Poets & Saints

2 Corinthians 4:16 (NRSVUE)  

So we do not lose heart.  

Even though our outer nature is wasting away,  

our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

God gives me strength for today.

Howard Thurman  

“There is in every person something that waits and listens  

for the sound of the genuine in herself.  

It is the only true guide you will ever have.  

And if you cannot hear it,  

you will spend all of your days  

on the ends of strings  

that someone else pulls.  

But when you find that strength,  

you will endure with grace.”  

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Psalm 13:1 (NRSVUE)  

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?  

How long will you hide your face from me?

In silence, I lean closer.

Mother Teresa  

“We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  

God is the friend of silence.  

See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence.  

See the stars, the moon and the sun,  

how they move in silence…  

We need silence to be able to touch souls.”  

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Mark 4:27 (NRSVUE)  

Night and day, while the farmer sleeps and rises,  

the seed sprouts and grows—he does not know how.

Even now, God is growing something in me.

Rainer Maria Rilke  

“Everything is gestation and then bringing forth.  

To let each impression and each seed of a feeling  

come to completion entirely in itself,  

in the dark,  

in the unsayable,  

the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding,  

and with deep humility and patience to wait  

for the hour when a new clarity is born:  

this alone is living the artist’s life—  

in understanding as in creating.”  

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Isaiah 30:18 (NRSVUE)  

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;  

therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.  

For the Lord is a God of justice;  

blessed are all those who wait for him.

God is not in a hurry. And He is not far.

Henri Nouwen  

“Patience is not waiting passively until something happens.  

Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest,  

to be completely present to the moment,  

to taste the here and now,  

to be where we are.  

When we are impatient,  

we try to get away from where we are.  

We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow,  

later, and somewhere else.  

Let’s be patient and trust  

that the treasure we look for is hidden  

in the ground on which we stand.”  

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Psalm 27:4 (NRSVUE)  

One thing I asked of the Lord,  

that will I seek after:  

to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,  

to behold the beauty of the Lord,  

and to inquire in his temple.

Beauty is how God speaks to my soul.

St. John of the Cross  

“I did not know the source of the stream  

that flowed so gently and sweetly within me.  

But in its clarity I came to see:  

the Beloved was near.  

And in that beauty,  

my soul became still,  

and the stillness spoke more than words.”

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Acts 17:28 (NRSVUE)  

For “In him we live and move and have our being”;  

as even some of your own poets have said,  

“For we too are his offspring.”

God is here. Everywhere. Always.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  

“There is nothing profane  

for those who have learned to see.  

The presence of God  

is not more in the sanctuary  

than it is in the city street,  

or in the quiet breath before sleep.

We are not waiting for the sacred to appear—  

we are learning to recognize it.”  

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Luke 24:32 (NRSVUE)  

They said to each other,  

“Were not our hearts burning within us  

while he was talking to us on the road,  

while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

My heart burns with divine presence.

Frederick Buechner  

“Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye  

or a lump in your throat.  

They are signs that the holy is drawing near.  

God speaks through our hunger,  

our ache,  

our awe.  

And sometimes,  

a burning heart is the clearest sign  

that He has been walking beside us all along.”  

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Psalm 8:3–4 (NIV)  

When I consider your heavens,  

the work of your fingers,  

the moon and the stars,  

which you have set in place,  

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,  

human beings that you care for them?

Let wonder wake me to God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel  

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement...  

to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.  

Everything is phenomenal;  

everything is incredible;  

never treat life casually.  

To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

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Ephesians 1:18 (NRSVUE)  

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened,  

so that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you,  

what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.

God, open the eyes of my heart.

St. Augustine  

“Late have I loved you, Beauty so old and so new,  

late have I loved you!  

And see, you were within me, and I was in the external world  

and sought you there,  

and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things  

which you made.  

You were with me,  

but I was not with you.”

Open our eyes, O God,  

to the beauty that has always been near.

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Luke 22:42 (NRSVUE)  

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me;  

yet, not my will but yours be done.”

I let go, and God holds what I release.

Kahlil Gibran, from *The Prophet*  

“You would know the secret of death.  

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

For life and death are one,  

even as the river and the sea are one.  

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;  

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow,  

your heart dreams of spring.”  

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