Poets & Saints

Joel 2:12–13 (NRSVUE)

Yet even now, says the LORD,  

return to me with all your heart,  

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;  

rend your hearts and not your clothing.  

Return to the LORD, your God,  

for he is gracious and merciful,  

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

I return to what is true.

Augustine of Hippo

Remember, you are dust.  

Yet you are dust breathed upon by God.

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Psalm 103:14 (NRSVUE)

For he knows how we were made;  

he remembers that we are dust.

I am learning to receive my limits.

Meister Eckhart

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life  

is thank you,  

it will be enough.

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Joshua 3:5 (NRSVUE)

Then Joshua said to the people,  

“Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”

I am learning to return.

T. S. Eliot

What we call the beginning is often the end  

And to make an end is to make a beginning.  

The end is where we start from.

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Psalm 4:8 (NRSVUE)

I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.

Tomorrow is held.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

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Proverbs 3:5–6 (NRSVUE)

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,  

and do not rely on your own insight.  

In all your ways acknowledge him,  

and he will make straight your paths.

I choose trust today.

Charles R. Swindoll

“We must cease striving and trust God to provide what He thinks is best and in whatever time He chooses to make it available. But this kind of trusting doesn't come naturally. It's a spiritual crisis of the will in which we must choose to exercise faith.”

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Isaiah 30:15 (NRSVUE)

“For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel:

In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

You are near.

Thomas Merton

“In a world of noise, confusion and conflict – it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.”

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Habakkuk 3:17–18

Though the fig tree does not bud

    and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

    and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

    and no cattle in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

I trust what remains.

Václav Havel

“The kind of hope that I often think about…

I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world.

Either we have hope within us, or we don’t. 

It is a dimension of the soul

It’s not essentially dependent upon some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well,

but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

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Psalm 62:8 (NRSVUE)

Trust in him at all times, O people;  

pour out your heart before him;  

God is a refuge for us.

I release what I cannot carry.

Richard Rohr

“Religion has largely become ‘holding on’ instead of letting go. God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go.” 

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Romans 8:24–25

24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

I listen for what is true.

Howard Thurman, 

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.  

It is the only true guide you will ever have.  

And if you cannot hear it,  

you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings  

that somebody else pulls.”

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Isaiah 43:2 (NRSVUE)

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;  

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;  

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,  

and the flame shall not consume you.

I am not alone in this.

Thomas Merton

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going.  

What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment,  

and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

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