Lenten Reflection Day 20 (Mar 13): ASK (from John 4:5-42).
SONG: Ask by The Smiths: https://youtu.be/zoo9Vu1a9bU
POEM: Esther Berlin: I Hope to God Yoy Will Not Ask (excerpt): I hope to God you will not ask Me or my People to send Postcard greetings… Yes, we may share the same sun setting But the in-between hours are hollow The People fill the void with prayers for help Calling upon the Holy Ones Those petitions penetrate and loosen The binds you tried to tighten Around our heart …
QUOTE: Mahatma Gandhi: Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Lenten Reflection Day 19 (Mar 12): DRAW WATER (from John 4:5-42).
SONG: Draw Me a Bucket of Water by Bessie Jones: https://youtu.be/8bWCRraSixo
POEM: Edith Wharton: The Mortal Lease (excerpt): Because our kiss is as the moon to draw The mounting waters of that red-lit sea That circles brain with sense, and bids us be The playthings of an elemental law, Shall we forego the deeper touch of awe On love’s extremest pinnacle …
QUOTE: Henry David Thoreau: I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.
Lenten Reflection Day 18 (Mar 11): TIME (from Psalm 121).
SONG: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper: https://youtu.be/VdQY7BusJNU
POEM: John Milton: On Time (excerpt): Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace; And glut thy self with what thy womb devours, Which is no more then what is false and vain, And meerly mortal dross; So little is our loss,So little is thy gain. For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d, And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d, Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss With an individual kiss …
QUOTE: J.R.R. Tolkien: “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Lenten Reflection Day 17 (Mar 10): GOING OUT and COMING IN (from Psalm 121).
SONG: Come and Go by Juice WRLD & Marshmello (caution: some explicit lyrics): https://youtu.be/Dxm3cHrKcbA
POEM: Dana Levin: You Will Never Get Death / Out of your System (excerpt): How old is the earth? I asked my machine, and it said: Five great extinctions, one in process, four and a half billion years. It has always been very busy on Earth: so much coming and going! The terror and the hope ribboning through that.
QUOTE: Neil Gaiman: I like the stars. It’s the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they’re always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend … I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust.
Lenten Reflection Day 16 (Mar 9): HEAVEN and EARTH (from Psalm 121).
SONG: Heaven on Earth by Stars Go Dim: https://youtu.be/YhCzzQQNnLA
POEM: May Swenson: Earth Your Dancing Place (excerpt): Take earth for your own large room and the floor of the earth carpeted with sunlight and hung round with silver wind for your dancing place.
QUOTE: William K Purkey: You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.