (oneness... with all the pieces of one's life?) How many people, i wonder, live ---INTEGRATED--- "

(sept7,04)

To Still The Striving: Lily

even the lilies of the field

have growth pains-- bursts of

desire:

   the touch of sunlight

   the nearness of neighbor

   the feel of whisping grasses.

their bells, like ears, enjoy

a perpetual tide of soft change:

a)n almost im(perceptible music.

remember sped-up science videos

of growth, of opening flowers?

remember how sometimes

tiny bits of struggling botany got stuck

together? how stretching meant

  ^  sep  ^  par  ^  rat  ^  ting  ^ 

things that were tangled, meant delicately

detaching disbalanced (s)well(s) where

process had outgrown symmetry, where

millions of the infinite places

flesh|metselfsame|flesh sought freedom

such that still only one remained,

more glorious than had it ceased its struggle.

slowly. silently. quietly content,

tongued petals unfurl.

reach out. invert themselves

vulnerably to elemental warmth,

nature's nourishing.

see? the lilies of the field

desire,

but worry not:

   they are content in sure hope,

   for our Creator is a loving provider.

why seek the discontented destruction of trust

in unachievable self-sufficiency?

Let Us Be

Still.

marykathryn gough/ edit.jan30.06 / edit.sept30.10

Not consecrated service, but concentrated. Consecration would soon be changed into sanctification if we would only concentrate on what God wants. Concentration means pinning down the four corners of the mind until it is settled on what God wants. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is child's play; the interpretation by the Holy Spirit is the stern work on a saint, and it requires concentration. ~ oswald chambers