Winter

Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,
Day’s journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.

—Walter de la Mare

Discernment

Everyone of us must answer for himself,

and the practices of others will
never warrant and secure us.

It is the highest folly to regulate our actions

by any other standard than that by which

they must be judged. If ever we would
'cleanse our way', it must be 'by taking heed

thereto according to the word of God' (Psalm 119:9):

and that 'word which is quick, and powerful,

and sharper than any two-edged sword,

piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul

and spirit, and of the joints and marrow,

and is a discerner of the thoughts

and intents of the heart' (Hebrews 4:12)

will certainly discover many things to be sinful and heinous

which pass for very innocent in the eyes of the world.

The Life of God in the Soul of Man
Henry Scougal

Amor y Amistad

"Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new."
~ Ursula K. LeGuin

In Hot Water

Sing Hey! for the bath at the close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as spashing Hot Water with my feet!

~ The Fellowship of the Ring
J. R. R. Tolkien

Brahms

Music: Johannes Brahms, 1876
Sinfonia-Brahms
Fa (Capo 1 -Mi) Con certidumbre

502 Sed Fieles, Hermanos

Se requiere...que cada uno sea hallado fiel.
1 Corintios 4:2

Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
1 Corinthians 4:2

Sed fieles, hermanos,
luchando por nuestro Dios;
En su ministerio, soldados del Evangelio.
Fervientes sembrad, las almas ganad,
es tiempo de trabajar;
La sana doctrina de Dios exponed,
las huestes del mal venced.

Coro: Sed fieles, hermanos,
luchando por nuestro Dios;
En su ministerio, soldados del Evangelio.

Alzad la Palabra con animo y vaolr;
Con fe predicadla, espada es de victoria.
Constantes orad, gozosos obrad,
corona Dios os dara;
Al mundo sin Dios sed la sal y la luz,
mirando al Senor Jesus.

Waverly Weaving

And in this belief Lucy reposed her hope, and went on weaving her enchanted web of fairy tissue, as beautiful and transient as the film of the gossamer when it is pearled with the morning dew, and glistening to the sun.

The Bride of Lammermore
Sir Walter Scott

Soneto a Cristo crucificado

No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido,
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

Tu me mueves, Senor! Mueveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido;
meveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido;
muevenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.

Mueveme, al fin, tu amor, y en tal manera,
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No me tienes que dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque lo que espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.

Atribuido a Miguel de Guevara, s. 17

Teamwork

I had learned another lesson, an important one: You have the right to use a doctor who shows you respect and listens to your observations. You should feel comfortable teaching her what you know and learning from her expertise and experience. You should have confidence in her judgment not because she has a medical degree, but because you know her to be fair as well as responsible. You should be able to trust her not to ridicule your ideas and to give you all of the information you need to make intelligent decisions. If you cannot, then it is your responsiblitiy to find another doctor.

Karyn Seroussi
Unraveling the Mystery of AUTISM and Pervasive Developmental Disorder
A Mother's Story of Research and Recovery

Nobody

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

~ Emily Dickinson

Real Women

Now that he was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him-not clever women who when listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their own little mental workshop-but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself.

War & Peace
Leo Tolstoy

The Storm

The wind caught the Villa full in the face, one stinging challenge like the slash of a gauntlet. Elegant, rococo, with an air of balance delicately perilous, it yet struck down deep into the rock, deep as a fortress. It braced itself, and now the assailing forces of the wind came singing between the pillars of the parapet. Row on row, the windows looked unflinchingly out into the sky, though here and there the swinging-to of a shutter was like the nervous and involuntary flicker of an eyelid. The attack begun, the clouds brought up their artillery; lightning, splitting the sky, shimmered across the flagstones of the terrace. The honey-coulored facade, soaked and languorous with sunshine, stood up, naked, sensitive as flesh, to the stinging onslaught of the rain that beat against the windows with a faint, fine, infinitesimal clatter.

The Storm
Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen