Oiling The Hinges

"Take the time to pray -

it is the sweet oil that eases

the hinge into the garden

so the doorway can swing open easily. You can always go there."

Called To Love

Called To Love

“For one human being to love another,

That is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,

The ultimate, the last test and proof.

The work for which all other work is but preparation”

~Rainer Maria Rilke~

"Jesus, you told a powerful story of a person who stopped on a risky road to care for someone’s wounds. Help me also to stop at the unpleasant places in my life, to be present to those who need a touch of love, especially on those days when my life is moving hurriedly and intensely. Grant me the courage to be less fearful of reaching out and walking with others who need a gesture of kindness and care (Lk. 10:29-37)."  ~Joyce Rupp~ 

Friendly Visit!

A Time To Talk ~ Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don’t stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven’t hoed,

And shout from where I am, what is it?

 No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-ended up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

Feast on your life!

Love After Love

Dereck Walcott

The time will come, when with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you.

all your life, whom you have ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Leaning On The Heart Of God

~Authored by Joyce Rupp~

“I am leaning on the heart of God. I am resting there is silence. All the turmoil that exhausts me is brought to bear on this great love.



No resistance or complaint is heard as I lean upon God’s welcome. There is gladness for my coming. There is comfort for my pain.


I lean, and lean, and lean upon this heart that hurts with me. Strength lifts the weight of my distress. Courage wraps around my troubles.


No miracle of instant recovery. No taking away life’s burdens. Yet, there is solace for my soul, and refuge for my exiled tears.


It is enough for me to know the heart of God is with me, full of mercy and compassion, tending to the wounds I bear.”

Experience Christ

"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justice;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his going graces;

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—

Christ—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces."

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

When have you experienced Christ through the presence of another human being?

The Practice of Getting Lost

Taken from An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor

“However you choose to do it, the practice of getting lost is both valuable and undervalued, at least by the North American culture most of us know best. In this culture, the point is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, even if that means you miss most of the territory, including the packed dirt under your feet.

Sometimes this is because you are doing at least five other things while you are in transit, including talking on the phone, listening to the radio, drinking a mocha latte, checking your text messages, telling your dog to get in the back seat, and checking out how good you look in your sunglasses by admiring yourself in the rearview mirror.


Once you become lost, everything but the dog and the telephone will become suddenly unimportant – the telephone because it may allow you to call someone who loves you enough to come find you, and the dog to keep you company while you wait. If you are not able to set priorities any other way, then getting lost may be the kick in the pants you have been waiting for.


You had better do it quickly, however since the growing popularity of Global Positioning Systems may soon make getting lost impossible to do. I think I understand the appeal. Following the instructions of a disembodied voice coming from your dashboard takes less time than pulling over to ask for directions or look at a map. Plus, it may be comforting to think that a big eye in the sky can see you no matter where you are, even though this will do nothing to prevent you from missing your turn or running into the car ahead of you…


You will think of other ways to get lost, or to accept that you really have gotten lost through no choice of your own. It can happen anywhere, in all kinds of ways. You can get lost on your way home. You can get lost looking for love. You can get lost between jobs. You can get lost looking for God. However it happens, take heart. Others before you have found a way in the wilderness, where there are as many angels as there are wild beasts, and plenty of other lost people too. All it takes is one of them to find you. All it takes is you to find one of them. However it happens, you could do worse than to kneel down and ask a blessing, remembering how many knees have kissed this altar before you.”