timeforINRI

 While on my lonely couch I lie, I seldom feel myself alone, For fancy fills my dreaming eye With scenes and pleasures of its own. Then I may cherish at my breast An infant's form beloved and fair, May smile and soothe it into rest With all a Mother's fondest care. How sweet to feel its helpless form Depending thus on me alone! And while I hold it safe and warm What bliss to think it is my own! And glances then may meet my eyes That daylight never showed to me; What raptures in my bosom rise, Those earnest looks of love to see, To feel my hand so kindly prest, To know myself beloved at last, To think my heart has found a rest, My life of solitude is past! But then to wake and find it flown, The dream of happiness destroyed, To find myself unloved, alone, What tongue can speak the dreary void? A heart whence warm affections flow, Creator, thou hast given to me, And am I only thus to know How sweet the joys of love would be? Anne Brontë Here I am to Worship

                             GOOD AT THE CENTER We don't become cheerful by avoiding what is painful. In fact, one of the surprising things is that some of the most cheerful people you meet are those most often confronted with tragic circumstances. The source of the cheerful heart is the conviction that our existence and the world as God created it are, at the centre, good. That God is working continuously not only for good but also for our good. That beneath all the misery and pain of our common lives is the reality of grace working towards a predestined good. If you can believe that, you can maintain a cheerful heart that will be both medicine to you and everyone around you. Eugene H. Peterson Here I am to Worship

 In a stage-coach, where late I chanced to be, A little quiet girl my notice caught; I saw she looked at nothing by the way, Her mind seemed busy on some childish thought. I with an old man's courtesy addressed The child, and called her pretty dark-eyed maid, And bid her turn those pretty eyes and see The wide extended prospect. 'Sir,' she said, 'I cannot see the prospect, I am blind.' Never did tongue of child utter a sound So mournful, as her words fell on my ear. Her mother then related how she found Her child was sightless. On a fine bright day She saw her lay her needlework aside, And, as on such occasions mothers will, For leaving off her work began to chide. 'I'll do it when 'tis daylight, if you please, I cannot work, mamma, now it is night.' The sun shone bright upon her when she spoke, And yet her eyes received no ray of light. Charles Lamb Christians

 The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own. But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. Maya Angelou Here I am to Wors

 Holy God, Why is it so easy to fear the circumstances of life-  worry about financial security or bodily health,    anxieties over acceptance-         and yet so easy to neglect or dismiss             a healthy fear of the Lord?  Help me to surrender my little fears to you,   that you might transform them before me. Renew in me the fear of the Lord     that children feel so naturally, that I might once again have the courage   to face the world with wonder, knowing you are leading me through it. Eugene H. Peterson Climb God's Mountain

 Someone inside says, "Get busy." But I've got appointments to keep, I have an abstemious love of equations calculated quickly While the tepid day melts into design. And the high cheekbones of the beautiful life Bear the loose look of a calendar by lamplight. I search for patterns in everything. I am tied in knots of comprehension. I think, how useful it might be To pierce all the hands of the earth With an oath of pins encircling snarling planets But talent and shallowness sewn together Is nothing but a kerchief tied around a survivalist's head, And it helps to know the feet wriggling through a hole In the universe will land for an instant Upon the cushions of the dark, And that after marching one doozy of a kilometer after another, We each come upon the same poem scribbled in invisible ink Taped to the door of a room In which an austere justice is burning for us. Noelle Kocot Here I am to Worship

 Prophets use words to remake the world. The world-heaven and earth, men and women, animals and birds-was made in the first place by God's word. Prophets, arriving on the scene found that world in ruins, finding a world of moral rubble and spiritual disorder, take up the work of words again to rebuild what human disobedience and mistrust have demolished. These prophets learn their speech from God. Their words are God grounded, God energized, God passionate. As their words enter the language of specific communities, women and men find themselves  in the presence of God, who enters the mess of human sin to rebuke and renew. Left to ourselves we turn God into an object, something we can deal with, something we can use to our benefit, whether that thing is a feeling or an idea or an image. Prophets scorn all such stuff. They train us to respond to God's presence and voice. Eugene H. Peterson Climb God's Mountain

Mary, sweet peace and dearest consolation of suffering mortal: you are the fount whence springs the current of solicitude that brings unto our soil unceasing fecundation. From your abode, enthroned on heaven's height, in mercy deign to hear my cry of woe and to the radiance of your mantle draw my voice that rises with so swift a flight. You are my mother, Mary, and shall be my life, my stronghold, my defense most thorough; and you shall be my guide on this wild sea. If vice pursues me madly on the morrow, if death harasses me with agony: come to my aid and dissipate my sorrow! Jose Rizal All That Is Gold

 Child, child, love while you can The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man, Never fear though it break your heart - Out of the wound new joy will start; Only love proudly and gladly and well Though love be heaven or love be hell. Child, child, love while you may, For life is short as a happy day; Never fear the thing you feel - Only by love is life made real; Love, for the deadly sins are seven, Only through love will you enter heaven. Sara Teasdale Here I am to Worship

 As you are Young, if you'l be also Wise, Danger with Honour court, Quarrels despise; Believe you then are truly Brave and Bold, To Beauty when no Slave, and less to Gold; When Vertue you dare own, not think it odd, Or ungenteel to say, I fear a God. Anne Killigrew Here I am to Worship