Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection--Start

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Before Thursday night turns to Friday morning.

Before the dawn’s early light.

Before the parade begins.

Before the cool weather becomes hot again.

Before the peace of the evening is disturbed by booms and cracks.

Before the night sky is illuminated by fire works.

Before the guests arrive.

Before the sparklers begin to sparkle.

   

Before the songs are sung.

Before stories are told.

Before the freedom of a three-day weekend starts…

Take time to stop.

Take time to be.

Take time to go slow.

Take time to rest.

Take time to think.

Take time to sit.

Take time to listen.

Take time to reflect.

Take time to pray.

Take time to explore.

Take time for peace.

Before the weekend begins, take time to listen to your life. When we are most quiet and most ourselves, God’s grace is clear, and then we see nothing else under the sun. A question to consider over the next few days is, what else is there for us but to be tranquil and at peace in the all-enchanting wonder of God’s mercy to us? 

Life does not have to be dull. 

Love can make it beautiful and fill it with wonder.

Sometimes, we need to take time before it can take hold…

The Peace of Wild Things

BY WENDELL BERRY

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, "The Peace of Wild Things" from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1998.