What happens when we receive God’s mercy but struggle to extend that same mercy to others? The story of Jonah shows how easily disappointment and bitterness can keep us stuck in our own perspective. But the mercy of God meets us in the belly of the whale and invites us to lay down our bitterness and become the embodiment of the mercy of God to others.

No Man Is an Island 

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

–John Donne (1571–1631), English poet and priest

"Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed." –Hans Urs von Balthasar

COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)

U2

"Am I the best or the worst or the worst of the best?" she sang

Ice cream smile wide as a mile back then

"Say a nice prayer, be a good girl, finger on my lips"

When she returned her lipstick had learned how not to kiss

I can't fix her, can only love her

Can't keep her pocket full

I can't keep her face in smiles

Someone's stolen what was beautiful

I can't sing her home to me in rhymes

But I will bless the Lord at all times

Bless the Lord at all times

I will bless the Lord at all times

I will bless

I will bless the Lord at all times

I will bless the Lord

I will bless the Lord at all times

Every night we hope and pray for a new day to rise

Every morning when the sun shows up it's still a surprise

Any child is every child in any mother's eyes

I will bless the Lord

I will bless the Lord at all times

I will bless the Lord at all times

I will bless the Lord

I will bless the Lord at all times

That child you hear has been crying for years in the wilderness

A child without armour had no hatred to harbour, only loveliness

The driver of the ambulance unpacks his shirt pressed and neat

To honour the hurt and the hungry he will later greet

There's not so much road left here and no road signs

Drones hover without any consciousness over war crimes

I will bless the Lord at all times?

The tide is rising, all ships are sinking

New poets must despise all old ways of thinking

Whoever made language must've been drinking

Twenty-six characters own all the ink and printing

I got so many words in my head but I can't find the lines

I will bless the Lord at all times

Changes, these changes

Will rain on this parade

Changes, these changes

I am not afraid

No one there to write it down

But when the prophet came around

Said "I've a stranger with me

In the fight none can compare

But food and shelter we share

Beloved community"

Every night we hope and pray for a new day to rise

Every morning when the sun shows up, it's still a surprise

Any child is every child in any mother's eyes

I will bless the Lord

I will bless the Lord at all times

I will bless the Lord at all times

I will bless the Lord

I will bless the Lord at all times

Changes, these changes

Will rain on this parade

Changes, these changes

I am not afraid

The pages that enrage us

She tears them from the book

"Save us, save us" sings the girl of Guadalupe

Kansas City

The New Basement Tapes

I listen to you time and time again

While you tell me just what's right

And you tell me a thousand things a day

Then sleep somewhere's else in the night

I'm going back to Kansas City

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

I'm going back to Kansas City

And you called me to come, then I do

Then you say you've made some mistake

You invite me into your house

Then you say gotta to pay for what you break

Going back to Kansas City

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

I'm going back to Kansas City

Gypsy woman, you know every place I go

Even a thousand miles away from home

And you don't care if I'm asleep or I'm awake

This fickle heart just turned to stone

Going back to Kansas City

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

I'm going back to Kansas City

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

And I love you dear, but just how long

Can I keep singing the same old song

I'm going back to Kansas City

Into The Mystic

Van Morrison

We were born before the wind

Also, younger than the sun

'Ere the bonnie boat was won

As we sailed into the mystic

Hark now, hear the sailors cry

Smell the sea and feel the sky

Let your soul and spirit fly

Into the mystic

Yeah, when that fog horn blows

I will be coming home

Yeah, when that fog horn blows

I wanna hear it

I don't have to fear it

And I wanna rock your gypsy soul

Just like way back in the days of old

Then magnificently we will float

Into the mystic

When that fog horn blows

You know I will be coming home

Yeah, when that fog horn whistle blows

I gotta hear it

I don't have to fear it

And I wanna rock your gypsy soul

Just like way back in the days of old

And together we will float

Into the mystic

Thrasher

Neil Young

They were hiding behind hay bales

They were planting in the full moon

They had given all they had for something new

But the light of day was on them

They could see the thrashers coming

And the water shone like diamonds in the dew

And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light

Trying to catch an hour on the sun

When I saw those thrashers rolling by

Looking more than two lanes wide

I was feelin' like my day had just begun

Where the eagle glides, descending

There's an ancient river bending

Through the timeless gorge of changes

Where sleeplessness awaits

I searched out my companions

Who were lost in crystal canyons

When the aimless blade of science

Slashed the pearly gates

It was then that I knew I'd had enough

Burned my credit card for fuel

Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand

With a one way ticket to the land of truth

And my suitcase in my hand

How I lost my friends, I still don't understand

They had the best selection

They were poisoned with protection

There was nothing that they needed

Nothing left to find

They were lost in rock formations

Or became park bench mutations

On the sidewalks and in the stations

They were waiting, waiting

So I got bored and left them there

They were just dead weight to me

Better down the road without that load

Brings back the time when I was eight or nine

I was watchin' my mama's TV

It was that great Grand Canyon rescue episode

Where the vulture glides, descending

On an asphalt highway bending

Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars

Down the windy halls of friendship

To the rose clipped by the bullwhip

The motel of lost companions

Waits with heated pool and bar

But me I'm not stopping there

Got my own row left to hoe

Just another line in the field of time

When the thrasher comes, I'll be stuck in the sun

Like the dinosaurs in shrines

But I'll know the time has come

To give what's mine

I'm A Song

Stephen Wilson Jr.

I'm the showman in San Antonio

Middle of the rodeo

Daddy's hand that you used to hold

When you'd walk back to the car

I'm the sound of the county fair

Ferris wheel kisses high up in the air

A sip of brandy when your soul is bare

And you need to share your heart

I'm the words that'll hit you

That'll get you where you're going

So you never go there alone

I'm the melody glued to the memory

That you can't shake when it comes on

I'm the part of you that you listen to

Riding in the radio all night long

I'm a song

I'm a song

I was there the day you learned to drive

The first time that you got high

I even helped you realize that she wasn't right for you

You fall down, I pick you up again

I helped a boy become a man

When your best friend died

I helped you cry and finally turn him loose

I'm the words that'll hit you

That'll get you where you're going

So you never go there alone

I'm the melody glued to the memory

That you can't shake when it comes on

I'm the part of you that you listen to

Riding in the radio all night long

I'm a song

I'm a song

I'm a song

I'm the part of you that you listen to

Riding in the radio all night long

I'm the words that'll hit you

That'll get you where you're going

So you never go there alone

I'm the melody glued to the memory

That you can't shake when it comes on

I'm the part of you that you listen to

Riding in the radio all night long

I'm a song...

As we travel the paths of unseen existences in our long pilgrimage through life, we do so in the company of angels.

"Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy. My false self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love—outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion."

–Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation