Off Book/Off Road

Edit: First an unexpected bit of beauty from Mark Shea's website.

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying, "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

~ Pablo Neruda

Off book, thus far, nicht so schlect. Yea, verily yea. Happily not to bad. We'll see how the rest of the week or two goes. Here's to hoping!

Even greater, though, is long trips with (drumroll please) Mumsy. Life, the universe and everything - mostly listening. Wisdom is good.

Peace. Peace would be good, Lord. Peace?

I do love Shakespeare's voice. There's such a beautiful lilt to it. (This has been your daily bardolitry!)

God is good. Life is good. All is well. And all shall be well. Amen!

Mood: Mrawrm
Music: Captain Jack Sparrow
Thought: Too many of them. "Speak I of words? I am stuffed full of them!" Le sigh. Writing would be, verily, good. Tried a bit of Wallace's Will today, but it got all stuck. C'est ca. Isn't it curious, too, that we get things to a certain point and then lose them for a while? I was warned about this loss but did not feel it 'til now. But this is just sensation and not bound to a particular act and time, but rather to mere opression. Faith is the antidote. And not feeling faith, but decisive faith. Faith grounded in hope, and thus in love - an action. I wonder if perseverence is bounded solely upon faith? Upon hope? I remember, too, what perseverence is necessary when walking - the last hill is the hardest, the last moments the moments when the body turns in the bill. But one must grit one's teeth, go forth, strive, go faster, and not falter, nor look behind - nor even, really, upward. Yesterday at mass (surprise, surprise) was so wonderful, so peaceful, so centered and right and stripped of all the thises and thatsis of the day. Again and again I return to Peter, "Oh Lord, how good it is that we are here!" And how much I wish I could pitch my tent there in the midst of the Lord, to remain forever simply there - and yet, time and again, we're sent forth - missa - into the world. It's like Narnia over and over and over. Only the difficulty is not that we can't ever find our way to Lantern Waste - but, rather, that we too often find our way out.