March Nineteenth

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in midair stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

-- Robert Frost
Image taken by photographer Gordon Parks, May 5, 1959

January Thirty-First

THANK YOU. The best prayer of all.

-- by the blog author
Photo from Life magazine archives of a monk praying, 1955, photographer was Gordon Parks

August The Eighteenth

LORD, We thank Thee for Thine inward voice,
Which ever and again calleth us away from the clamor and dusty strife of this life
Into the cool, quiet groves of eternity.

We thank Thee that close around us,
Ever pressing in upon our dim brains,
Is Thine eternal world, full of peace and joy.

We thank Thee that a hundred times a day
We may take refuge therein,
Feel Thy cool fingers soothing our fevered foreheads,
Look steadily into Thy quiet eyes,
Drink in unto our souls from that gaze
The strength and peace of eternity - Amen.

-- JOHN S. HOYLAND

Photograph by Gordon Parks, Life magazine archives, 1953