Karl Möller

13/06/2016

The storm did not lessen the least

late in evening the sky bruised
ringed them ugly and full
the sea moiled, black with heaving
feverish and wild

the rimless sky flickered with lightning
thunder padded and prowled
the wind woke, came like a beast
pawing this way and that

and the boat plunged and heaved
they held on in the scream of the sea
praying that as Christ had once calmed them
the waters might hear him again

then one of them looked and saw
in the midst of the worst of the night
a star chinking like gold
he pointed, they followed his arm

the storm did not lessen the least
but their faith was made of new fire
they fought like men unafraid
and the morning was born at last

This is an extract from Kenneth Steven’s wonderful sequence of poems, entitled A Song among the Stones, which tells the dangerous journey of four Celtic monks on their way from Iona to Iceland.

03/05/2016

The one and only test

The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience or devotional practice [is] that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine [makes] you kinder, more empathetic and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness this [is] good theology. But if your notion of God [makes] you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it [leads] you to kill in God’s name, it [is] bad theology.

Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase

14/04/2016

Greeting the day

We greet the morning sun each day with our to-do lists, while the monk greets the sun with prayer and silence.

Lonni Collins Pratt with Daniel Homan, Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love

27/02/2016

The ones standing on your cape

There’ll be days like this, my mama said
…
when you step out of the phone booth and
try to fly, and the very people you want to
save are the ones standing on your cape

From Sarah Kay, B

03/01/2016

Achtsamkeit für die Sprache

Ich vermisse heute bei vielen Predigten und bei der Gestaltung von Gottesdiensten die Achtsamkeit für die Sprache. Da spürt man oft nicht mehr das Bemühen für die Schönheit.

(Anselm Grün, Schönheit: Eine neue Spiritualität der Lebensfreude)

Wie wahr!

15/12/2015

Nick Spencer, in his book Asylum and Immigration: A Christian Perspective on a Polarised Debate, talks about compassion for the vulnerable being the critical litmus test of a society’s social health – a truly sobering reminder of the state of our society’s declining social health, I thought. Spencer goes on to say that

a nation should be proud rather than grudging in its acceptance of the truly vulnerable, There are few higher callings than to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and house the homeless.