Poets & Saints

Hebrews 5:12–14 (NRSVUE)

You need milk, not solid food;

for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant,

is unskilled in the word of righteousness.

But solid food is for the mature,

for those whose faculties have been trained by practice

to distinguish good from evil.

I am ready for what once would have overwhelmed me.

St. John of the Cross, from Dark Night of the Soul

"The soul, after it has been definitely converted to the service of God, is, as a rule, spiritually nurtured and caressed by God, even as is the tender child by its loving mother, who warms it with the heat of her bosom and nurtures it with sweet milk and soft and pleasant food, and carries it and caresses it in her arms; but, as the child grows bigger, the mother gradually ceases caressing it, and, hiding her tender love, puts bitter aloes upon her sweet breast, sets down the child from her arms and makes it walk upon its feet, so that it may lose the habits of a child and betake itself to more important and substantial occupations."

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Philippians 3:13–14 (NRSVUE)

Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;

but this one thing I do:

forgetting what lies behind

and straining forward to what lies ahead,

I press on toward the goal

for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

I am always being drawn further in.

Gregory of Nyssa, from The Life of Moses

"Such an experience seems to me to belong to the soul which loves what is beautiful. Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. And the bold request which goes up the mountains of desire asks this: to enjoy the Beauty not in mirrors and reflections, but face to face."

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1 Corinthians 13:12 (NRSVUE)

For now we see in a mirror, dimly,

but then we will see face to face.

Now I know only in part;

then I will know fully,

even as I have been fully known.

The truth dazzles gradually, so that I may see.

Emily Dickinson, "Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant"

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant—

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind—"

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1 John 4:7–8 (NRSVUE)

Beloved, let us love one another,

because love is from God;

everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God,

for God is love.

Love is my refusal of cynicism.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

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Genesis 1:3 (NRSVUE)

Then God said, "Let there be light";

and there was light.

I was called out of the darkness.

David Bentley Hart, from You Are Gods

"From eternity, God has brought forth spiritual creatures into existence in the only way that such creatures could be formed: by calling them to ascend out of the darkness of nonbeing into the infinite beauty of the divine nature. To exist as a spiritual creature is simply to have heard and, from the first instant, responded to this total vocation. Creation is already deification—is, in fact, theogony. For that eternal act—that summoning of all created natures out of the primordial darkness—is most certainly an entirely free and unmerited gift of being, imparted to those who were not and who in themselves had no claim to be; but it is also, and no less originally, the call that awakens the gods."

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James 1:17 (NRSVUE)

Every generous act of giving,

with every perfect gift,

is from above,

coming down from the Father of lights.

It's all a gift.

Julian of Norwich, from Revelations of Divine Love

"And in this he showed me a little thing,

the quantity of a hazelnut,

lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed.

And it was as round as a ball.

I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding

and thought, 'What may this be?'

And it was answered generally thus:

'It is all that is made.'

I marveled how it might last,

for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness.

And I was answered in my understanding:

It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.

And so have all things their beginning

by the love of God."

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Genesis 15:5 (NRSVUE)

He brought him outside and said,

"Look toward heaven and count the stars,

if you are able to count them."

Then he said to him,

"So shall your descendants be."

Hope returns when I look up.

J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Return of the King

"Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.

The beauty of it smote his heart,

as he looked up out of the forsaken land,

and hope returned to him.

For like a shaft, clear and cold,

the thought pierced him

that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:

there was light and high beauty

for ever beyond its reach."

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Psalm 19:1 (NRSVUE)

The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.

Wendell Berry, from The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

"The Bible is best read and understood outdoors,

and the farther outdoors the better.

Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible,

outdoors seem merely natural.

This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders;

we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary

but the common mode of existence."

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Romans 13:13–14 (NRSVUE)

Let us live honorably as in the day,

not in reveling and drunkenness,

not in debauchery and licentiousness,

not in quarreling and jealousy.

Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ,

and make no provision for the flesh

to gratify its desires.

I want to spend my life knowing you.

Brian Zahnd, from Unseen Existences

"Lord, as much as I can mean anything,

I mean this prayer in this moment:

I want to spend the rest of my life

seeking to know you as you are revealed in Christ. Amen."

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Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NRSVUE)

Hear, O Israel:

The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.

You shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your might.

Even here, the prayers hold.

Jürgen Moltmann

"When we encounter insoluble problems and despair,

we must remember

that the Shema of Israel

and the Lord's Prayer

were prayed in Auschwitz."

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