When Fluttering Leaves Depart

Like the joy on the heart of a sorrow,
The sunset hangs on a cloud;
A golden storms of glittering sheaves,
Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves,
The wild wind blows in a cloud.

Hark to the voice that is calling
To my heart in the voice of the wind:
My heart is weary and sad and alone,
For its dreams like that fluttering leaves of gone,
And why should I stay behind?

- Saroniji Naidu 

"Autumn Song" 

submitted: 03 January 2013 A.D. 

Boxes of Love

I have in my hand two boxes
Which God gave me to hold
He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black,
And all your joys in the gold."
I heeded His words and in the two boxes
Both my joys and sorrows I store
But though the gold box became heavier each day
The black was as light as before.

With curiosity I opened the black
I wanted to find out why
And I saw, the base of box, a hole
Which my sorrows had fallen out by

I showed the whole to God, and mused aloud,
"I wonder where my sorrows could be."
He smiled a gentle smile at me.
"My child, they are all here with me."

I asked God, "Why give me the boxes,
Why the gold and the black with the hole?"
"M child, the gold is for you to count your blessings,
The black is for you to let go."

- Anonymous 

"God's Boxes of Love" 

* date not specified *

To Live is Now

Deal only with the present -
Never step into tomorrow,
For God asks us just to trust Him
And to never borrow sorrow,
For the future is not ours to know,
And it may never be,
So let us live and give our best
And give it lavishly . . .
For to meet tomorrow's troubles
Before they are even ours
Is to anticipate the Savior
And to doubt His all - wise powers,
So let us be content to solve
Our problems one by one,
Asking nothing of tomorrow
Except "Thy will be done."

Helen Steiner Rice
"Never Borrow Sorrow"
May 16, 2012 A.D,

                                                                                                                             

To The Unbroken

There is a brokenness
Out of which comes the unbroken,
A shattered-ness out
Of which blooms the un-shatterable
There is a sorrow
Beyond all grief that leads to joy
And a fragility
Out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
Too vast for words
Through which we pass with each loss,
Out of whose darkness
We are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
Whose serrated edges cut the heart
As we break open
To the place inside which is unbreakable
And whole,
While learning to sing.

- Rashani

"There Is Brokenness" 

2010 

To Lose One Self

Water flowing down the permanent canals.
Colors running and bleeding each other.
Red pressure spots residing in their familiar place.
Years of brokenness and neglect.

Ducts thought to be dried,
Yet springs forth gallons more.
How the nights are spent in the watery grave.
Cries heard from no one except her pillow.

Too many chances, to forgive again.
Quietness is welcomed, but hated.
For she lost all, including herself,
And sadness became her only friend.

- Matthias 

"Blue Orbs Through a Glazed Len"

date unknown 

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius.
Commanders of the armies of the North, general of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance in this life, or the next.

- Maximus Decimus Meridius

(Actor: Russel Crowe) 

Gladiator, 2000

Predestined To Be

About a trillion centuries
Before the world was made, and seas
Of deep and empty space were not
Yet there to make an endless spot
For nothingness, nor Gabriel,
Nor Lucifer, nor flames of hell,
Nor beasts and elders round the throne,
But only God the Lord alone—
No element of any kind,
Nor measurement, but only Mind—
Ages before the Lord employed
His sovereign power to make a void
Beside the vastness of his will,
When there was only God to fill
The mind of God with joy and He
Was Life, and absolutely free...

The Father fixed his gaze on me,
Foreknew my soul that I should be
At first ashamed before his face,
And then a vessel for his grace;
And in the Holy Trinity
Engaged a glad conspiracy
Of love that all the energy
Of God should be employed to see
That I, when all his work is done,
Would bear the image of his Son.

And I indeed have been ashamed
For awesome things that I have named
A sham. Once in Ms. Clanton's class
A group of us with ample brass
Announced our sure and reasoned scheme:
"Predestination is a dream
Of Presbyterians misled
By Calvin who had lost his head
And killed a man for heresy
Back in the sixteenth century."
And I pursued their praise with zest . . .

. . . As though a bird should curse the air
Beneath its wing, and fish compare
The ocean to a grave, the ant
Should lift its mighty voice and rant
Against the earth with pride obsessed,
And infants rail against the breast.

And O, the shame, the shame of those
Presumptuous years to one who knows
Far better now. Had not the gaze
Of God affixed itself with rays
Of mercy on my unborn soul,
And burned my name into the scroll
Of life, there would have been no cause
That all my proud and ugly flaws
Should be pursued with mercy all
My days.

O God of great and small,
O God of free and sovereign grace,
How great and wonderful your ways,
Ordaining all before its days!
To you alone be endless praise!
Come, meet us in this season bright!
We glorify your holy might,
And give the name to candle one:
Foreknown and destined in the Son.

- John Piper 

Foreknown and Destined in the Son 

December 1, 1985