About having read an old prayer which spoke of God's wrath

God's wrath? I don't think so.
God's grief, more like.

About seeing in the light

You don't light a candle to see the candle
but to see what the candle illuminates.

Walking into the sun, you see nothing.
With the sun behind you, you see all before you.

Jesus came into the world as a candle, to shine a light into all the crevices of doubt and despair from which we suffer, to open up the hidden spaces of loss and loneliness so that we may feel his presence.

Jesus is the light towards which we travel, knowing that he will always be there to guide us a beacon, lighting our path on the journey of life.

With Jesus as the light behind us, we are able to see the world before us as God's gift and travel in hope and courage, knowing that we will always be helped to face all that befalls us.

'God thoughts' connected with the poem "On His Blindness" by John Milton

These may be of interest to some and are on the 'About all sorts' blog.

A poem for Holy week

This is a post I wrote in my original blog last Holy Week. I felt it belonged here now so I offer it once again.

These words began to form in my mind quite some years ago.
It concerns Jesus after his arrest when he is brought, firstly, before King Herod and afterwards, before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate.

                        ONLY SILENCE

                  He didn't speak to Herod,
                  But for Pilate there were answers;
                  One, of his own race, a king,
                  And one, the hated foreign ruler.

                  We may wonder why this silence 
                  for the one and not the other.

                  May we learn when not to answer
                  Is the wiser path to follow.
                  When the hearer doesn't listen
                  Only silence speaks our truth.  

Why is it that we can see these things, and even write poems about them, but not be able to follow our own advice or, even more so, the example of Jesus? Still learning, I suppose.

Some more thoughts

Even the smallest particle within creation is held in existence by the pulsating power of God's love.

We are held in the heart of an all-encompassing love.

God is my comfortable companion.

To God

Let your love and truth be the bed-rock of my life.

Heal my heart, 
Soften my soul,
Still my mind.

Please bring us from our needs to our knees.

Some more thoughts from my notebooks

Magnifying God

Be as a curved piece of glass
in which God's light may be focussed and transmitted
and set fire to the hearts of all who see.

Free Will

The gift of free will is sometimes just too great a weight for us to bear.
It is as a tossed caber that we cannot balance.
We totter and fall under its burden.

Put all that is chaos
into the hands and heart of God.

Life-raft

At certain times in our lives, all we can do is try to imagine ourselves 
afloat on a raft on the river of life.
It may seem paper-thin, but it is made of indestructible material.
It is woven with the thread of God's love.

Some thoughts on God from my notebooks

God is one and God is infinity. 
God is a circle of love.

(Mathematically speaking, a circle has one side and, at the same time, may be considered to have an infinitely large number of infinitely small straight sides; one and infinity together.)

PS How nice to think that, because a circle is the symbol of love, a ring has been chosen to be the symbol of marriage.

Everything good, everything amazing and wonderful 
is a glimpse of the glory of God.

We must try to pray in the power of God,
and not in the doubts and impossibilities
of our own minds.

Let us try to walk
in the holiness of God.

We have become custodians
of the ancient word of God.