“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.
Mother Teresa
“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
― C.S. Lewis
“The harder the conflict,
the more glorious the triumph.”
Thomas Paine
(remnants of Cong Abbey , County Mayo, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)
It whispers across a cool morning breeze…
Do you hear it?
It’s the sound of a thousand and one voices drifting endlessly across the ages.
It’s the mournful cry of a dove at dawn.
It’s the melodic symphony of an unseen orchestra of crickets on a warm summer’s night.
It rides along the ocean’s waves…
Do you see it?
It’s the wonderment you feel as you gaze upon the night sky awash in a million twinkling lights.
It’s the brilliance of color bathed endlessly across a skylit canvas as the sun offers a joyful good morning.
It’s the overwhelming eruption and dazzling display of a myriad of blooming wildflowers in a quiet hidden meadow…
It’s a familiar scent wafting upwards from somewhere unexpectedly…
Do you smell it?
It’s the fresh scent of grass from a newly mowed lawn
It’s the heavy smell of rain riding in on the winds before a storm.
It’s a long lost memory catching you off guard as you suddenly capture a whiff of your grandmother’s home
It races from touch to touch…
Do you feel it?
It’s caught up in the soothing memories from a now distant childhood.
It’s the sudden chill you feel as the sun dips out of sight on a cool fall’s night.
It’s the welcoming comfort found in an offered smile.
It’s much more than ancient history or the crumbling bits of mortar and stone now abandoned and long forgotten…
(crumbling remains hidden away deep within Kevin’s Monastery, Glendalough National Park, County Wicklow, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)
It’s really more like the bits of sand found in your shoe after a walk along the beach…small and tiny, yet largely distracting,
rather uncomfortable and most difficult to ignore
The curious and the tourist alike each pick their way through the labyrinth of time long past, as they wander about pondering and musing what it all meant and wondering where it all went.
Yet you know don’t you….?
You know it never went anywhere.
It’s been here all along.
Buried deep within your heart.
But it was never meant to stay buried or forgotten.
Never meant to be for tourists or the curious to gawk and pick.
It was never meant to crumble nor decay
For it is living and breathing and yearns to be shared
It’s the gnawing ache felt in each beating heart.
It’s that nagging feeling of being out of sorts as your spirit seems lost in the fray.
It’s in the melancholy and sorrow that shadows a seemingly empty day
It’s the longing for home when you’re already there.
A Spirit most holy yet hidden, longs to hide no more.
A Spirit Loving yet concealed, longs to be revealed.
A Spirit Mighty and Great, longs to be proclaimed
You know It don’t you….?
Because It knows you….
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