Tag Archives: Religion and Spirituality
Don’t Be Good
If you think being good is good enough, you’re not good enough. The problem with being good is that it is putting the cart before the horse. We see people who are holy like Mother Teresa and we notice that she does good. She feeds hungry people and rescues babies from the trash heap. So we are inspired and we decide to be good too. So we get involved in the local soup kitchen and we busy ourselves helping the needy and that’s all well and good, but we forget that before Mother Teresa went out on the streets she spent an hour in contemplative prayer. She was more than good. She was holy.
via Don’t Be Good.
A Million Miracles Ride the Deep
A million miracles ride the deep,
And play beneath the surface
Of Your fury,
In fall of water,
Rounding o’er the rocks,
In rush and billows,
Froth and foam.
Swift river carry me
And write on my memory.
Though seated on the bank,
I sail in heart,
And hurry,
In your wake
Finding joy as a petal,
Skirting the obscured,
Dancing o’er temptation,
In an act of will,
To follow in Your stride,
O Master of the deep.
The glint of sun
In steady flash
To gild rocky edges
As You do my soul.
The wash of swift current,
Pouring joy as palpable
As bird song,
Swimming the swollen crowns,
Like ribbons of life,
Skimming hidden cliffs,
Caring and carrying me along.
Their path and destiny one,
In faith’s repose.
Let not the world
Still or interfere
To make me tarry,
When You bid me come,
Contemplate my end,
And sweet beginning.
One with Providence’s
Plan,
I fear not Thy wild ride.
A million miracles cry out to me
From the beauty
Of depth and mystery.
I am lost in Your Presence.
There You are
Smiling back at me.
I simply smile and gaze.
I am nothing and no one,
Yet You whisper,
In You and Yours,
I am more.
You sing to my soul,
And tell me beauty tales.
Of gaining all I leave behind
In Love’s pursuit.
Grace creates a place for me.
After the mind of God.
I surpass the wonders I behold.
Hold me in this instant,
To capture Paradise
For the journey onward,
Singularly one with everything,
And bound to all,
And none,
Save You.
©2013 Joann Nelander
Your Eyes Are Upon Me
Your eyes are upon
Your lowly servant.
I have a sense
Of being with You
This day in Paradise.
I know you are here
With me,
In the Flesh
For these holy moments,
And, by my Baptism and Confirmation,
By character and grace
In Your Holy Spirit.
Amen to all you choose
To do in me.
I am Yours.
Make me a cleansed vessel
A vessel covered in gold
Fit for Your service,
A chalice full
Of willingness.
I pray, I wait, I obey.
Holy, holy,holy Lord.
Joann Nelander
At My Death
At my death,
My kind and loving Jesus,
Friend and Savior of my soul ,
See again and always
My Baptism,
By and in which I entered
Into Your Divine Life,
As humble and grateful partaker,
Becoming priest, prophet, and king,
By the Victory and Resurrection
That is Yours,
And I now share.
Here, the Life giving Water
Of Your Father’s Plan
And Will for me,
Invited me into Your Death,
That I might live,
Another Christ,
By and in His Only Begotten Son,
By the Will of the Most Holy Trinity.
I will with all my heart,
“Amen”
To all you have done for me
In Your Passion and Death.
May this New Life,
That is Your embrace
Of all my life,
Nailed to the Cross,
That is Your Death
And ransom for my life,
Breathe New Life
Into my soul eternally.
At my death
Take to Yourself,
Your Own.
©2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
All Glory to You
My dear Jesus,
My merciful Jesus,
I rejoice in Your Presence.
Pour ever fresh graces
Into my soul,
That I may draw life From Your Life,
And that Your living Presence in me
May light my corner of the world
With Your Glory.
©2013 Joann Nelander All rights reserved
Be Holy! 