Thoughts of another

"Dream Deferred"
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crest and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?



"After Great Pain"
by Emily Dickinson

After great pain a formal feeling comes
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet mechanical
Go round a wooden way
Of ground or air or Ought, regardless grown,
A quartz contentment like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if out lived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then letting go.



"The Garden of Love"
by William Blake

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

The Debt Every Man Must Pay

One of my dear friend's experienced the passing of a parent while we were in our senior year of high school. Her father had battled MS for many years and the Lord finally saw fit to take him home.

Weeks and months following the funeral, I found myself driving out to the cemetery where he was buried. The silence provided a calm and appropriate place to pray. Needless to say, Chicago is not quite as quiet as that cemetery, so it is a favorite piece of any Texas visit to go back to that silent place and hear peace and rest.

My last visit, just a few days ago, there was a fresh grave--that of one who must have been a beautiful and wonderful woman. Among the mass of flowers and farewell gifts was a small cross that had this favorite prayer inscribed on it. Read it slowly.

Lord Yahweh,
Make me an instrument of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; and
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much
Seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
(written by Saint Francis of Assisi)