Tag: Life

Categories
Art Beauty Musings Reading

Wendell Berry – Like The Water

Autumn doesn’t officially start until Saturday, but we’ve been having a preview here in Charlottesville for the past week or so. Crisp mornings, cool evenings, leaves beginning to change. It’s raining today; everything is green-come-colorful outside, and there are drops on the windows. It’s a wonderful sound in the background as I work the day away.

It’s a Wendell Berry morning, for sure.

Like The Water

Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all,
or want it all.
In its abundance
it survives our thirst.

In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill,
and sleep,
while it flows
through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us,
except we keep returning to its rich waters
thirsty.

We enter,
willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.

Categories
Art Life

Wild Geese

A beautiful poem by Mary Oliver.

 

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Categories
Culture Life Musings

Three Strands

“Three passions, simple but overwhelming have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.”

– Bertrand Russell         

Categories
Culture Faith Life Musings

John Piper, “Why and How I Am Tweeting.”

John Piper recently began twittering under his own name, and he wrote an accompanying post on the desiringGod blog laying out his reasoning for entering the “twittersphere,” which I found insightful and a good read.  My favorite part is quoted below:

Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”

To which I respond:

The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.

140 characters. Awesome.

@JohnPiper

Categories
Life Musings

Rain, Peace, and Quiet.

I woke up this morning to freezing rain, leading in turn to snow and then rain again later this afternoon.

Apparently, Charlottesville-area schools are on delay again, which is sort of amusing; it’s still just rain for now.

I got in to work a few minutes ago, and I’m the only person in today, it seems; everyone else is either ona business trip or taking care of things in the Northern Virginia office. At least I have some time to breathe, think, and wrap my head around a few projects at work without any distractions.

I often lament not having more times like these when I can focus on one thing and do it well, but on the other hand I’m constantly trying to cram more and more things into my day, distracting myself with any number of things. I bet that with a bit more self-discipline, these moments don’t have to be so out-of-the-ordinary. 🙂