21st. November. 2020. Daily Devotion.
18th November 2020 A Candle in the Window Peter Millar
Encouraging words for tough times ionacottage@hotmail.com
This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher
So come my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here,
It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear.
Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.
Both these quotes are from Leonard Cohen
Ours is along and often silent struggle.
Why do we struggle? Two reasons.
We struggle because we love not because we hate,
And we struggle because our faith in God is alive, not dead.
Marta Torres, activist.
When I look round at all the poverty and injustice, I say to myself; ‘thank you God that I am not God’. Then when I remember that in every place of human suffering there are many caring women and men and children, I say to myself, ‘thank you God that you are God’. Desmond Tutu
To become aware of the sacramental nature of the cosmos; to be open to the sacramental possibilities of each moment; to see the face of Christ in every person – these things are not novel – but their rediscovery is the beginning of our health.
Ron Ferguson writer and former Leader of the Iona Community
At every beginning, bless our dreaming and our doing.
This is the day we have – full of the mundane and the miraculous, the known and unknown.
Open our eyes to all that is around us. Open our ears to the song the soul yearns to sing.
Open our hearts to the love that lives through us. Open our hands to the task the moment requires.
Let us do this one thing, the thing before us, as if all creation and our very life depend upon it.
as if you are bent over, watching and listening and willing to do it well. Carla A. Grosch-Miller.
Hope Rooted
The lives of your people are plagued with despair, O God. War and drought cause millions to flee and leave behind everything; children are climate activists because their elders don’t see; disasters destroy the lives of many around the world, and again and again; parents weep at funerals for yet another tragedy … And though we daily notice the cold, dark shadow of death nearby, your people are not afraid because we know that you are here, too. Hold us up when we feel we can stand no longer and give us hope that is rooted in the promise of eternal life. Amen. — Jon Reinink, Church Support Associate, Mission Engagement and Support. PCUSA
