A Christmas Celebration – “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” – Day 8

Blessing From Merton At Year’s End

[Circular Letter to Friends, 1968]

Blessings and joy in the New Year. Pray for peace at home and abroad. May the Lord bring you peace in your own hearts and joy always. God be with you.…I have already said more than I intended. God bless you. I appreciate your friendship and your communications. Keep well. May your understanding of life deepen, may your freedom grow strong, may you be more and more independent of forces that try to dominate and standardize our lives in massive futility. May you grow in love, may you have joy!

Thomas Merton. The Road to Joy, Robert E. Daggy, editor (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989): 109, 111.

emphasis mine

An Advent Meditation – “Advent Reflections #2″

My Wake Forest Poetry Reading

Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 7:30 pm – Winston-Salem, NC

Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Room 204, Wake Forest University

Jesus, Our Food and Drink by Henri Nouwen

Jesus is the Word of God, who came down from heaven, was born of the Virgin Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit, and became a human person. This happened in a specific place at a specific time. But each day when we celebrate the Eucharist, Jesus comes down from heaven, takes bread and wine, and by the power of the Holy Spirit becomes our food and drink. Indeed, through the Eucharist, God’s incarnation continues to happen at any time and at any place.

Sometimes we might think: “I wish I had been there with Jesus and his apostles long ago!” But Jesus is closer to us now than he was to his own friends. Today he is our daily bread!

The Sacredness of God’s Creation by Henri Nouwen

How do we live in creation? Do we relate to it as a place full of “things” we can use for whatever need we want to fulfill and whatever goal we wish to accomplish? Or do we see creation first of all as a sacramental reality, a sacred space where God reveals to us the immense beauty of the Divine?

As long as we only use creation, we cannot recognise its sacredness because we are approaching it as if we are its owners. But when we relate to all that surrounds us as created by the same God who created us and as the place where God appears to us and calls us to worship and adoration, then we are able to recognise the sacred quality of all God’s handiwork.

emphasis mine

“Not Your Typical Poet” by Scott Owens

Poet Scott Owens has written an article about me and posted it on his blog Musings.  The article is entitled, “Not Your Typical Poet.“

Thank you, Scott.

Huge CyberAttack Affecting Facebook and Twitter Etc.

I hear a huge Cyberattack is affecting facebook and Twitter, etc. I need to go grocery shopping anyway.

Winston-Salem Poetry Reading (Part One)

Thanks to Curtis Dunlap, Tobacco Road Poet

Reading at the Central Library Tuesday 7 pm

Read all about it here.