the language celestial...

The cruelest month dawns white and windy on Boston's South Shore after a snowstorm that brought slippery roads causing two separate accidents in front of our house last night (both drivers unhurt-not so much their pickups.) Some Transcendentalism is in order. This from Christopher Pearse Cranch...

Correspondences

"All things in Nature are beautiful types to the soul that will read them;
  Nothing exists upon earth, but for unspeakable ends.
Every object that speaks to the senses was meant for the spirit:
  Nature is but a scroll--God's hand-writing thereon.
Ages ago, when man was pure, ere the flood overwhlmed him,
  While in the image of God every soul yet lived,
Everything stood as a letter or word of a language familiar,
  Telling of truths which now only the angels can read.
Lost to man was the key of those sacred hieroglyphics--
  Stolen away by sin--till with Jesus restored.
Now with infinite pains we here and there spell out a letter;
  Now and then will the sense feebly shine through the dark.
When we perceive the light which breaks through the visible symbol,
  What exultation is ours! we the discovery have made!
Yet is the meaning the same as when Adam lived sinless in Eden,
  Only long-hidden it slept and now again is restored.
Man unconsciously uses figures of speech every moment,
  Little dreaing the cause why to such terms he is prone--
Little dreaming that everything has its own correspondence
  Folded within it of old, as in the body the soul.
Gleams of the mystery fall on us still, though much is forgotten,
  And through our commonest speech illumines the path of our thoughts.
Thus does the lordly sun shine out a type of the Godhead;
  Wisdom and Love the beams that stream on a darkened world.
Thus do the sparkling waters flow, giving joy to the desert,
  And the great Fountain of Life opens itself to the thirst.
Thus does the word of God distil like the rain and the dew-drops,
  Thus does the warm wind breathe like to the Spirit of God,
And the green grass and the flowers are signs of the regeneration.

  O thou Spirit of Truth; visit our minds once more!
Give us to read, in letters of light, the language celestial,
  Written all over the earth--written all over the sky:
Thus may we bring our hearts at length to know our Creator,
  Seeing in all things around types of the Infinite Mind."

Blessings

stand by your order...

I am currently re-reading Richardson's masterful biography of William James. This from James on Emerson...

  "What gave a flavor so matchless to Emerson's individuality was, even more than his rich mental gifts, their singularly harmonious combination. Rarely has a man so accurately known the limits of his genius or so unfailingly kept with them. "Stand by your order," he used to say to youthful students; and perhaps the paramount impression one gets of his life is of his loyalty to his own personal type and mission. The type was that of what he liked to call a scholar, the perceiver of pure truth; and the mission was that of the reporter in worthy form of each perception. The day is good, he said, in which we have the most perceptions. There are times when the cawing of a crow, a weed, a snowflake, or a farmer planting in his field become symbols to the intellect of truths equal to those which the most majestic phenomena can open. Let me mind my own charge, then, walk alone, consult the sky, the field and forest, sedulously waiting every morning for the news concerning the structure of the universe which the good Spirit will give me.

        This was the first half of Emerson, but only half; for genius, as he said, is insatiate for expression, and truth has to be clad in the right verbal garment. The form of the garment was so vital with Emerson that it is impossible to separate it from the matter. They form a chemical combination — thoughts which would be trivially expressed otherwise, are important through the nouns and verbs to which he married them. The style is the man, and if we must define him in one word, we have to call him Artist. He was an artist whose medium was verbal and who wrought in spiritual material."

Blessings

perhaps they are...

Still studying Emerson's "Experience." These are perhaps my favorite lines in all literature...

"Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are."

Blessings

life...is sturdy

Preparing for adult learning session on Emerson's great-almost painfully great-
essay "Experience." What happens when the world catches up and the inspiration gets a little dimmer? Some jewels that I have posted before...

"Life is not intellectual or critical, but Sturdy. It's chief good is for well mixed people who can enjoy what they find, without question.

To fill the hour,-that is happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom."

blessings

be still and know...

Ephraim Peabody was born on this day in 1807(See here for more.) This on prayer from Rev. Peabody...

"I return now to the question, What is the best course for me to take in endeavoring to determine, in any doubtful case, what is my duty ? And, borne out by the laws of man's nature and the declarations of revelation, I reply in the words of the text, for they suggest the whole answer, " Be still, and know that I am God!" In many things it is proper to ask merely what is pleasant, what will gratify the taste,' what will be useful. But in deciding a question of duty, the appeal is made to what is highest and best in a man, and the answer must come thence, or it will only cheat and lead astray. The primary necessity is to separate one's self from the urgencies of the passions. We have come to a question which no crowd can settle by vote or resolution. And what is more, no other human beings, much as they may help us, can settle it for us. I would summon up the best counsellors. I would be out of the sound of human voices. Then is the time for retirement. Be still, and know only that with you is God. One hour in these summer fields alone, in the silence of nature, with a heart that looks in prayer to Him who is above the open heavens, is worth more in determining a question of duty, than ages of rhetoric and libraries of logic. An hour in this place, before the memorials of Christ, with the heart seeking God's guidance, has in it more wisdom than all the oracles philosophy ever uttered. Evil suggestions fade away from the consciousness of the Divine presence. The mind acts in an unembarrassed sphere; it is placed in a right position, and is open to the unbewildered light of truth. The intellect will seek truth most faithfully when the heart seeks God most truly. Prayer does not take the place of reasoning, but the reason finds guidance and protection in prayer. I do not say that even under these circumstances one will always judge aright; but he will judge rightly for himself. He has done the best he can, and will never repent of it. In this reverential and prayerful seeking for right, one is not likely to go astray ; and such a spirit will correct its own errors. The prompting of such an hour it is generally wise for one to follow, and no man ever yet regretted that he was governed in his acts by the spirit of such an hour. In seeking what is right, when you have used other means, have some religious retirement of mind. With a prayerful heart, be still, and alone, conscious that God is With you."

blessings

the soul's sphere...

This from William Phillips Tilden's "Leaflet for Lent" For today. May everyone have a week of light and love...

"GOD help us to let shine the light that His own hand, hath kindled; to take away the bushel of our own placing and to put our light on the candlestick God made for it, that it may give light to all that are in the house. The virtue of the light depends upon its power of illumination. Good works are themselves light. Doing comes closer than having. What one has he may lose; but what one does is never lost. No star-lighted heaven speaks to the heart like a heaven-lighted soul, — a soul filled with the echoes of the spirit's voice; a human star, touched with intelligence, warmed with love, knowing the light and love that kindled both. Each soul seems to have a sphere like the atmosphere around the earth, through which there is an outgoing on mystic threads of communication whereby its own light is imparted. There is something in this world to live for that is not riches; something that no flood-tide of prosperity can ever bring, or ebb-tide of adversity take away; something we carry with us wherever we go. It is what we are, our Best. God make that a light to some life!"

Come unto Me...

This prayer from Rufus Ellis, often featured on these pages...

"Almighty and Ever-loving God, Thou livest though Thy children die, and Thou art ever near to uphold and comfort. Blessed be Thy Name for the faith which is by Christ and that in Him Thou hast overcome the bitterness of sorrow and the sharpness of death, and opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believing hearts. May Thy children of this household be near to Thee as Thou art near to them. Let this sorrow be unto them as Thy fatherly discipline, and may they hear Thee saying unto them as by the lips of the Christ, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." They would confess the wisdom of Thy decree. For all that hath been gracious and merciful they would devoutly thank Thee, and compassed about by the mystery of our life they would say, "Thy will be done." Be Thou the Strength of the weak, the Companion of the lonely, the Author and Finisher of an immortal life. Go with those who shall bear forth their dead to be gathered to kindred dust. Let the face of the risen and glorified shine down through the darkness, and refresh our spirits evermore with the light of Thy Countenance. We pray in His Name who died for our sakes, beseeching Thee to forgive our great and manifold transgressions through Him who ever liveth to make intercession for us. Amen."