"from my quiet darkness"

One of many "calvaires" in France - contemplating the Cross.

“ I call to you, O Lord, from my quiet darkness. Show me your mercy and love. Let me see your face, hear your voice, touch the hem of your cloak. I want to love you, be with you, speak to you and simply stand in your presence. But I cannot make it happen. Pressing my eyes against my hand is not praying, and reading about your presence is not living in it. But there is that moment in which you will come to me, as you did to your fearful disciples, and say, “ Do not be afraid; it is I.” Let that moment come soon, O Lord. And if you want to delay it, then make me patient” (Henri Nouwen).





Tolstoy's grave. As a child, he believed that in this valley was hidden a green stick on which was written the secret to making all people happy.


The Valley of Vision

(from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett).

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,

that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine;

let me find Thy light in my darkness,

Thy life in my death,

Thy joy in my sorrow,

Thy grace in my sin,

Thy riches in my poverty,

Thy glory in my valley.




A roadside encounter, Switzerland 2006.

“The same questions are bothering me today as they did fifty years ago. Why is one born? Why does one suffer? In my case, the suffering of animals also makes me very sad. I’m a vegetarian, you know. When I see how little attention people pay to animals, and how easily they make peace with man being allowed to do with animals whatever he wants because he keeps a knife or a gun, it gives me a feeling of misery and sometimes anger with the Almighty. I say ‘Do you need your glory to be connected with so much suffering of creatures without glory, just innocent creatures who would like to pass a few years in peace?’ I feel that animals are as bewildered as we are except that they have no words for it. I would say that all life is asking: ‘What am I doing here?’” ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902 - 1991), Newsweek interview (October 16, 1978) after winning the Nobel Prize in literature.