Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 16 – Nature leads us to Rest As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 16 – Nature leads us to Rest
Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 15 – Twilight Shades Sometimes, as we travel on to our distant Home, strange things pass by us on the way;- beautiful imaginings which come when we are alone with Nature, spiritual thrills of the heart, which arise from common things, thoughts which awake in us a mystic wonder, telling of another… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 15 – Twilight Shades
The clouds are round us, and the snow-wreaths thicken.
O, Thou dear Shepherd, leave us not to sicken
In the waste night our tardy footsteps quicken :
At evening bring us home
These are the signs of the season…
Eyes and ears are opened.
Limpers and Lepers are welcomed.
Those who seem dead to our common life are born again.
Good News is shared with those who never thought they could afford or were worthy of it.
..and we are the ones who have been called to do this.
And if the eye must fail of light,
The ear forget to hear,
Make clearer still the spirit’s sight,
More fine the inward ear!
‘Fear no more the heat of the sun,
Nor the furious winter rages;
Thou thine earthly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.’
Shall I find comfort travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come
It is a fine thing to ripen without shrivelling, to reach the calmness of age, yet keep the warm heart and ready sympathy of youth,
God’s conception of human victory is so much greater than ours that it cannot always adapt itself to our small triumphal processions.
There is no finer chemistry than that by which the element of suffering is so compounded with spiritual forces that it issues to the world as gentleness and strength.
Suffolk Vicar 