Work and Joy

Each day I live I thank the Lord
I do the work I love;
And in it find a rich reward,
All price and praise above.
For few may do the work they love,
The fond unique employ,
That fits them as a hand a glove,
And gives them joy.

Oh gentlefolk, do you and you
Who toil for daily hire,
Consider that the job you do
Is to your heart's desire?
Aye, though you are to it resigned,
And will no duty shirk,
Oh do you in your private mind
Adore your work?

Twice happy man whose job is joy,
Whose hand and heart combine,
In brave and excellent employ
As radiantly as mine!
But oh the weary, dreary day,
The wear and tear and irk
Of countless souls who cannot say:
'I love my work.'

Robert W. Service

Family Poetry

Absence

With leaden foot Time creeps along
While Delia is away:
With her, not plaintive was the song,
Nor tedious was the day.

Ah, envious Pow'r! reverse my doom;
Now double thy career,
Strain ev'ry nerve, stretch ev'ry plume,
And rest them when she's here!

Richard Jago
English Cleric
1715 - 1781

Wonder if we're related?

Onlookers by Lucy Shaw

Behind our shield of health, each
of us must sense another's anguish
second-hand; we are agnostic
in the face of dying. So Joseph
felt, observer of the push
and splash of birth, and even Mary,
mourner, under the cross's arm.

Only their son, and God's,
in bearing all our griefs
felt them first-hand, climbing
himself our rugged hill of pain.
His nerves, enfleshed, carried
the messages of nails, the tomb's
chill. His ever-open wounds
still blazon back to us the penalty
we never bore, and heaven
gleams for us more real,
crossed with that human blood.

Wow! Have you ever had a poem grab the the first time you read it? To me it usually takes reading over and over to comprehend most poems. Furthermore, there is a Flannery O'Connor quote after the title in the book Sacrifice of Praise where I found Onlookers.

Sickness is a place...where there's no company, where nobody can follow.

Suffice it to say that I am praying for those who are ill and infirm today.

Click on the time to comment and leave the name of a sick friend who needs prayer.

What Life Have You?

What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of GOD.
Even the anchorite who meditates alone,
For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of GOD,
Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.
And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor
Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere
Nor does the familiy even move about together,
But every son would have his motorcycle,
And daughters ride away on casual pillions.

Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore;
Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste:
Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the stone,
Let the fire not be quenched in the forge.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
American-born poet and Noel laureate
From *The Rock*

Address Change

I've been feeling a little ornery these days. Please accept my apologies, if I have hurt your feelings. This poem is one I learned when my children were younger. I am relearning it today.


I knew a woman whose name was Horner
Who used to live on Grumble Corner;
Grumble Corner in Crosspatch town
And she never was seen without a frown.

She grumbled at this, and she grumbled at that,
She growled at the dog. She growled at the cat.
She grumbled at morning. She grumbled at night.
And to grumble and growl was her chief delight.

She grumbled so much at her husband that he
Began to grumble as well as she.
And all the children, wherever they went,
Reflected their parents' discontent.

If the sky was dark and betokened with rain,
Then Mrs. Horner was sure to complain.
And if there was not a cloud about,
She grumbled because of a threatened drought.

Her meals were never to suit her taste--
She grumbled at having to eat in haste.
The bread was poor, or the meat was tough--
Or else she hadn't had half enough.

No matter how hard her husband would try
To please his wife, with scornful eye
She'd look around and then with a scowl
At something or other she'd begin to growl.

One day as I walked down the street,
My old acquaintance I chanced to meet;
Whose face was without the look of care
And the ugly frown that had drifted there.

"I may be mistaken" perhaps I said
As after saluting I turned my head!
"But it is, and it isn't the Mrs. Horner
Who used to live on Grumble Corner."

I met her next day and I met her again;
In melting weather and in pelting rain.
When stocks were up, and when stocks were down,
But a smile, somehow, had replaced the frown.

It puzzled me much, and so one day,
I seized her hand in a friendly way and said,
"Mrs. Horner, I'd like to know
What can have happened to change you so?"

She laughed a laugh that was good to hear;
For it told of a conscience, calm and clear.
And she said with none of her old-time drawl,
"Why I've changed my residence, that is all.

"Yes," said Horner, "It wasn't healthy on Grumble Corner"
And so, I've moved; t'was a change complete,
"And you will find me now
On Thanksgiving Street."

Jehovah Tsidkenu
by Robert Murray McCheyne
Scottish Presbyterian Minister

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,
Isaiah's wild measure and John's simple page;
But e'en when they pictured the blood sprinkled tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu - 'twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see--
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Savior must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life giving and free--
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! My treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne'er can be lost;
In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field
My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death
This watchword shall rally my faltering breath;
For while from life's fever my God sets me free
Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be.

(Tsidkenu is Hebrew for The Lord our Righteousness)

Meditations Upon an Egg by John Bunyan

The egg's no chick by falling from the hen;
Nor man a Chrisitan, till he's born again.
The egg's at first contained in the shell;
Men, afore grace, in sins and darkness dwell.
The egg, when laid, by warmth is made a chicken,
And Christ, by grace, those dead in sin doth quicken.
The egg, when first a chick, the shell's its prison;
So's flesh to the soul, who yet with Christ is risen.
The shell doth crack, the chick doth chirp and peep,
The flesh decays, as men do pray and weep.
The shell doth break, the chick's at liberty,
The fleshhh falls off, the soul mounts up on high
But both do not enjoy the self-same plight;
The soul is safe, the chick now fears the kite.

But chicks from rotten eggs do not proceed,
Nor is a hypocrrite a saint indeed.
The rotten egg, though underneath the hen,
If crack'd, stinks, and is loathsome unto men.
Nor doth her warmth make what is rotten sound;
What's rotten, rotten will at last be found.
The hypocrite, sin has him in possession,
He is a rotten egg under profession.

Some eggs bring cockatrices; and some men
Seem hatch'd and brooded in the viper's den.
Some eggs bring wild-fowls; and some men there be
As wild as are the wildest fowls that flee.
Some eggs bring spiders, and some men appear
More venom'd than the worst of spiders are.
Some eggs bring piss-ants, and some seem to me
As much for trifles as the piss-ants be.
Thus divers eggs do produce divers shapes,
As like some men as monkeys are like apes.
But this is but an egg, were it a chick,
Here had been legs, and wings, and bones to pick.

Touche. See Carmon's blog Feb 5 entry for context.

Post Lunar Eclipse

Just thought I would post a poem by St Augustine. I had always heard the last line, but never the context. So, in response to Linda's Marvelous Mondays, I commented on God's wonders in the lunar eclipse. And this prayer seems to fit the marvel.

O God, by whose laws the poles revolve, the stars follow their courses.
The sun rules the day and the moon presides over the night;
And all the world maintains, as far as this world of sense allows,
The wondrous stability of things by means of the order and recurrences of seasons:
Through the days by the changing of light and darkness.
Through the months by the moon's progressions and declines,
Through the years by the successions of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter,
Through the cycles by the completion of the Sun's course,
Through the great eras of time by the return of the stars to their starting points.
God of life, There are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and wear us down;
When the road seems dreary and endless, The skies grey and threatening;
When our lives have no music in them and our hearts are lonely.
And our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light.
We beseech you; Turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise.
Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you.

Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run:
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.


Wake, and lift up thyself, my heart,
And with the angels bear thy part,
Who all night long unwearied sing
High praise to the eternal King.


All Praise to Thee, who safe has kept,
And hast refreshed me while I slept:
Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake
I may of endless life partake.


Lord, I my vows to Thee renew;
Disperse my sins as morning dew;
Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with Thyself my spirit fill.


Direct, control, suggest, this day,
All I design, or do, or say,
That all my powers, with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.


Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.


Thomas Ken (1637-1711)