Angels In The Marketplace

Angels In The Marketplace

Sometimes I see angels standing 
in the marketplace.

And sometimes I see you
and someone 
is trying to convince you to build 
a house here, on Earth,
but you are not really meant for that. 

This other world hopes for your delight 
and contains all the ingredients for it. 

            Interesting thought by Hafiz, that "the other world contains all your ingredients for delight". For many I have heard that this notion is exactly what provides them with great hope and comfort about the trials of this imperfect world. Two bible verses recommended in church today to deal with suffering were:

James 1:2-4 (NIV): "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Romans 5:3-5 (NIV): "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." 

God is God, Steven Curtis Chapman

Invisible Thoughts

How is it that invisible thoughts can lift heavy matter and build cities and armies and altars? 


      Contemplate this today, the day we remember the lives taken too soon in the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001. Extend kindness to others, do "good works" before you're asked, and live with gratitude.

Annual memorial lights of the Twin Tours 

There Is A Face Here

There Is A Face Here

Don't you know you could bring an end
to so much suffering,

if you just walked through the streets,
looking at everyone, 
as you do your Beloved? 

There is an enchanting face here, 
if you can slow down,
and behold in an extraordinary way. 

        How do you look at your Beloved? At others? At yourself?

"I would describe myself

like a landscape I've studied

at length, in detail;

like a word I'm coming to understand;

like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;

like my mother's face;

like a ship that carried me

when the waters raged." 

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 13

When God Made You, Newsong

That Does Not Know Sadness

That Does Not Know Sadness

You entered form to give a holy message.
An envoy from inconceivable is each of us. 

When you have completed that courageous task
you will be able to return to a world
that does not sadness. 

But so difficult your divine errand, 
it will take a lifetime to accomplish,
love along the way. 

        Essentially, this poem is saying in this world we will know loneliness, pain, despair, misfortune, sadness, fear, etc., but in Heaven these things will disappear. Conversely, this task of ours, life, will take a lifetime to accomplish (literally be an unfinished masterpiece until our final breath), and through it we must endure these things, while taking the time to love along the way.

         In Rilke's letters to Franz Xaver Kappus contained his perspective on suffering, prompted by Kappus asking for advice on the matter: "If only we could see a little farther than our knowledge reaches and a little beyond the borders of our intuition, we might perhaps bear our sorrows more trustingly than we do our joys. For they are the moments when something new enters us, something unknown. So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don't know what work they are accomplishing within you?"

Don't Laugh At Me, Peter, Paul, & Mary