The high road...

On Thursday night, I'll be singing this song with our church choir for a concert performance. It's always been one of my favorite ballads, so mournful and romantic. But after seeing Loch Lomond when I was twenty years old, the song has an even greater meaning for me. Scotland is a beautiful country, and Loch Lomond is a lovely place to linger on the way to the Highlands. My heart will be in the heather as I sing:

Loch Lomond
By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Chorus

O ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

‘Twas there that we parted in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side o’ Ben Lomond.
Where in deep purple hue, the highland hills we view,
And the moon comin’ out in the gloamin’.

The wee birdies sing and the wild flowers spring,
And in sunshine the waters are sleeping:
But the broken heart it kens nae second spring again,
Tho’ the waeful may cease frae their greeting.

This day...

"Heaven above was blue, and earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees... "

--Charles Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby

THE GOOD-MORROW.
by John Donne


I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear ;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ;
Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west ?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

A Thousand Miles

Every journey begins with one step, and this song makes me want to run the whole way:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFbuqWcCgKo

A picture of an evening

Another walk in the mist along the greenest paths I've ever seen here. For a moment, as I look around at the grass and trees, I'm back in England walking through the dewy morning fields. The birds are singing everywhere, and I could walk a thousand miles and not look back once. There's the creek, or is it the Wold, or the Avon? The water shimmers over the rounded rocks and fallen branches, carrying an errant Spring leaf or two along the way, each one looking like a tiny green boat. I stand on the bridge, trying to imprint each part of the whole upon my mind's eye. Maybe later on I' ll try to capture the smallest echo of this beauty with color and brush. But first, a little prayer to thank the Creator of all of these wonders which, in all their splendor, grow pale beside His ravishing Light.

Tricky enough...

"There isn't no call to talk of pushing and pulling. Boats are quite tricky enough for those that sit still without looking further for the cause of trouble."

--Samwise Gamgee in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

Light

Dear Jesus,
help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with
may feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as You shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine.
It will be You, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You in the way which You love best,
by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by example,
by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for You. Amen.

--prayer of John Henry Cardinal Newman