You drop a pebble into a still pool, and you see it form a circle, which gradually extends till it fades from your vision, but from your vision only. It still goes on widening, though you no longer see it.
No act or thought of ours stands by itself. It is always related to something else.
None of us can live to himself. For evil or good, for condemnation or blessing, we must exercise a necessary influence over others.
Bees will not work except in darkness, thought will not work except in silence, neither will virtue work except in secrecy
It is of quite unsuspected value to take, even for a minute or two, a complete rest, not trying to pray or think, not even to wander in reverie, but remaining quite passive and quiet in the presence of God.
The road ahead is rough not smooth.
But that is not what we are promised. There lie many trials, tribulations and fears ahead of us.
As Julian of Norwich recorded the words of Jesus in her Shewings, ‘He said not “Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased”; but he said, “Thou shalt not be overcome.”’
But before our life can get depth into it, we must get God into it. A life with no intention of God in it must be shallow.
Our Divine Lord’s ‘Peace be still’ has been uttered over all the billows that threaten to toss the bark. It has inward rest whatever be the outward commotion.
Environment is a small matter to him who contemplates the Almighty.
High above all earthly, lower happiness, the blessedness of those Eight Beatitudes towers into the heaven itself. They are white with the snows of eternity; they give a grace, a meaning, a dignity, to all the rest of the earth over which they brood.
Flit’st thou thus midway passion’s slave and jest,
When all so near, above, below, unchanging
Are Heaven and rest?
Suffolk Vicar 