Catching Up

It's been an eventful few weeks here.

First of all, I had a nasty dental abscess with a week on antibiotics (and all the joy that brings!), followed by painful dental work, then it was my mother-in-law's washing machine packing up and us having to source a new one for her and arrange for it to be delivered and installed, hospital appointments to attend and dealing with that paperwork.

And then.... we have finally, thankfully, have had an offer on my late mother's house, which we have accepted, so that is all in hand at present, with all of its associated mountain of legal paperwork and phone calls.

The two young ones have been invited to be bridesmaids at a wedding in Scotland in the summer, so we are investigating how feasible it will be for us to have a family holiday up there so we can meet my very dear Scottish friend :-)

I am hoping to get back on my schedule of posting book reviews very soon.....

A Lenten Poetry Companion

I was delighted when, searching for Lenten -themed poems, I discovered a great resource,  a Lenten Poetry Companion: Poems for Prayer and Pondering.


It is possible to print it out and have a poem to read, ponder, pray about and journal about each day :-)

The Dark Days Of Lent

'I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day'

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

   With witness I speak this. But where I say

Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament

Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away.

   I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree

Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;

Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

   Self-yeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be

As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

A Poem for Lent

TO KEEP A TRUE LENT.
by Robert Herrick


IS this a fast, to keep
The larder lean ?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep ?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish ?

Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour ?

No ; ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate ;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent ;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin ;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick, 1591 - 1674

Lenten Thoughts

Indeed.

Forgiveness Sunday

Today is Forgiveness Sunday. 

 I ask forgiveness for anything I may have done or said to offend or upset any of you. 

 My prayers that you may all have a blessed and fruitful Lent!