Poets & Saints

Isaiah 26:3 (NRSVUE)  

You keep in perfect peace  

those whose minds are stayed on you,  

because they trust in you.

My soul is held in stillness.

Rabindranath Tagore  

“The storm whispers,  

but the heart must listen for the stillness.  

Peace does not come when the world grows quiet.  

It comes when the soul grows deep.

Do not chase peace.  

Dig for it.  

Find it beneath your striving,  

beneath your fear.  

It has been waiting for you all along.”  

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Psalm 23:1 (NIV)  

The Lord is my shepherd,  

I lack nothing.

In God, I have enough.

Dallas Willard  

“The Lord is my Shepherd  

is a sentiment that has become so familiar  

we often miss the audacity of it.  

To say, 'I shall not want,'  

is to live as if everything I need  

will be provided  

when I need it—  

not in anxiety,  

but in sufficiency.  

Not in scarcity,  

but in trust.”

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Matthew 11:28 (NRSVUE)  

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,  

and I will give you rest.”

Rest is a sacred act of trust.

Wayne Muller  

“In the relentless busyness of modern life,  

we have lost the rhythm between work and rest.  

All life requires a rhythm of rest.  

There is rhythm in our waking and sleeping,  

there is rhythm in the way day follows night and night follows day.

We have forgotten the Sabbath,  

the day of rest,  

the gift of sacred stillness.  

It is not a reward for finishing.  

It is a gift given,  

whether we’ve finished or not.”  

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John 20:21 (NRSVUE)  

Jesus said to them again,  

“Peace be with you.  

As the Father has sent me,  

so I send you.”

I am sent in love to love.

Teresa of Avila  

“Christ has no body now but yours.  

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.  

Yours are the eyes with which he looks  

compassion on this world.  

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,  

yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.”

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Jude 1:1 (NRSVUE)  

To those who are called,  

who are beloved in God the Father  

and kept safe for Jesus Christ.

I am kept by Love that does not let go.

Julian of Norwich  

“God did not say, ‘You will not be troubled.’  

He did not say, ‘You will not be tempted, you will not be distressed.’  

But He said, ‘You will not be overcome.’

All shall be well,  

and all shall be well,  

and all manner of things shall be well.” 

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Luke 16:10 (NRSVUE)  

Whoever is faithful in a very little  

is faithful also in much;  

and whoever is dishonest in a very little  

is dishonest also in much.

In small things, I stay faithful.

Wendell Berry, from *Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front*  

“Every day do something  

that won’t compute.  

Love the Lord.  

Love the world.  

Work for nothing.  

Plant sequoias.  

Say that your main crop is the forest  

that you did not plant,  

that you will not live to harvest.  

Practice resurrection.”  

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Matthew 6:22 (NRSVUE)  

The eye is the lamp of the body.  

So, if your eye is healthy,  

your whole body will be full of light.

In simplicity, I find God again.

Thomas R. Kelly  

“Life is meant to be lived from a Center,  

a divine Center.  

Each of us can live such a life of amazing power and peace,  

of integration and confidence and simplicity.

We need not get frantic.  

He is at the helm.  

And when our little day is done  

we lie down quietly in peace,  

for all is well.”  

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Galatians 5:25 (NIV)  

Since we live by the Spirit,  

let us keep in step with the Spirit.

I move in rhythm with the Spirit.

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 spend your days on the ends of strings  

that someone else pulls.”  

The Spirit leads from within.  

Not with fear,  

but with the rhythm of grace.  

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Micah 6:8 (NRSVUE)  

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,  

and what does the Lord require of you  

but to do justice, and to love kindness,  

and to walk humbly with your God?

One step at a time, I walk with God.

Eugene Peterson  

“There is a great market for religious experience in our world;  

there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue,  

little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship  

in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.

But every step we take in the obedience of faith  

is a miracle of grace—  

a moment when eternity touches earth.”  

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Job 11:7 (NRSVUE)  

Can you fathom the mysteries of God?  

Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?

I am held by the mystery, not separate from it.

Thomas Merton  

“My Lord God,  

I have no idea where I am going.  

I do not see the road ahead of me.  

I cannot know for certain where it will end.  

But I believe that the desire to please you  

does in fact please you.  

And I know that if I do this,  

you will lead me by the right road,  

though I may know nothing about it.”  

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