Wednesday, November 28
How to explain what catches my attention when beginning the day by asking to notice what wants attention just now? Today’s post surprised me completely. A hint showed up yesterday when a 4” x 6” card fell out of a book I hadn’t opened in a while. This saying of D. H. Lawrence has stopped me in my tracks more often than I can count. So I took it out of that book and gave it a visible place near my laptop work station.
This morning, I saw it again and followed a hunch about today’s post. I sought out a file with the label “Poems-Prayers I love.” Today’s post is the result, a medley of short sayings that have opened my inner attention when I notice them. I stopped at five.
Best to read them separately, out loud.
Have a blest Wednesday, half way into this work week.
john sj
Today’s Post
What is the knocking
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.
No, no. It is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.
D.H. Lawrence: “Song of the Man Who Has Come Through”
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I stand for the heart.
To the dogs with the head!
I had rather be a fool with a heart
Than Jupiter Olympus with his head.
The reason the mass of men fear God and at bottom dislike Him,
is because they rather distrust His heart
and fancy Him all brain
like a watch.
Melville to Hawthorne 1851
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It is possible to travel alone, but we know the journey is human life and life needs company.
Companion is the one who eats the same bread.
The good traveler cares for weary companions,
grieves when we lose heart,
takes us where he finds us,
listens to us.
Intelligently, gently, above all, lovingly,
we encourage each other to go on
and recover our joy on the journey.
Dom Helder Camera
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It should be noted that in the Society (of Jesus)
There are different kinds of houses or dwellings.
These are: the house of probation,
the college, the professed house,
and the journey
and by this last the whole world becomes our house.
Ieronimal Nadal, S.J. 1554
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Sedulo curavi humanas actiones
non ridere non lugere neque detestari,
sed intellegere.
I have laboured carefully,
when faced with human actions,
not to mock, not to lament, nor to execrate,
but to understand.
Spinoza Tractatus Politicus
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Same picture of the sun low in the western sky – last Tuesday, November 20
