Saturday, February 18, 2012

February 18th

Keith has been home since Tuesday, as he is in transition between his old job and his new, so I have not had much time or quiet to blog.

I keep trying, but I can't pull my thoughts together quite right when my boisterous, affectionate and big booted husband is home.

So, I thought I'd share a couple quotes I've been hoarding up, and enjoying.

Here's one I found on facebook, just today:

Lord,

you want me to learn from you
gentleness of heart.
No matter how I fail you,
your gentleness never fails me.
You are slow to anger;
your kindness is without limit.
You tell me not to be distressed,
to make your gentleness my own
so that my soul may find rest.
Give me the wisdom to make time in my day
for a gentle nursing of my soul.
Free me from arrogance,
from goals too sublime for me.
Still and quiet my soul
as a mother quiets the little ones on her lap.
Free me from the need for achievement.
Make my life less forceful, more gentle,
centered in you alone.
Let the splendor of your presence
light up my everydayness.
Make me a smooth channel for the outflow
of your Divine Will in this world.

-Father Adrian Von Kaam 1920-2007

And one from C.S. Lewis, which I have only recently come to understand:

To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God – drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

-C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms