Letter 4382

Working on spring cleaning of the garden, I am safe as I clear away brush, pull out dead weeds, and turn the soil. Simple tasks, difficult to get wrong.

Knowing what to plant, when to plant, how to plant — these are beyond me. My talents lay elsewhere.

❖

Inside, in quiet, devoting myself to you, I am alive, my heart quickened.

Let me be whom I am supposed to be, Lord.

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Consider:

Can I become myself?

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Reading:

❖ “To thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man.” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet

❖ “A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him.” — Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

❖ “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” — Ephesians 2:10 (KJV)

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Letter 4381

Does the sun shine only on my cabin? My neighbor’s home is in the same field.

Does the rain fall only upon me? The whole village is drenched.

At the barn-raising, is it my hammer that makes the difference? All the nails are the same.

❖

I am neither greater than, nor less than.

Lord, let me be one of many today, a worker among workers.

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Consider:

Can I be one of many?

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Reading:

❖ “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” — John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

❖ “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” — Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

❖ “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” — 1 Corinthians 3:9 (KJV)

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Letter 4380

The forest beside which I live was there long before me. It will be there after I am gone.

I did not will myself to existence. The life in my heart, it came from elsewhere.

In my quiet room, I struggle to create. So many discarded attempts. Is anything worthy of an audience?

❖

Let me, Lord, approach these lines as I do the forest. They were always here, I simply through them and try to see their beauty.

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Consider:

Can I see the beauty already here?

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Reading:

❖ “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.” — T. S. Eliot

❖ “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” — Robert Frost

❖ “The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.” — Proverbs 16:1

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Letter 4379

Though support is not in view, it is there for me. Must I ask?

What supports the meadow? Does it ask for the ground underneath to press upwards?

What supports the mountain? Must it ask to rise so high?

Does the bird ask for the wind to hold it aloft?

❖

Is doubt the way to faith? Or does gratitude move the world?

Let me trust I will have what I need.

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Consider:

Can I trust I will have all I need?

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Reading:

❖ “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” — Rabindranath Tagore

❖ “You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” — Mary Oliver

❖ “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.” — Matthew 6:28

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.