A Summer Ramble

(photo taken by me at the monastery, August 3, 2007)

The quiet August noon has come;
A slumbrous silence fills the sky,
The fields are still, the woods are dumb,
In glassy sleep the water lies.

Away! I will not be, today,
The only slave of toil and care;
Away from the desk and dust! away!
I'll be as idle as the air.

Beneath the open sky abroad,
Among the plants and breathing things,
The sinless, peaceful works of God,
I'll share the calm the season brings.

Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I see
The gentle meaning of thy heart,
One day amid the woods with me,
From men and all their cares apart.

- William Cullen Bryant

There is nothing sadder...

There is nothing sadder than a Christian fellowship where every song must be of victory, every prayer full of faith, every member always smiling and joyful. It is an exhausting pretence to keep up for long, and it condemns those who cannot hide from their fears to further pain of failure and inadequacy. It is actually dishonest. It means that we can never offer our tears as well as our smiles, our questions as well as our certainties, our wounds as well as our victories. It means that we are always keeping Christ out of the very places in our lives where we need him most - the place of our darkness, uncertainties, and fears. It also means in practice that we will keep talking and chattering to avoid silence. As we have already seen, silence has a way of insisting upon truth.

- David Runcorn, A Center of Quiet; Hearing God When Life Is Noisy

Radiant floor heat in our chapel