inspiration

Enjoy these words and images shared recently in the context of community worship (comments welcome at bottom of page).

Sketches by Kandy

Poetry by Pete

Poem by Zoelle

Poem by Ben

sketches in real time during worship, by J. Kandy Lippincott

(please click to view larger image)

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poetry by Pete

untitled

Oh most humble
Closer to my embodied life
Than I dare acknowledge,
Unless protected by circumstance
With the humblest of clothing
At birth and death,
Thank thee for a
growing confidence
Upon witnessing your movements,
That I, too, moved and yet go on
That I also am humbled.

Peter M. Small - 6/21/2016

Quaker Meeting - First day of September

In the summer’s hot weather, the
Meetinghouse doors are opened.
There in the sacred silence
My gaze lifts and drinks its fill

The traffic on Main Street,
And the broad-shouldered lawn
And the grove of old trees.
The labyrinth we’ve drawn

When chilly air returns, the
Meetinghouse doors are closed.
How then shall I remember
The rough Earth just outside?

Peter M. Small - 9/1/2019

To Work!
Who are now by affection joined,
Called to stand on garden earth,
Dance and sing at edge of dawn,
Rise as one unto the work.

Peter M. Small - 9/3/2017

1. Waiting on Dawn
Who lives with us in Light and Love
Beside, inside, below, above?

Also stranger, and also Friend
Leads and labors with us to mend

The path of each, the paths of all
Although we rise and though we fall.

Ofttimes our slave when things are well
Saviour! Saviour! at gates of Hell.

In every dawn we find anew
Ourselves a’walking yet with You.

2. Morning Light
The First Day morning streamed around
And sacred hush replaced all sound.

Within the living halls of home
The humble Presence also shone.

I felt a press of spirit Friends
Worshiping with the great Amen.

“Meetinghouse”, “Home” now joined in Thee!
T’was then Friends Meeting came to me.

Peter M. Small 1/15/2017

The reason has its heart

The world changes
and I die
of the strangeness
If I had to do it all over again
I would do it this way again and again,
I have learned something from all this
Be true to who you are
To who God made you
And to God who made you
We need every voice and body
There is no end to the world
There is an end to this body

Peter M. Small - 3/15/2019

poetry by Zoelle

From “Birth”

What is the underlying longing that demands our attention? We each crave comfort.

Physical comfort. Emotional comfort. Spiritual comfort. Freedom from hardship. We crave Relief.

But growth, it seems to me, is never comfortable. To stretch, to advance, to risk always requires a certain amount of pain.

With the act of being born into these physical bodies through the act of leaving them, pain gently holds our hand and walks us through all of the transitions of our lives. Discomfort is the side-car that carries us forward through the trials and tribulations of living.

Into Maturity; Into Peace; Into Understanding; Into Wisdom. Into the preparation for each new step. Into the Comfort we seek.

Zoelle Montgomery-Maurer – 12/29/2019

poetry by Ben

When I See Flags at Half Mast

Images of soldiers, fleeting and grim
formed massed on their journey,
Our flags flown full, the day is seized;
And accepted heavy losses.
 
Today – looking up at Flags Half Mast
An invisible cyst does grow,
within our nation’s iron chest
And scars our labored lungs.
 
I long for a clean and even battle,
Put a true face to a name.
An identifiable enemy
To accompany this refrain.
 
Instead, bleeding sirens sound
beyond our measured view.
Masked medics align with swabs in hand
Prepared for a silent enigma:
Which knows no boundaries among us,
This a cursed thing.
 
Flags at Half Mast – do I see?
Pretend, the void, the spring.

Ben Morris, April 2020