"Come, Ye Thankful People, come"

Come, ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home:
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide
For our [needs] to be supplied:
Come to God's own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvesthome.

An Unoriginal Post (from a friend's blog)

To Our Veterans Everywhere

Thank you for your service and your loyalty. For your bravery and your sacrifice.

We always want them home, but we always need them there. THANK YOU!

The Pilgrim Fathers

A poem by English poet Felicia Hemans (1793-1835)


The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conquerer comes,
They, the true-hearted came;
Not with the roll of stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear;
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam;
And the rocking pines of the forest roared--
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Aye, call it holy ground,
The soil where they first trod,
They have left unstained what there they found--
Freedom to worship God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

The Convert

The Convert

After one moment I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and herd what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

-- G.K.Chesterton (1874-1936)
English journalist, novelist, and poet

Wise Words from an American President (1732-1799)

"It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly implore His protection and favor.

George Washington (1732-1799)
First President of the United States

Faith

"The steps of faith fall on the seeming void, but find the rock beneath."

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
American Quaker poet

Author's Quote

"I like insects for their stupidity. A paper wasp -- Polistes -- is fumbling at the stained-glass window on my right. I saw the same sight in the same spot last Sunday: Pssst! Idiot! Sweetheart! Go around by the door! I hope we seem as endearingly stupid to God -- bumbling down into lamps, running half-wit across the floor, banging for days at the hinge of an opened door."

Annie Dillard (1945--)
Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer
From Teaching a Stone to Talk

Lines from a friend's blog

Our little systems
have their day;

They have their day
and cease to be:

They are but
broken lights of thee,

And thou, O Lord,
art more than they.


--Alfred, Lord Tennyson