It's All There In Psalm 1
Do Not Mix With The Wicked, The Plotters, Or The Scoffers—Will Bring Ruin
This thought just came to me:
”I’d rather be hosting an emotional sanctuary for those who have been battered by truth terrorists than run a gas station pumping out dystopian sci-knowledge.”
I like what we are.
A place that is willing to say: “Truth is important but the spiritual battle more so.”
Watch out for addiction, spiritual coarsening, bullying and micro-bullying, correction-ism, who’s right-ism, and narcissism. The new cloak is “truth seeker.”
Once it was “hippie.”
Either way, you’ll get hurt if you don’t follow Psalm 1’s advice.
Next Zoom will be Dec 26.
Many may be roughed up by the losses felt at Christmas, and need some company of like minded friends.
I’m thinking of it as a reading event—people read passages of writing, their own or that of others.
Many years ago, I encountered a post on some forum or blog where a prison inmate (recently released? I don’t remember) had posted this poem:
Bells Across the Snow
O CHRISTMAS, merry Christmas!
Is it really come again?
With all its memories and greetings,
With its joy and with its pain.
There’s a minor in the carol,
And a shadow in the light,
And a spray of cypress twining
With the holly wreath tonight.
And the hush is never broken
By the laughter light and low,
As we listen in the starlight
To the “bells across the snow.’
O Christmas, merry Christmas!
‘Tis not so very long
Since other voices blended
With the carol and the song!
If we could but hear them singing
As they are singing now,
If we could but see the radiance
Of the crown on each dear brow;
There would be no sigh to smother,
No hidden tear to flow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the ‘bells across the snow.’
O Christmas, merry Christmas!
This never more can be;
We cannot bring again the days
Of our unshadowed glee.
But Christmas, happy Christmas,
Sweet herald of goodwill,
With holy songs of glory
Brings holy gladness still.
For peace and hope may brighten,
And patient love may glow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the ‘bells across the snow.’
I later found it was written by the nineteenth century poet and hymn writer, Frances Ridley Havergal. I set the poem to music and recently recorded it, and I submitted it (combined with Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” as an EP called “Snow on Snow”) to my distributor for Spotify and other streaming services. Hopefully it will be live in a few days. In the meantime it can be accessed on Dropbox at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/jamcqlf855eidusjv459w/AMDGJdi-oDSTOC7YWJLqCEY?rlkey=a3pbms9fll6vl2ox69e4o1qds&st=1kb2jqbk&dl=0
Thank you for sharing that beautiful psalm
Here is piece I penned the other day which comes from my work on compassion and acceptance. I fail in thoughts but catch them immediately and stop the negative wrongs that defile the soul
Three Truths
Your words in script and speech are yours alone
What ever you do own the action taken
Ones thoughts are that which we live with
These three irrefutable truths determine our bearing and reflect who we are
Merry Christmas to you and All