My Own Writings-Three
Prayer does much to reconcile. Prayer takes away anger and hatred as a stream takes away mud and silt after it has been stirred up. As a stream prayer also takes away our sorrow, our fear, and our despair. What prayer does not take away, it makes it easier to live with.Though many are not aware of the power of prayer, and the miraculous rewards to be derived from it. The full resources of prayer have never truly been tapped. Few have but barely delved into the manifold blessings of prayer.
Prayer opens the eyes to new good and to new truth. It clears up the shadows which cloud one's faith and reveals the heavens. It lifts the heart of one above this world of strife, and lets one view in part the beauty of God.
Prayer is a supplication that need not be spoken, but it must be heartfelt. As the Bible says; "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." To pray is to communicate with God. In prayer as in no other thing, the soul reaches out toward the higher heights and the inner courts.
When the soul is in prayer it is in its profoundest hour. In prayer the soul cultivates its highest nature, its spiritual nature. The true nobility of the soul is recovered and experienced only in prayer.
The Empty Chair
A chair empty where before a person had sat seems not the same. The very room seems not the same as when the person's presence permeated all. Not an object moved, not a picture from the wall, and not an article of furniture moved, but the room seems vastly different. Indeed the world seems different.
Time passes over and leaves the impressions, and leaves the memories, while often leaving the same sights and sounds, while stealing the person away. After a while we have trouble recalling the sound of their voice, and even their face, though they were most dear to us.
The wind blows the leaves, and a fragrance greets us, and we recall memories, though we cannot return. Nothing is ever the same again. Time changes after its subtile fashion. What was yesterday can never quite be again, no matter how much we wish it.
The Future
Surely stars will endure, and trees to look at. Surely raindrops will always fall, and rivers running to the sea. I cannot imagine a world without children playing games, and mothers watching over them. The light I am certain will ever reveal the colors of the rainbow.
I cannot help believing puppies and kittens will live on until the end of time nuzzling at the hand of some child in search of love. If anything is bound to last it is music, and if nothing else the music of the wind.
Who can say what will remain ages hence, and in what changed and strange forms? But it is hoped it will be gentle and innocent, and far less of what is cruel and harsh. It is hoped that kindness will rule in beauty the world of the future.
All Is For The Best
In quiet moments some voice within us seems to say, "all is for the best; trust in God." The One who set the stars in place also notes the falling of a sparrow. We can rely that the rains will come in due course, and that at the end of the darkest hour comes the dawn.
In a world in which there is the wonder of birth, the magic of growth, and the marvel that is youth, can we doubt it is all for the best? Can we watch a creature struggle for life in those initial hours, and not feel an awe and admiration? Can we behold the sprouting of a seed as those first tender leaves of a plant burst through the clods to sunlight, and not sense that in such a world there is a merciful Power directing the proceedings?
We Never Repent Of Our Kindness
We never repent of our kindness, only our harshness. Offending someone hurts us more than it does them. We are buffeted by bad memories years after an outburst of temper. We recall our own acts of meanness and incivility, and view them with more remorse than we do the times we were mistreated by someone else.
We never regret our kindness even though the other person never returned our kindness. We never regret treating the other person with respect, but we do regret our moments of disrespectful behavior toward other people. We never become so callous but what we feel some regret for hateful actions.
Timeless Things
Some things never grow old: a spring day, a thunder shower, the blue sky, the sound of the wind, and the sound of water trickling over the rocks. Bird's singing, bright colored flowers, and the warm sunshine are forever young and filled with hope. It seems as if those things never really began, but that they were always, and will always be.
I cannot imagine the world without them. They are so much a part of our life, and our heart. The years take us swiftly on, but those things change not. They retain that youthful quality, and that same fascination as when first we viewed and became endeared to them.
It seemed only yesterday when we looked up at the clouds with a gleam in our eyes as a child filled with wonder and awe. Time, nothing can take from us the memory and love we have for timeless, eternal things, and the sight and sound of them while we live.
The Light
When I catch a selfish thought stealing in I feel shadows dimming my soul much as clouds produce when obscuring the sun. Therefore I perceive that evil is a great darkness. When I hate I feel myself cast down in a great bottomless gulf with the darkness smothering me, and in the distance what is good and beautiful shines like tiny stars, while I am isolated.
From birth it is a ceaseless battle to preserve the light of life which is love and hope from the darkness of doubt and fear and hate. The warfare is always, because the enemy is within us.
Brotherhood
There is a hope in every person that something wonderful will one day dawn in human affairs, that one day nations will cease warfare with one another, that a real brotherhood will exist between all races, creeds, and peoples, that exploitation and profiteering will cease, that privation and neglect will be replaced by caring and genuine concern.
It is hoped that a great interchange between cultures will produce stimulation of a delightfully varied and beneficial kind, that society will become on the whole beautiful and refined, that the spiritual and material needs of the individual will be of utmost importance, and be met as never before in the saga of humanity. This is the future that hopefully awaits some future generation.
We Must Leave
Soon the waters cover our being, and we become the submerged. Behold, are not the stars bright, the flowers lovely, and all the world happy and alive? Youth is jocund with shining eyes, and spring comes with the grass and insects in all their glee. The streams flow, and storms still come in the night. The lightening flashes and the thunder roars, but we must go.
The wind howls and sends breezes all around as it brings winter snow and summer relief. The trees sway all green and radiant in the summer, and filled with color in the fall, while stark in winter. They stand and pose a thousand poses. Kittens trying to catch their mother's tail, and puppy dogs being chased by setting hens are things everlasting. Baby pigs waddling out on shaky legs are things that never change. The sun, the moon, and the blue sky will continue, but we must die.
The bluejay will squawk his delight in the morning air, and the red bird bathe in the little creek, but we must leave them all. Departure will be sad, though it will be good to know all these things will go on. It is good just to be a part of all this.
The Bluebird
It is truly a glorious day when the bluebird comes to call. The first bluebird I see in spring is a source of great inspiration to me. Suddenly on a warm day there he is on a twig as the leaves are just budding, and the grass starting to green.
The bluebird is perhaps our reward for enduring the hardships of life, and a blessing to help make up for the evils that beset us. Upon seeing a bluebird it is difficult not to believe in the goodness of life, and that somewhere, somehow, there exists a divine intelligence who directs the harmonious order of things.
The bluebird seems to have an aura of the divine about him, and gives us a sense of the joy and wonder of life. Where the bluebird goes is holy, and where he alights is sacred, and forever remembered as the domain of the bluebird. Our eyes pursue the bluebird in his course across the sky, and his blue glistens in the sun even more fair than the sky itself.
The bluebird is a perfection of nature. It is a being as pure and beautiful as our concept of it can imagine. The bluebird personifies the touch of a benevolent Creator, One who wishes to portray His love and tenderness in the form of a being as exquisite as a bluebird.
Be Kind To Yourself
Be kind to yourself. Relax, lean back, put your feet up, and close your eyes. Take a walk. Listen to the birds. Feel the warmth of the sun on your face, and the gentle brush of the wind against your cheek.
Be kind to yourself. Sure you have made mistakes. We all have made mistakes, but we can't just keep beating ourselves up over them. No one is perfect. Forgive yourself and forgive others who may have wronged you. Let all your guilt, anger, and fear go.
Be kind to yourself. You have worked hard, and you deserve a break. Look at the sky. Watch the clouds go by. Listen to some music. Hum a tune. Breathe in deeply and be at peace. Let the world go by for a little while. Find the time to treat yourself and be good to you.
