Tag: Discernment

Going Round in Circles

Usually when we say that somebody is “going round in circles” we mean that they keep coming back to the same place or problem where they started, that they’re not making progress or achieving anything.
Actually, in terms of motion, we’re all going round in circles all the time:
– Everyone on the surface of the rotating earth is constantly going around about 1,000 miles per hour, since the circumference of the earth is somewhat over 24,000 miles.
– The whole earth and everyone on it is spinning around the sun at a rate of about 67,000 miles per hour.
– The entire solar system is moving around the galaxy center at a speed well over 500,000 miles per hour.
We’re part of a very fast crowd!
In terms of the course of our lives, we tend also to be going round in circles much of the time, often living aimlessly with little or no sense of destination or destiny.
The older we are, the more conscious we become of the speed of each of our lives—and the imminence of their end, of death.
There’s a lovely—and striking—question in The Liturgy of the Hours (Week II, Monday, Morning Prayer, Antiphon 1): “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?”
It’s an interesting and challenging way of describing the course of one’s life—as a pilgrimage!
A pilgrimage usually means a demanding journey, usually a long trip, to a special place, often a foreign and/or sacred place—and, of course, the journey has a purpose.
We undertake a pilgrimage in spite of its hardships, difficulties, and dangers because of our keen desire to attain its goal, to reach our destination.
As wayfarers, travelers, pilgrims, we don’t fear the end of our journey, we don’t lament that the trip will be over—we yearn to reach it, to attain our goal.

Going round in circles isn’t necessarily wasteful. If we’re going up a spiral staircase, though we’re going round in circles we’re also making progress, getting higher every time around.
Going round in circles is a fundamental aspect of our lives. But, without a purpose, goal, or destination, without progress, achievement, or attainment, our lives can be empty and terrifyingly meaningless.
For some people, a question like, “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?,” is nothing more than senseless “religious talk.”
In reality, it’s a profound way of describing our lives. We may not fully realize its implications, but it does give some purpose, power, and fulfillment to us, we ever-circling, fast-moving human creatures.
Life isn’t a merry-go-round. We don’t just enjoy the ride until it’s over. In fact, the ride isn’t necessarily always enjoyable.
Life isn’t a boomerang journey. We’re not just thrown around, traveling long and far, and end up spent and exhausted pretty much not far from where we started.
Life isn’t a train ride that never ends; we’re not wanderers without a station where we get off; we have a place to go to and a hope for tomorrow.
If life’s a pilgrimage with its mysterious destination, “the presence of God,” then why we aren’t we preparing for the journey?
Why are we encumbered by useless things, why aren’t we traveling light, why aren’t we on our guard against detours and blockages?
It’s okay to be going round in circles so long as we’re spiraling, so long as, no matter how convoluted the route of our lives, we’re progressing towards our final destination.

(Available in Spanish translation)

9 August 2020

Thy Will Be Done

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
Ay, there’s the rub—how to know the will of the Father
St. Cyprian wrote a beautiful treatise about this, about all of the Lord’s prayer. Cyprian was born in 210 in Carthage. In those days, Carthage had a proud heritage as one of the great cities of the ancient world. In Cyprian’s day it was part of the Roman Empire (in contemporary terms it was located in Tunisia).
He practiced law. He converted to Christianity and was made bishop of Carthage in 249. During the persecution of the emperor Valerian, Cyprian was tried and executed in 258.
Here’s what he wrote about the will of the Father:

. . . Your will be done on earth as is in heaven; we pray not that God should do his will, but that we may carry out his will.
How could anyone prevent the Lord from doing what he wills? But in our prayer we ask that God’s will be done in us, because the devil throws up obstacles to prevent our mind and our conduct from obeying God in all things.
So if his will is to be done in us we have need of his will, that is, his help and protection. No one can be strong by his own strength or secure save by God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Even the Lord, to show the weakness of the human nature which he bore, said: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, and then, by way of giving  example to his disciples that they should do God’s will and not their own, he added: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will

All Christ did, all he taught, was the will of God:
– humility in our daily lives
– an unwavering faith
– a moral sense of modesty in conversation
– justice in acts
– mercy in deed
– discipline
– refusal to harm others
– a readiness to suffer harm
– peaceableness with our brothers
– a whole-hearted love of the Lord
– loving in him what is of the Father
– fearing him because he is God
– preferring nothing to him who preferred nothing to us
– clinging tenaciously to his love
– standing by his cross with loyalty and courage whenever there is any conflict involving his honor and his name
– manifesting in our speech the constancy of our profession and
– under torture confidence for the fight, and
– in dying the endurance for which we will be crowned.
This is what it means to wish to be a coheir with Christ, to keep God’s command; this is what it means to do the will of the Father.
(Second Reading, Office of Readings, Wednesday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, The Liturgy of the Hours)

Even though Cyprian wrote this reflection over 1,700 years ago, it’s still a great advice and challenge for you and me today.


2 August 2020

From Another Point of View

Remember the experience? A time, when all of a sudden, you looked at a thing from another point of view—and, all of a sudden, it looked very, very different.
Optical illusions are a simple example of that. As a kid, I remember drawing the outlines of a box. You look at it one way, and it’s like you’re looking down on it, even into it, from above—then, all of a sudden, it seems you’re looking up at it from below!
Einstein’s theory of relativity is a sophisticated example of a similar thing. It calls attention to the fact that the position and movement of the observer affects the observation.
Does the sun rise and set? Or, does the earth rotate and the sun stand still?
When did we begin generally to accept the idea that the earth isn’t flat, but round?
Isn’t it odd that the shortest flight from New York to Tokyo may go over the Arctic?

During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1966), there was a very controversial and life-changing shift in a theological point of view:
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 21 November 1964, stated in section 8:

The one mediator, Christ, established and constantly sustains here on earth his holy church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as a visible structure through which he communicates truth and grace to everyone . . .
This is the unique church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic . . . This church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church . . . Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines.

What a controversy the cautious words, “subsists in the Catholic Church”, caused! (I remember it well; I was working in the Council at that time.)
Till then, the common point of view was “Outside the church there is no salvation”, and “church” was taken to mean by Catholics as “the Catholic Church”.
The traditional point of view among Catholics before Vatican II was that, over the centuries, many dissidents broke away from the one church of Christ. As a result there now are many churches, but only one is the true church.
The Council began to look at all this from a different point of view. Now, for the first time, Catholics began to distinguish “the church of Christ” from “the Catholic Church.”
“The church of Christ” includes all Christians in their individual and organizational diversity—Western and Eastern Catholics, the various Orthodox churches, the Anglican church, the traditional Protestant churches, Evangelicals, Charismatics, every follower of Jesus!
From this different point of view, there is no black nor white, but various shades of grey. There’s no longer in or out, but varying degrees of unity. The various churches are not ancient enemies seeking unity, but one family whose scattered members are seeking reconciliation.
Negotiations between enemies tend to be rife with suspicion; family reunions are matter of forgiveness and love.
Even if it still seems odd, the shortest way from East to West may go over the North pole!


26 July 2020

How God Sees

Through the words, witness, and personality of St. Paul—and, of course, the power and providence of God—a community of new Christians was founded in the commercial port city of Corinth.
Paul was proud of them—a paternal pride in them as his spiritual children—and was distressed when he learned about their infighting and divisions. In part that provoked his writing a strong letter to them. In a loving rebuke, he reminded them:

Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the worlds to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. (1 Cor 26-29)

This was one of the great lessons Paul and every devote Jew learned in studying the history of their people.
In that history, the greatest of their kings was David—and yet David was an unlikely candidate for such a role.
1 Sam 16 tells a story of how God, having rejected Saul as king of Israel, sent Samuel to Jesse of Bethlehem to anoint his choice for Saul’s replacement from among his sons.
Jesse introduced them to Samuel in age order, the oldest first.  Each time, Samuel was impressed by what he saw and thought he had the likely candidate, and each time the Lord disagreed: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature . . . God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The Lord looks into the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7)

Finally Samuel met the youngest, who had been called home from the field where he was tending the sheep. This wasn’t the greatest job, but then the boy was too young to have much experience at anything else.
Samuel may have wrinkled his nose when the grubby teenager appeared, but the Lord said: “There—anoint him, for this is the one!” (1 Sam 16:12)
The shepherd boy became the great shepherd-king of his people. One of his remote descendants was the Good Shepherd—also an unlikely candidate for the great role of Messiah that was his.
We’re no Samuels, you and I. We’re not great prophets with huge destinies in our hands. But, then, in some sense we are, in that God uses each of us as instruments to achieve his purposes—in spite of our often misconstruing his choices and plans!
As Samuel, we are often mislead by appearances when we deal with other people, by externals which are superficial and give little clue as to the nature and possibilities of what’s before our eyes.
We may or may not suspect the depth and quality of another, but in any case we cannot see their heart—meaning, of course, the essence of the person, the power of their love and generosity.
Also, although we ourselves may not be “wise by human standards . . . powerful . . . of noble birth”, God may chose us to “shame the wise . . . shame the strong . . . reduce to nothing those who are something.”
“We” means you, me, and everybody else, no matter how unlikely they may appear.
Only God sees into the heart!


5 July 2020

Facing God

According to the book of Exodus, when Moses on Mt. Sinai asked to see the glory of God, he was told, “I will make all my goodness pass before you . . . But you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.” (Exodus 33:19-20)
Yet in the beautiful vision of the New Jerusalem described in the last chapter of the book of Revelation, it says, “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”(Revelation 22:3b-4)
In the sacred scriptures there are stories about encounters with messengers (angels) of God which are understood as communicating directly with God himself. For example:
– “The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre . . . he [Abraham] saw three men standing near him.” (Genesis 18:1-2)
– “Then a man wrestled with him [Jacob] until the break of dawn . . . Jacob named the place Peniel, ‘because I have seen God face to face’ . . .” (Genesis 32:25-31)
– “There the angel of the Lord appeared to him [Moses] as fire flaming out of a bush . . . God called out to him from the bush.” (Exodus 3:2-4)
– “While Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw one who stood facing him, drawn sword in hand . . . ‘I am the commander of the army of the Lord . . . Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy.’” (Joshua 5:13-15)
– “Philip said to him, ‘Master, show us the Father’ . . . Jesus said to him, . . . ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the father.’” (John 14:8-9)
The paradox is that there are many ways of our seeing God and yet the total vision, the total understanding of God is necessarily beyond our seeing.

When we see something of the cosmos, the whole universe, and all it contains—the sun, the moon, and the stars—we’re overwhelmed by the vastness, the power, the complexity, and the splendor of it all.
When we see the earth, the astounding diversity of all the living things that populate it—in the sea, on the land, and in the air—we’re overwhelmed also by the wonder, the variety, and the awful beauty of life.
In seeing creation, we’re seeing and learning a little of the creator—the source, the maker, the begetter of all that is.
For Jesus’ disciples, his life, his deeds, his teachings, his incredible display of love, his passion, his death, and his resurrection are a particular revelation of God and a pattern, a way of life, an icon of all that we human creatures are called to be.
In Christ Jesus, we’re seeing and learning much more of God who is revealed to us in a special way through him.
Through the outpouring of the divine power, vital force, and spirit into each of our lives we’re experiencing within ourselves—and in others—something more of what is necessarily always beyond our total understanding.
The one God, as actor in the drama of life, so to speak, plays many roles and has many guises (that’s the root sense of the word “person”). You could even say, shows many faces and self-reveals in myriad ways.
We celebrate three main ways especially: creation, Jesus, and the power within—God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Hey! Don’t forget this includes another way God self-reveals—others may be able to see something of God in you!

   7 June 2019

(Available in
Spanish translation)

Cor ad Cor Loquitur

St. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, describes the coming of the Spirit primarily as a miracle of communication:
“And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” (Acts 2:4).
That would be astounding, since the apostles, the blessed Mother, and the others there were not linguists, Their native language was Aramaic, their ancient religious language was Hebrew, and perhaps they had a smattering of Greek since that was the “lingua franca” of their world.
But, as St. Luke adds, even more astounding was the fact that everybody who heard them speak heard them speak in their own particular language—and all this simultaneously!
It’s physically impossible to speak several languages simultaneously. But, the miracle was that each listener understood them as though they were speaking each one’s native language. They communicated effectively with everyone.
Communication is not merely a matter of the words themselves. It involves gestures, expressions, tone of voice, emotions. a kind of total projection of one person to another.
We can communicate without words at all! How often a hand movement, a smile, a tear, a touch, or an embrace speaks more than any word.
In case your Latin is not too good (or non-existent), the title above, an oft quoted expression, means, “Heart Speaks to Heart.”
The heart, of course, is the symbol of love, of the place where the fullness of love abides. And, love is the most powerful force in the world, the very essence of God.
With words or without words, but with love, we can powerfully communicate. Words may help, of course, but we can manage without them.

Often we tend to rely more on the head than on the heart, with verbal more than non-verbal communication.
We’re inundated with torrents of words most of the time. We’re constantly wrestling with their rightness or their wrongness, their truthfulness or falsity, and weighing their nuances.
But, the most powerful and effective communication is love—not speaking about love, not saying “love”, but loving!
It’s astounding—miraculous!—how powerfully you communicate when you really and truly love.
Love can involve wonder, thanksgiving, pleasure, satisfaction, and joy—it also can involve acceptance, endurance, patience, forgiveness, and even pain and sacrifice.
It takes courage and strength to love well. It can require sometime almost more than we’re capable of, almost superhuman strength! And Jesus is commanding us, his followers, to do it, to “Love one another as I have loved you!”
We can’t do it, it demands too much. True, sometimes it does, usually it does. To totally and completely love means to give of yourself and yours until there’s nothing left to give, including your life itself.
But, with the coming of the Spirit, with the infusion of divine presence, life, and love into our lives, with the help and grace of God empowering us, all things are possible.
The Pentecost experience wasn’t just for that small band of believers. It is repeated daily in your life and mine. The Spirit, the force, the strength of God’s love empowers you, too.
May your life always communicate love!


31 May 2020

Open the Doors

The church is the house of God.
How long is this going to continue?
When will the doors be open?
Why can’t we celebrate?
I need communion.
I need to be in touch. I can’t keep going if I’m always shut out.
Social distancing doesn’t mean no contact or relations, just not unwittingly harming one another.
For God’s sake, I need to find peace and joy, pardon and love. That’s why I go to church!

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Co 3:16).
How long is this going to continue?
When will your doors be opened?
Why can’t we celebrate?
I need communion.
I need to be in touch. I can’t keep going if I’m always shut out.
Social distancing doesn’t mean no contact or relations, just not unwittingly harming one another.
For God’s sake, I need to find peace and joy, pardon and love. That’s why I go to you!

“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn 13:34)
That means that I must do my very best to love all those with whom I am in communication.
That means that I must strive to love all those who relate to me.
That means that I must try to love all those whose lives cross the path of mine.
That means that I must be open to loving all those who seek to enter my life.
I wonder if the new commandment implies that as we have loved one another, so God will love us? (I hope not!)

It’s prudent right now that we should avoid large assemblies, including ones in church.
We don’t want to endanger the lives of others by unknowingly infecting them with something that can harm. And, we don’t want to be endangered by others who unknowingly may infect us with something that can harm.
But, for God’s sake, it’s not prudent at all — it even goes against all that we aspire to be and do, not to mention the commandment of the Lord — to avoid contact with and shut out of our lives all those who come to us in want and need.
I can live with the church doors shut, but I can’t live with the doors of your heart shut.
For God’s sake, I can’t live without peace and joy, pardon and love. That’s why I go to you!

“When the Son of Man comes . . . he will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’” (Mt 25: 31, 34-40).

10 May 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)

In Him We Live . . .

In St. Paul’s speech at the Aeropagus, he spoke of “The God who made the world and all that is in it . . . he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything . . . he is not far from any one of us . . .” And he added, quoting, probably, Epimenides of Kenossos, “For In him we live and move and have our being . . .” (Acts 17: 24-28)
These ten words express very simply what philosophers over the centuries have been wrestling with and trying to understand, the marvel and the mystery of existence, of everything and everyone.
Existence is not a kind of historical event but an on-going, dynamic reality. We exist, not because God at one point in time did create us, but because our very continuing to exist is due to the continuing creating, sustaining power and action of God—what can be described as his love
Although some would dispute it, this is actually not a personal belief or an act of faith, the trusting acceptance of someone else’s testimony, witness, or teaching—it is a fact, a fundamental reality.
Whether we say “God” or “Higher Power” or use any other word or concept to explain it, the fact that everything and everyone are existing requires a currently operative cause greater than any and all of its effects.
As Mr. Spock of Star Trek might say, this is logical. It’s not a matter of opinion but of knowledge. Just because I cannot see ultraviolet or infrared radiation does not mean they don’t exist—but it does mean my vision has limitations.
The knowledge and awareness of the dynamic reality of existence has some equally logical implications:
To want or try to terminate our own existence or that of any other is, in effect, to want or try to thwart the action and will of God—alas, Hamlet, but “To be or not to be” is not our question to decide.

– Whether we know or are aware of it or not, we are inseparable from God; we remain connected no matter what we may think, desire, say, or do—“sin” and “evil” are not quite so powerful as we may think.
– Human growth, maturation, and development necessarily involve our discernment of the ongoing designs of our creator and our fidelity to and harmony with them —I can’t “gotta be me” all by myself.
– Since we are of God and in God, everything about our existence is essentially good and is only made less so because of our own choices and decisions—it’s a cop-out to claim, “The devil made me do it.”
– Deviations from the divine plan because of our ignorance are understandable—only God is perfect—but deviations because of our willfulness are short-sighted, stupid, and self-destructive—they’re “My bad.”
– Joy, gladness, celebration, and thanksgiving are the most appropriate reactions to our awareness that “In him we live and move and have our being.”
In 1974, an interesting science-fiction teleplay was shown on TV, “The Questor Tapes.” It was about a scientist who was planning to create an android called Questor but never completed his work. His interns, following his written instructions, assembled the android and activated it with memory tapes that he had left them, but some were damaged. Questor realized that he lacked some essential knowledge, the purpose of his existence, and had to seek it.
The story is a provocative, moving parable about everyone’s quest for this same essential knowledge, the meaning and purpose of his or her own existence.


21 July 2019

Varieties of Religious Experience

In his Gifford lectures of 1901-1902, the psychologist William James explored “the religious propensities of man.” They were later published as The Variety of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.
Theologians also study the variety of religious experiences of human beings, but take into account the divine actions which necessarily are involved in them.
“In him we live and move and have our being.” No one’s experience can be entirely unrelated to God and may even be specially influenced by the promptings of his Spirit.
A person’s religious experience is also shaped by many other factors—his or her personality type, culture, language, education, health, and the time and place in which he or she lives. That’s why such an experience could range, for example, from seeing a vision to having a new idea.
Every person is unique, no matter how many similarities he or she may have to another. Accordingly, every person’s religious experience is unique, no matter how many similarities it may have to the religious experience of another.
Some religious experiences are subtle and hardly noticed; others are dramatic and life changing. The Bible relates many stories of special religious experiences—for example, Jacob’s dream, Moses and the burning bush, young Samuel’s voice in the night, the annunciation to Mary, the call of Matthew, the conversion of Paul.
When Martin Luther King said, “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” he was alluding to his personal, life-changing experience of God that sustained him for the rest of his life’s journey, as did the experience of Moses.
Sometimes key religious experiences involve extraordinary tranquility and beauty; they can also be disruptive, painful, and difficult. If God and his actions were easily comprehensible, God wouldn’t be God!

It’s hard to generalize about the nature of religious experiences, but, as some spiritual writers observe, often in the early stages of one’s religious development they are characterized by “sensible consolations”—positive and pleasurable thoughts and feelings, something like falling in love with God.
As we grow and mature, the overwhelming attractiveness of the initial experience is gradually tempered, as choice and commitment gradually deepen a relationship which may have begun with more strong feelings and pleasure.
Discerning the action of God in our lives at the time it happens is very difficult. Usually it’s only in retrospect that we become aware of it and appreciate it—just as looking forward on a ship in motion it may seem very slow, but looking backward at the ship’s wake makes you realize how far and how fast it has been traveling.
There’s an often quoted Portuguese proverb, “God writes straight with crooked lines. My favorite understanding of it is something like this: we often choose a way, a direction, a purpose that we think is right and what God wants—but then we are disappointingly and frustratingly blocked and thwarted and have to strike out in a new direction.
The process may keep repeating itself as gradually we’re herded by God into the direction he really wants us to go—even though almost every stage of the journey may have its painful failures, dead ends, and requirements of mid-course corrections.
We necessarily again and again may need to revise, redirect, and reconstruct our lives.


16 June 2019

Standing Ready and Waiting

“How do you like being retired,” is a question often asked of me, and one I find difficult to answer. For better or for worse, being retired has been hard—harder, in a way, then any work assignment I ever had before.
I always embraced whatever was asked of me as a priest and whatever assignment I received. Our spiritual formation stressed this, to accept whatever was asked of us by religious superiors as the will of God.
But, humanly speaking (how else does one speak!) the change from one day to the next, from exercising a significant role in many people’s lives and bearing multiple responsibilities to an almost total absence of responsibilities is a challenging kind of “freedom”.
It’s also wasteful. Curiously, the notion of retirement was introduced in a time in which there was a relative abundance of priests and where the priest usually served until death. By the time it began to be implemented there was a newer situation of increasing scarcity of priests in ministry.
In some ways, the legislation of our contemporary U.S. civil society is more nuanced than our canonical practice. No one can be retired involuntarily merely and solely because of chronological age; termination of employment requires adequate cause—e.g., poor performance, substantial diminished or in-capacity, violation of rules, etc. . .
Of course, the retired priest is retired in the sense that he is not given any assigned responsibility (job) by his religious superiors; however he freely may seek and negotiate his services on a voluntary basis with a local parish or religious institution.
If one’s work is only a job, retirement may be welcomed. If one’s work has become one’s life, retirement may be a kind of death.

There is a dual aspect to the vocation and life of a priest: to be a man of the Church and a man of God.
The man of the Church, the employee entrusted with and exercising important responsibilities in the ecclesiastical institution, can retire or be retired.
The man of God, the servant of the Lord bearing witness of love in the midst of the world and the community of his disciples, cannot retire or be retired.
God may use our work to achieve his purposes, but all our plans, projects, and strivings are not necessary to the great plan of his providential love and mercy.
John Milton wrote a very beautiful sonnet on his blindness. For me, it’s also a moving spiritual reflection on being retired:

When I consider how my light is spent,
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide:
“Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best. His State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.”


19 May 2019