To Be Chosen

"It is a high honor for a woman to be chosen from among all womankind to be the wife of a good and true man."

J.R. Miller

Midsummer Warning

By Ogden Nash

August is suburn and moonlight,
August's a menace to men;
When the casual canoer discovers l'amouer,
August has done it again.
August is moonlight and sunburn,
When the bachelor sows what he reaps;
His sunburn will finally unburn,
But he's burned in the moonlight for keeps.

To a Friend who sent me some Roses

AS late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert; - when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me
My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.

~Keats

Of Rime and Reason

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

--G.K.Chesterton

Pembroke

Psalm 122 (Going to Church)

How pleas'd and blest was I
To hear the people cry,
"Come let us see God today!"
"Come let us see God today!"
Yes, with a cheerful zeal,
We haste to Zion's hill,
And thereour vows and honours pay.

Zion, thrice happy place,
Adorn'd with wondous grace,
And walls of strength embrace thee round,
And walls of strength embrace thee round;
In thee our tribes appear
To pray, and praise, and hear
The sacred gospel's joyful sound.

May peace attend thy gate,
And joy within thee wait
To bless the soul of ev'ry guest,
To bless the soul of ev'ry guest!
The man that seeks thy peace,
And wishes thine increase,
A thousand blessings on him rest!

"Absence make the heart grow fonder."

"Absence make the heart grow fonder." Where does this saying come from?

The Roman poet Sextus Propertius gave us the earliest form of this saying in Elegies:
"Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows."

and, again:

"passion is always warmer towards absent lovers."

But, as one newspaper reported once pointed out, "How can you reconcile the statement that ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’ with ‘Out of sight, out of mind’?"

Nay, it is not the absence which is the thing, but the end of absence, the reunion, that is the joy. An absence creates longing, desire.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life."
~Proverbs 13:12

If your absent was forever, if you didn't know when you would meet again, ... well perhaps people do pine away. But a return and a reunion between peoples is a joy and often a celebration. Thats why we (my sisters and I) dance when we meet again after being away from one another.

An absence between two hearts also may reveal the level of affection. Do you miss one another? Or do you find yourself forgetting about the other? Time spent apart gives way to thoughts of the other, hopefully clear headed thoughts, undistracted thoughts. To be absent, then, is a good thing.

"Absence is to love as wind is to fire; It extinguishes the small and inflames the great."- Roger de Bussy-Rabutin.

A Call to Repentance

"Come, and let us return to the Lord;
For He has torn, but He will hear us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latteer and former rain to the earth.
~Hosea 6:1-3

Lord, have mercy.

On the fourth of July, I reflected on our country. Our fatherland. We have strayed far from where we have begun. We've left the Lord and followed Folly down the dark path. We have not remembered the Lord's commands and have not kept them. As I read Hosea this morning, I was struck at how the Lord dealt with Israel in a similar situation.

Lady Liberty, heed the voice of your fathers. Turn away from false idols and leave your harlotry. Return to the Lord who made heaven and earth. Return to the Almighty God and receive salvation.