THE GIFTS OF GOD

When God at first made man
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
Let us [said He] pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should [said He],
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness,
May toss him to my breast.

- George Herbert, "The Pulley" (1633)

THE GREATNESS OF US

• In 1889, Rudyard Kipling received the following rejection letter from the San Francisco Examiner: "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language".

• Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister of England until he was 62, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. His greatest contributions came when he was a "senior citizen".

• Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn't read until he was seven. His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams". He was expelled and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.

• While turning down the British rock group called the Beatles, one executive of Decca Recording Company said, "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."

• In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, "You ain't goin' nowhere....son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck."

• When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. President Rutherford Hayes said, "That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"

• After years of progressive hearing loss, by age 46 German composer Ludwig van Beethoven had become completely deaf. Nevertheless, he wrote his greatest music - including five symphonies - during his later years.

• When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2,000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process."

THE KING OF LOVE MY SHEPHERD IS

The king of love my shepherd is

Whose goodness faileth never.

I nothing lack if I am his

And he is mine forever.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,

But yet in love he sought me.

And on his shoulder gently laid

And home rejoicing brought me.

- Harry Rowe Shelley

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high e'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth

THE MOTHER THE HARBOUR

These little boats

Came by currents

I may never know,

From oceans I cannot see

Even from my highest hill.

I cherish the cargo,

Bless the sea,

And thank the eternal itinerary

That harboured them awhile

In me.

- Carol Lynn Pearson

MORTALITY

"....When we go out of this life, leave this body, we will desire to do many things that we cannot do at all without the body. We will be seriously handicapped, and we will long for the body; we will pray for that early reunion with our bodies. We will know then what advantage it is to have a body."

.......Then every man and woman who is putting off until the next life the task of correcting and overcoming the weaknesses of the flesh are sentencing themselves to years of bondage, for no man or woman will come forth in the resurrection until they have completed their work, until they have overcome, until they have done as much as they can do."

- Melvin J. Ballard, Crusader for Righteousness, p. 213