SPRINGING

Hi There!

So, those of us on the east coast are shivering as

we dig out from Tuesday's surprise blizzard.

That not withstanding,

nature is ready to Spring,

to "spring forth" in

fragrance, color, warmth,

unfoldings and flowerings

beyond measure.

Nature's "springing" is

the Energy of the Universe,

the Dynamism of Love,

the Limitless Goodness

we call God,

uncoiling,  bursting out

in a Lover's Embrace of us.

Wonder-filled is Nature's grandeur,

swelling up from the

"...dearest freshness deep down things..."

The poem, God's Grandeur,

celebrates that while noting our violation of it,

our closing off to Love's Embrace, yet 

"...And for all this, nature is never spent...

Because the Holy Ghost over bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."

"Springing" reminds us,

" re -hearts " us,

that we really don't , even can't, find God.

That Goodness is,

and we are invited to awaken to it,

to delight in The Embrace.

Out here on the street of life where

"...all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared...

wears  man's smudge..."

our spirits are lifted, freed, filled

as we unthaw, relax into

The Embrace "Springing " for us.

Hopkins' poem is a marvelous "spring board" for that.


                       GOD'S GRANDEUR


The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

   It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

   It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

   And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

   And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.


And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

 And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.


                                                           Gerard Manley Hopkins



Thomas Merton echoed Hopkins:

"We are living in a word that is absolutely transparent and

the divine is shining through it all the time."



Rumi reminds us that

" Beauty surrounds us,

but usually we need to be walking in a garden

to know it."


Richard Rohr invites us to  pray,

to resonate with

"...the eternal mystery that

enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things."



God for us, we call you Father.

God alongside us, we call you Jesus.

God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.

You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,

Even us and even me.

Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness.

We can only see you in what is.

We ask for such perfect seeing -

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Amen ( so be it.)

                          Richard Rohr's daily email, Center for Action and Contemplation,

                          March 10,2017



So, let's take a walk and pray

as we get lost in

God's Grandeur

"Springing."



Thanks for this time together.

Holding you in

God's Dearest Love,

John Frank


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