September 27, 2021

O  MY  GOD!

 

Sometimes
when  something
amazing happens
we say, "Oh my God!"

I'd rather think
that God loves it
when we do something
extraordinary and amazing!

 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021

September   27,  2021 

 

Thought for the Day

 “Last night I spent an hour in the dark transept of St. Patrick’s Cathedral where I go now and then in my more lonely moods. An old argument with me is that the true religious force in the world is not the church but the world itself: the mysterious callings of Nature and our responses. What incessant murmurs fill that ever-laboring tireless church!  But to-day in my walk I thought that after all there is no conflict but rather a contrast. In the cathedral I felt one presence; on the highway I felt another.  Two different deities presented themselves: and, though I have only cloudy visions of either, yet I now feel the distinction between them.  The priest in me worshipped one God at one shrine; the poet another God at another shrine. The priest worshipped Mercy and Love; the poet, Beauty and Might.  In the shadows of the church I could hear the prayers of men and women;  in the shadows of the trees nothing human mingled with Divinity.  As I sat dreaming with the Congregation I felt how the glittering altar worked on my senses stimulating and consoling them; and as I went tramping through the fields and woods I beheld every leaf and blade of grass revealing or rather betokening the Invisible.”

 

Wallace Stevens, Journal

September 26, 2021 

WHENEVER

 
I enjoy who I am,
therefore I enjoy
wherever I am,
whenever I am.
 
How about you?
Do you like
who you are,
wherever you are?
 
If not, sit down
and I’ll listen.

 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021

September   26,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

 

“The almost religious reverence for wood is, fortunately for us, among the many traditions that have stood the test of time.  A tree, like other natural phenomena, is believed to possess a spirit, and a carpenter,  when he cuts down a tree, incurs a moral debt.  One of the themes that runs throughout Japanese culture is the belief that nature exacts from man a price for coexistence. A carpenter must put a tree to uses that assure  its continued existence, preferably as a thing of beauty to be treasured for centuries.  There is a prayer that Nishioka recites before laying a saw to a standing tree.  It goes in part,  “I vow to commit no act that will extinguish the life of this tree.”

 

S. Azby Brown,

The Genius of Japanese Carpentry

 September 25,  2021

FOUR  SEASONS

It's a blessing to live
in a place that will give
you four seasons.
So no complaining
if that's what you get.
Enjoy the rain, the wind,
the snow and the golden
glow of autumn leaves.

Pause to see the naked

trees of winter - and the

budding trees of spring.

Let your face feel the 

summer rains - and the

sound of boots in the 

wet grass - the flood of 

water when out west 

it's all dry, fire and hot, 

hot heat on the back porch - 

with laziness as is the 

prevailing mood.

September   25,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

"Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”

 

Emily Dickinson, Letters

September 24, 2021

PATHS  THROUGH  THE  WOODS

 

As you pass through the woods,
as you path your way through life,
may every twist and turn splash
buckets and buckets and buckets
of green beauty all over you –
with gray blue mist above you –
surrounded by a symphony orchestra 

of birds and gulping and gasping water –
flowing and falling its way through
rocks – crevices – openings. Be 

careful of broken branches. Don't

slide or trip on dark wet earth – 

as you make your way through 

the woods – either on your way 

home or you’re heading down 

to the waters to the sea to see.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021