Another collection of seven dailies from the Facebook Page!
The Rod
Raise the Rod of the Ruler of wild things
Worthy of waking the waste to his will;
Even the ash will answer to aid the Otherworldly.Where will the Cry in the way take the wakeful?
To hidden, hoary teachers of high tokens,
To loose their lines into the unlocked lands.– Patrick Lauser
Here is the third collection of seven past dailies from the Facebook Page! This includes a couple cinquains and a quote from my small book (which is really a long short story, but almost novella length).
November Night
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.– Adelaide Crapsey
Lying Thankfulness
Inside
The doorless walls
Of false content and peace
A soul in truth is not a soul
But lies– Patrick Lauser
Bless the LORD all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.
Psalm 103:22
“They were weeping for it everywhere, as they had been always. She who stood there screamed and stabbed for torment of hate and loss, and from marshes and cities all desire that had not learned its own futility rose and swelled in hers. The litany of anguish poured out as if it were the sound of the earth itself rushing through space, and comfortless forever the spinning globe swept on, turning upon itself, crying to itself; and space was the echo of its lament, and time was the measure of its sobs.”
– From “The Greater Trumps” by Charles Williams
Feelings are like conclusions: they can be correct or incorrect. Unlike conclusions, they do not always come from you, and so are not a part of you, unless you choose.
– Patrick Lauser
“As they went further towards the sun the trees became larger, spreading and twisting, turning the sun’s light into a self-strangling mesh of ever sharper shadows and ever fiercer light.”
– Patrick Lauser, from my book, “A Foreshadowed Way”
Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Psalm 143:10
Till next week, God be with you all!
Patrick
The Second Collection of seven dailies from the Facebook page!
Keep the hand comely
In bloom as the flower, but
Hard in work as wood.– Patrick Lauser
Interesting:
The “angel” in the word “evangelize”
(ev – angel – ize) is from the same root as the word “angel”.The word “angel” is from the Greek word for “messenger”, the word “evangelize” comes from the Greek word for “good message”: the gospel.
I posted as a daily a gif from my now finished project, a 3D Twine Adventure called VValkabout.
You can try the adventure right away,
Or read a few words about how to do it, and also get a simple walkthrough if you want:
VValkabout
In Us
In the summer I am light,
In winter I am the snow.
In your heart I am your might,
In my soul are seeds to sow.
In my hand is living thought,
In the ways ill ways to bar.
In times now and past am sought
Where the wise and willing are.– Patrick Lauser
God is Love, Love is not God.
– Patrick Lauser, after A. W. Tozer
The feet of the child
Or the childlike man, falter
But always are clean.– Patrick Lauser
One Body
A will
To do the thing
That opens all the mind
Can only open all the heart
As well.– Patrick Lauser
God be with you all!
Patrick
This is a passage from the ancient epic Beowulf that I quoted some time ago as a daily post, but I feel that the passage deserves a larger and more detailed quote.
So here it is from Francis Barton Gummere’s translation, with a recording.
“Whiles they vowed in their heathen fanes
altar-offerings, asked with words
that the slayer-of-souls would succor give them
for the pain of their people. Their practice this,
their heathen hope; ’twas Hell they thought ofin mood of their mind. Almighty they knew not,
Doomsman of Deeds and dreadful Lord,
nor Heaven’s-Helmet heeded they ever,
Wielder-of-Wonder. — Woe for that man
who in harm and hatred hales his soulto fiery embraces; — nor favor nor change
awaits he ever. But well for him
that after death-day may draw to his Lord,
and friendship find in the Father’s arms!”
This is the original Anglo-Saxon with a recording (as well as I could pronounce it!).
“Hwīlum hīe gehēton æt hærg-trafum
wīg-weorðunga, wordum bǣdon,
þæt him gāst-bona gēoce gefremede
wið þēod-þrēaum. Swylc wæs þēaw hyra,
hǣðenra hyht; helle gemundonin mōd-sefan, metod hīe ne cūðon,
dǣda dēmend, ne wiston hīe drihten god,
nē hīe hūru heofena helm herian ne cūðon,
wuldres waldend. Wā bið þǣm þe sceal
þurh slīðne nīð sāwle bescūfanin fȳres fæðm, frōfre ne wēnan,
wihte gewendan; wēl bið þǣm þe mōt
æfter dēað-dæge drihten sēcean
and tō fæder fæðmum freoðo wilnian.”
These are other translations, this next one from Lesslie Hall’s translation:
“At the shrines of their idols often they promised
Gifts and offerings, earnestly prayed they
The devil from hell would help them to lighten
Their people’s oppression. Such practice they used then,
Hope of the heathen; hell they rememberedIn innermost spirit, God they knew not,
The true God they do not know.
Judge of their actions, All-wielding Ruler,
No praise could they give the Guardian of Heaven,
The Wielder of Glory. Woe will be his who
Through furious hatred his spirit shall drive toThe clutch of the fire, no comfort shall look for,
Wax no wiser; well for the man who,
Living his life-days, his Lord may face
And find defence in his Father’s embrace!”
This next from the translation by William Morris and Alfred John Wyatt.
“And whiles they behight them at the shrines of the heathen
To worship the idols; and pray’d they in words,
That he, the ghost-slayer, would frame for them helping
‘Gainst the folk-threats and evil So far’d they their wont,
The hope of the heathen; nor hell they remember’dIn mood and in mind. And the Maker they knew not,
The Doomer of deeds: nor of God the Lord wist they,
Nor the Helm of the Heavens knew aught how to hery,
The Wielder of Glory. Woe worth unto that man
Who through hatred the baneful his soul shall shove intoThe fire’s embrace; nought of fostering weens he,
Nor of changing one whit. But well is he soothly
That after the death-day shall seek to the Lord,
In the breast of the Father all peace ever craving.”
The Fallen Tower
To know a human tongue from first to last,
To trace a trail of words into the past,
This mystery the blessed end to find,
The pure endeavor of the holy mind.
The gift of God at Babel when begun
Is set until the human course is run.
In this am I more joyful than to end
The work and see that tower reascend.
So on in work divine to gladly strive,
And seek the symboled line while yet alive.– Patrick Lauser
This Our Race
Now on the five wheels of this race
Turning to this distant place;
Four below touch, cast back the ground,
Whose hands that touch the one are found?
All the world lightly is the load,
The course of every heart the road;
Without a pause to stay the run,
To the stop when the world is done.
“Now” is the key to seal the mind,
“Then” is safely sealed and left behind;
In death and life one line for all,
That all may hear a single call:
The end of the road still unseen,
Unfeared by one whose hands are clean.
Oblivion’s fog shuts in our sight:
Our end is nearing through the night,
The judgment hasting to perfect;
Arriving bright, our God’s elect.
All flight is stripped from every crime
For all within the car of Time.– Patrick Lauser
So Glory Springs
This is the sound that brings to a halt
My wandering mind, and sends a calm
To put to sleep the wild, crying night.Haunting heat vanishes in a sigh.
Yawning breaches close, and the floods dry.
Strident alarms break to dim pieces.
Feeling returns: my soul can face grief.
Designs of perversion are unframed,
Every shade returns where it came:
Destroyed by this sound are flames untamed.When violent clamour lays peace low
It splits the thundering cumuli
And quenches the searing ejecta,
Casting beneath a veil the pyrrhic
War cries, that the seed of life may grow.Small is the humble sound as it rings,
Yet tears the tangled rage easily,
For smallest roots raise the highest leaf:
Smallest flames burn the highest fortress.Anthems mount from an unseen idea,
Every thunder from a mist has come,
And in quiet springs begins the sea.Ground a rock for a foundation strong
Before the wall can thicken and climb;
Before Glory’s voice can shake the tomb
Glory is the sound of a child’s song.– Patrick Lauser
This was from a challenge in which the first and last letter of every line must be the same.
A bird in the hand,
Its feet rest lightly, I long
For one in my heart.– Patrick Lauser
Lead on, O King Eternal, we follow, not with fears!
For gladness breaks like morning where’er thy face appears;Thy Cross is lifted o’er us, we journey in its light:
The Crown awaits the conquest; lead on, O God of might.– From Lead On O King Eternal by Ernest W. Shurtleff
Mortality
O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.The child that a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant’s affection that proved;
The husband that mother and infant that blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest.The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure,—her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those that beloved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,
The beggar that wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that hath often been told.For we are the same that our fathers have been;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,—
We drink the same stream,and we feel the same sun,
And we run the same course that our fathers have run.The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking, they too would shrink;
To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling;
But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber may come;
They enjoyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.They died, ay! they died! and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.Yea! hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.‘Tis the wink of an eye, ‘tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,—
O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?– By William Knox
