A word in inch-wise...

Ran across these poems and quotes from "All That is Good", while spring cleaning. Decided to immortalize them in blog form.

And what is a merciful heart? It is the heart's burning for men, for birds, for animals and even for demons. At the remembrance and at the sight of them, the merciful man's eyes fill with tears which arise at the great compassion that urges his heart. It grows tender and cannot endure hearing or seeing any injury or slight sorrow for anything in creation. Because of this, such a man continually offers tearful prayer, even for irrational animals and for enemies of truth and all who harm it, that they may be guarded and forgiven."
        -St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies


All things desire to be like God,
and infinite space is a mirror
that tries
to reflect his body.

But it can't.
All that infinite existence can show us of Him
is only an atom of God's
being.

God stood behind Himself one night and cast a
brilliant shadow from which creation
came.

Even this shadow is such a flame that
moths consume their selves in it every second -
with their sacred passion to possess
beautiful
forms.

Existence mirrors God the best it can,
though how arrogant for any image in that mirror,
for any human being, to
think they know
His will;

for His will has never been spoken,
His voice would ignite
the earth's wings

and all upon
it.

We invent truths about God to protect ourselves
from the wolf's cries we hear
and make.

All things desire to be like God,
all things desire to
love.
                                - St. Thomas of Aquinas, All Things Desire


To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me -
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.
                                  - Langston Hughes, Dream Variations


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
                     -Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken




To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
             - William Blake, The Divine Image (A Song of Innocence)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which yet thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more, must flow
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men
And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
                - John Donne, Death Be Not Proud (Holy Sonnet 10)


It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness down in its tranquility;
The genteleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder -- everlastingly.
Dear Child! Dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at teh Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
              --William Wordsworth, It Is a Beauteous Evening


action...
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a certain way...you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
                   - Aristotle



conversation...
Not life, but GOOD LIFE, is to be chiefly valued.
                  - Socrates