The Ultimate Question

'Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly,

 'I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.' 

 What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

 'I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

 'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

  'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

  'It isn't,' said the Caterpillar. 

 'Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; 'but when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?'

  'Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

  'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; 'all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.' 

 'You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 'Who are YOU?'

Landscape 2

Landscape 2 ... 2009

Landscape

Moon ... Wave ... Tower  (2009)

Happy Moon Face

Happy Moon Face ... 2009

Maundy Thursday

Between the brown hands of a server-lad

The silver cross was offered to be kissed.

The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,

And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.

(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)

Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,

(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)

Young children came, with eager lips and glad.

(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)

Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.

Above the crucifix I bent my head:

The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:

And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.

(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Pamphill Barn

Barn ... 2009

Vocation

The vocation for you is one in which your deep gladness and the world's need meet--something that not only makes you happy but that the world needs to have done.

(Frederick Buechner)

Slow Work

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way

to something unknown, something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made

by passing through some stages of instability

and that may take a very long time.

*

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually.

Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make you tomorrow.

*

Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.

*

Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955)

Glyph

Glyph ... 2009

Celestial

Celestial ... 2008

Greenrise

Greenrise ... 2008

Animals

Animals ... 2008

Dreaming Hand

Dreaming Hand ... 2008

Light Now

Light Now ... 2008

A Bride Married to Amazement

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

(The beautiful photograph of Mary Oliver is the work of the wonderful photograper Don Shewey.)

The Pure Principle

Star Rise ... 2008

Quakers have no creeds yet these words say it all for me.

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath different names; it is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren.

John Woolman, 1762

Window

Window ... 2008

Vessel

Vessel ... 2008

Mandala #2

Mandala #2 ... 2008

Mandala #1

Mandala #1 ... 2008

Vivienne Goes Far

Vivienne Goes Far ... 2008

Bird with Stars

Bird with Stars ... 2008

Prickly Pair

Prickly Pair ... 2008

Landscape 4

Landscape 4 ... 2008

Cory

Cory... 2007

We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead;
We are seas mingling—we are two of those cheerful waves, rolling over each other, and interwetting each other;
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious:
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness—we are each product and influence of the globe;
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again—we two have;
We have voided all but freedom, and all but our own joy. Walt Whitman ... 1819-1892

Little Owl Face

Little Owl Face ... 2008

Love Me

Love Me ... 2008

Ambulatory Vehicle

Ambulatory Vehicle ... 2008

Door

Door ... 2008

Little Critter

Little Critter with Clouds...2008