Poets & Saints

Scripture  Psalm 4:8 (NRSVUE)I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.Refrain  Tomorrow is held.Quote  Ralph Waldo Emerson“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Scripture  Isaiah 30:15 (NRSVUE)“For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel:In returning and rest you shall be saved;in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”Refrain  You are near.Quote  Thomas Merton“In a world of noise, confusion and conflict – it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.”

Scripture  Habakkuk 3:17–18Though the fig tree does not bud    and there are no grapes on the vines,though the olive crop fails    and the fields produce no food,though there are no sheep in the pen    and no cattle in the stalls,18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,    I will be joyful in God my Savior.Refrain  I trust what remains.Quote  Václav Havel“The kind of hope that I often think about…I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world.Either we have hope within us, or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soulIt’s not essentially dependent upon some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well,but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Scripture  Psalm 62:8 (NRSVUE)Trust in him at all times, O people;  pour out your heart before him;  God is a refuge for us.Refrain  I release what I cannot carry.Quote  Richard Rohr“Religion has largely become ‘holding on’ instead of letting go. God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go.” 

Scripture  Romans 8:24–2524 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.Refrain  I listen for what is true.Quote  Howard Thurman, “There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.  It is the only true guide you will ever have.  And if you cannot hear it,  you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings  that somebody else pulls.”

Scripture  Isaiah 43:2 (NRSVUE)When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;  and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;  when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,  and the flame shall not consume you.Refrain  I am not alone in this.Quote  Thomas Merton“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going.  What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment,  and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

Scripture  Psalm 13:1-2…5-61 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?    How long will you hide your face from me?2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?    How long will my enemy triumph over me?…5 But I trust in your unfailing love;    my heart rejoices in your salvation.6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,    for he has been good to me.Refrain  Courage is possible here.Quote  Pádraig Ó Tuama“It occurs to me that courage comes from the same place as fear, and where there is fear, there is the possibility of courage.”

Scripture  Galatians 6:9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.Refrain  God is forming me, even now.Quote  Eugene H. Peterson,“There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.”