luci shaw | no, i'm not hildegarde

I'm merely a floater in the eye of God,
a flake of his winnowed chaff. A twig
from the tree at whose root his ax is laid,
if you believe Luke, and I do. I am a wisp
of the fog that blinds my world this morning. A drop
from a leaking tap. An odd button. A blot.

I'm less than the smallest bone of St. Catherine's
withered fore-finger; in Sienna it's preserved
behind glass and I'm not. I'm a loose tooth.
A hesitation of wind. The lost coin never found.
A river wrinkle come and gone. An eyelash
found by an ant in the dust. A blink.

father thomas hopko | six maxims

Never bring attention to yourself.  

Be an ordinary person.

Do your work, and then forget it.

Be simple, hidden, quiet, and small.  

     (The Holy Fathers say: “If you want to be known by God, 

       seek not to be known by people.”)

Don’t seek or expect praise from anyone or pity from anyone.

Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so.

 

Father Thomas Hopko

 

irish signs

 

a letter from little thea | c. 1991

 

g.k. chesterton | saying grace

You say grace before meals.

All right.

But I say grace before the play and the opera,

And grace before I open a book,

And grace before sketching, painting,

Swimming, fencing, walking, playing, dancing;

And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

G.K. Chesterton

From an unpublished poem in Chesterton's notebook, called “A Grace” 

lewis | read them with fear

We ought to read the psalms that curse the oppressor; read them with fear. Who knows what imprecations of the same sort have been uttered against ourselves? What prayers have Red men, and Black, and Brown and Yellow, sent up against us to their gods or sometimes to God Himself? All over the earth the White Man’s offence ‘smells to heaven’: massacres, broken treaties, theft, kidnappings, enslavement, deportation, floggings, beatings-up, rape, insult, mockery, and odious hypocrisy make up that smell. 

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms