The Prayer of Jesus

What we call the "Lord's Prayer" is the prayer Jesus taught to his disciples.

If we can't pray it sincerely ourselves, we can ask Jesus to pray the prayer in us.

Dawn into Flame

The essence of mysticism is not, as some think, visions, levitations, or other extraordinary phenomena. On the contrary, it is a growing into union with the God of love. “Christian mysticism,” writes Harvey D. Egan , “is a way of life that involves the perfect fulfillment of loving God, neighbor, all God’s creation, and oneself” (Introduction, An Anthology of Christian Mysticism).

Bernardo Olivera, speaking of the great 12th-century mystics, uses a dramatic but very beautiful image to describe this journey of the Christian life.

Thus, mysticism is the reality of grace accompanying the whole life of the believer, transforming him or her from dawn into midday and from an individual burning coal into an all-consuming fire.

The Sun at Midnight (Cistercian Publications)

Through the abundant grace of God, may we too be transformed from dimness into an all-consuming blaze of love in God.

 __________

(For more, see "The Mystic as Flame" on "Caught Up in God.")

Fire photo with fractal by Faylei (Rose Hoover, rc)
(Fractal created in Apophysis)

In Deep Waters

Mysterious Swamp

Save me, O God,
    for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire,
    where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
    and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying;
    my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
    with waiting for my God.

. . . . .

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
    At an acceptable time, O God,
    in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.

(Psalm 69:1-3, 13)

Golden Sunset

Golden Sunset

(Click to view full size.)

Sunsets in Chicago can be spectacular. (One theory is that the air pollution enhances the colors.) This one was indeed beautiful, but I confess that I have edited it and intensified it somewhat with Photoshop.

Surface Tension

 

I find surface tension—which is a simple phenomenon, I suppose, as far as scientific phenomena go—fascinating and beautiful. So when I saw the water in my teacup hovering above the rim, I took some pictures.

How great are your works, LORD!
How profound your designs!
A senseless person cannot know this;
a fool cannot comprehend.

(Psalm 92:6-7 NAB)

Big Baby

Baby Rhino King

Here is baby rhinoceros King about three weeks before his first birthday at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  On his birthday he weighed more than 1000 pounds. A zoo official told me, on the day I photographed King, that he was still nursing, even with that horn!

Troubled Planet

Troubled Planet

Let us pray for our troubled world and for all, including ourselves, who commit violence in deed, word, or thought.

See "Justice, Compassion, Prayer" on the blog, "Caught Up in God."

- - - - -

“Troubled Planet” image is by Rose Hoover, rc (with fire texture adapted from NASA photos).

How Manifold Your Works

Pepper and Tomato on Ledge

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,

and plants for people to use,
to bring forth food from the earth,

and wine to gladden the human heart,
oil to make the face shine,

and bread to strengthen the human heart.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

(Psalm 104:14-15, 24) 

Moon over Chicago

Full moon over Chicago from the Cenacle roof

(Click on photo to view full size.)

THE MOON IS ALSO BUSY

I bow to God in gratitude,

And I find the moon is also busy

Doing the same.

I bow to God in great happiniess,

And I learn from where the suns

And the children

And my heart

All borrow their Light.

I bow to the Friend in deep reverence

And discover a marvelous secret carried in the air:

This whole Universe is just as blessed

And divinely crazed as I,

And just as lost in this Wonderful Holy Dance.

My dear,

After such a long, long journey,

God has made another soul

Free!

Now all Hafiz wants to do

Is open a beautiful Tavern

Where this Sacred Wine

Of God's Truth, Knowledge and Love

Is forever and ever

Freely offered to you.

O bow to God in gratitude,

And some day

You will see how

The moon is also busy doing the same.

I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy (Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky) Penguin, 2006.

At Play in the Cosmos

(This image is composed of multiple layers: among others, a fractal flame and Hubble's photo of Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657-556.)

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. . .

Ephesians 1:17

Iced Tea Season

Now that the weather is getting warmer, it is time to share with you some of my photos of, yes, a glass of iced tea!

Light shining on glass of ice and tea

(Click on image to view full size.)

Variations:

 

 

 

 

 

I saw written as in letters of gold this word Goodness,

which I repeated for a long while with an indescribable sweetness.

I saw it, I say, written on all creatures,

animate and inanimate, rational or not — 

 all bore this name of goodness. 

(Saint Therese Couderc)

Flying Saucer?

(Click photos to view full size.)

This photograph is of a large soap bubble in a glass plate.  As you see, the room was dark except for one strategically placed light—which, curiously enough, looks a bit like an angel hovering in the bubble.

Since the picture reminded me of a flying saucer, I decided to have a little fun and situate it in a whimsical space scene.  The result is below.

Hawk Gazing

(Click photo to view full size.)

(This hawk is not the same bird as Hopkin's windhover, but this raptor can also inspire awe.)

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord 

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Rock and Hawk

  by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's 
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15478#sthash.fwInHg0P.dpuf

Rock and Hawk

  by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's 
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15478#sthash.fwInHg0P.dpuf

Rock and Hawk

  by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's 
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15478#sthash.fwInHg0P.dpuf

Winter Sunsets

Pale Sun through Winter Haze

Same Scene on a Clear Day

January Icicles

January Icicles

 

Bless the Lord, light and darkness;
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.

Bless the Lord, ice and cold;
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever. 

Bless the Lord, frosts and snows;

    sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.

(Prayer of Azariah 1:48-50)

Snowy New Year's Eve

Chicago Snow with Yellow Cab and Red Snowplow

It has been snowing since mid-afternoon.  The flakes in this photo, though, I added using Photoshop brushes. 

Whether you are having a snowy welcome to the new year or a sunny, tropical one, may it be amply blessed.  And may we all be attentive to what God desires for us in the coming months.  May we welcome with open hearts the peace and love of the Prince of Peace.

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

(Isaiah 43:19)

Merry Christmas!

(Click picture to view full size.)

P.S. Christmas Day

I just discovered that Google automatically transforms a photo with Christmas lights into an animated, twinkling image.  So here's the same tree.  (Be sure to view it full sized.)

Fall Leaves

After today's rain, wind, and snow, many of the leaves have fallen, but here are two pictures, the first from here in Chicago before the snow, and the second from Gainesville, Florida.  Click on the photos to view them full sized.

 

Fall, Leaves, Fall

by

Emily Brontë 

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

White Clouds, Night Sky

White Clouds, Night Sky

Today's cold front has passed through, moving eastward.  It has left behind cooler, drier air in this normally warm, humid climate, and a band of white clouds in the eastern sky.

What in nature calls to mind the mystery of existence quite as well as the night sky?  The following is from Blaise Pascal's Pensées:

For after all what is a human being in nature? A nothingness with regard to the infinite, an all with regard to nothingness, a middle-point between nothing and all, infinitely far from understanding the extremes... equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.

. . . . . . . . . .

All things have come out of nothingness and are carried onwards to the infinite...The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do so.

- - - - -

Car enfin qu'est-ce que l'homme dans la nature? Un néant à l'égard de l'infini, un tout à l'égard du néant, un milieu entre rien et tout, infiniment éloigné de comprendre les extrêmes;... Également - incapable de voir le néant d'où il est tiré et l'infini où il est englouti.

. . . . . . . . . .

Toutes choses sont sorties du néant et portées jusqu'à l'infini. ...l'auteur de ces merveilles les comprend. Tout autre ne le peut faire.  (II, 72)

Great Horned Owl

Young Great Horned Owl on Lamp Post

(Click on photo to view full size.)

The parents of the two young Great Horned Owls (see "Great Horned Owlets") have made themselves scarce, but the young ones are around most evenings.  This one was sitting on a lamp post in the front yard.  He (or she?) was looking in the other direction when I arrived and looked startled at first to see me, but seemed content for us to watch each other.