Author Archives: Laura Dobson

Feast of St Michael and All Angels “Michaelmas gales assail the waning year,And Michael’s scale is true, his blade is bright.He strips dead leaves; and leaves the living clearTo flourish in the touch and reach of light.Archangel bring your balance, help me turnUpon this turning world with you and danceIn the Great Dance. Draw near,Continue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 29th September”

“”World-mothering air, air wild,Wound with thee, in thee isled,Fast home, fast fold thy child.”Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe The breath of life has always had a special, sacred meaning for people worldwide, since it is the mark of our mortality. The first and last breaths are marked withContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 28th September”

“In his poem, There Was a Child Went Forth, part of the Autumn Rivulets cycle, Walt Whitman describes the things that a child sees in his daily wanderings – the shadows, the field-sprouts, the wharves and the ferries, the clouds and the apple trees, the workers, and the families both kind and cruel. He closesContinue reading “Thought for the day, Saturday 27th September”

“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faithBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.Wait without thought, for you are not ready forContinue reading “Thought for the day, Friday 26th September”

“That person who’s kindWho practices righteousnessWho remains at peaceIn the world’s madnessWho feels all sentient beingsAs his or her own self –This person attainsThe Deathless OneAnd is accompanied alwaysBy the true God.” Kabir, 15th century India (pictured (left) with Guru Nanak and Mardana)

“Blessed saint francispray for usnow and in the time of despondencyyour brother the water is poisonedchildren no longer know your brother the firethe birds shun us They belittle youpopes and czarsand the Americans buy up Assisiincluding youblessed saint franciswhy did you come among us? In the stony outskirts of the cityI saw you scurrying aboutaContinue reading “Thought for the day, Wednesday 24th September”

“May I be at peace.May my loved ones be at peace.May those I have never met be at peace.May those I have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly, be at peace.May those who have hurt me, knowingly or unknowingly, be at peace.May everybody be at peace.” Buddhist Loving-Kindness Meditation (Metta Bhavana), quoted in Fragments of Holiness forContinue reading “Thought for the day, Tuesday 23rd September”

Autumn Equinox “As the summer draws to a close, its last days are filled with a special brilliance and abundance, unparalleled throughout the year. There is a mellow quality to the light, as the sun is lower upon the horizon. Life is now at its most abundant; the work of the spring and summer isContinue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 22nd September”

International Day of Peace Psalm 113 by Christine Robinson “Hallelujah!Open your hearts, you servants of GodOpen your hearts to GodStrive to be a fertile field for God’s loveAll day, all night, all ways.God’s work encompasses the nations,the world, the distances between the stars.God’s work is in the atom, thecore, the intestacies of matter.God’s work isContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 21st September”

“I’ve never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don’t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now… After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to exploreContinue reading “Thought for the day, Saturday 20th September”