Poets & Saints

John 15:7–8 (NRSVUE)

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Fruit grows when I remain.

Frederick Buechner, from Wishful Thinking

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

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John 15:5 (NRSVUE)

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

I am rooted in the vine.

John of the Cross, from The Ascent of Mount Carmel

"The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union."

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John 15:4 (NRSVUE)

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I choose to abide.

Thomas R. Kelly, from A Testament of Devotion

"For God Himself works in our souls, in the deepest depths, taking increasing control as we are progressively willing to be prepared for His wonder."

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Galatians 5:22–25 (NRSVUE)

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

I walk in step with the Spirit.

Thomas R. Kelly, from A Testament of Devotion

"There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship, and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings."

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1 John 4:18 (NRSVUE)

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Love has moved in where fear used to live.

Julian of Norwich, from Revelations of Divine Love

"Love was His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. What showed He thee? Love. Wherefore was it showed? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end."

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Galatians 5:13 (NRSVUE)

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become servants to one another.

Free to love, I turn toward others.

Dorothy Day, from The Long Loneliness

"We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community."

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Galatians 5:1 (NRSVUE)

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

I have nothing left to prove.

Henri Nouwen, from The Return of the Prodigal Son

"Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved. Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence."

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Galatians 5:13–14 (NRSVUE)

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

I was made for this freedom.

Meister Eckhart

"The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own."

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Philippians 1:6 (NRSVUE)

I am confident of this,  

that the one who began a good work among you  

will bring it to completion  

by the day of Jesus Christ.

I am learning to trust what is unfinished.

R. S. Thomas

There are nights when the darkness presses so close  

that I can hear my own heart questioning.  

I have learned not to force an answer,  

not to demand a voice.

Faith is not the absence of uncertainty,  

but the decision to live with it,  

to continue without seeing,  

to remain when clarity does not come.

I stay, not because I understand,  

but because something in me knows  

this waiting is itself a form of prayer.

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Hebrews 10:36 (NRSVUE)

For you need endurance,  

so that when you have done the will of God,  

you may receive what was promised.

I am learning to stay in the middle.

Henri Nouwen

Every time you listen with great attentiveness  

to the voice that calls you the Beloved,  

you will discover within yourself  

a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply.

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