Sixteen Soothing Sunday Minutes
![The Complete "Growl" [Because Now More Than Ever]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/brainsinjar-150x150.jpg "The Complete \"Growl\" [Because Now More Than Ever]")
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2001-2022
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
by Shel Silverstein
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
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Yesterday my brother in law and his wife came by and my wife and I sat with them in the breakfast nook and conversed as we hadn’t gotten together in over a year. In the background, on a counter in the kitchen, the ice cream machine was doing it’s thing. Other then me, there were 3 people talking and that machine running and my hearing now is such that it was just one big wall of sound with no definition. I look at a talkers lips and automatically the visual together with the audible I can usually make out what is said. As long as it’s one on one. In groups I don’t do so well. Background noise blends everything into a slurry of sounds and I bore quickly. Same with this video. The background music melded with the voice and I had no idea what was going on. I tried, I really tried, but after about 2 mins it was futile. What is the story about, in 10 words or less?
God wants you. He pursues you. He never gives up.
It’s an animated and rebooted variation of a famous poem called
The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson 1890 – Hound of Heaven which begins…
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
. . . and it goes on from there in pretty much the story of your life.
Thank you both.
For me He never pursued; He waited. He came to me through my mind, through my thoughts, through my reason. He showed me that I was blind; He offered sight. He showed me that I was deaf; He offered sound. He showed me that I had never been alone. He took the evils I had done and put them aside. All He wanted was—me.
Now all I want is Him.
Weird, he was waiting for me the second I arrived!
For thousands of years theologians debated the nature of belief: of man, of Faith, of God Himself. They were as men climbing up the face of a mountain. For generations they labored up the mountain, until they reached the summit. They saw Christ, Peter, Paul and he Holy Ghost sitting around a table playing poker and smoking cigars. They said to the theologians, “What kept you?”
I was going to add something, but it’s already all here.
My slim copy of this poem, illustrated by Tim Ladwig (the illustrations are finely done), describes the poem as “A Wildly Romantic Poem About Spiritual Conversion,” and goes on to note that Thompson’s life was adrift in the thrall of opium who supported his habit by selling matches. Thompson’s attempts to flee from God were unsuccessful, and though he never realized his dream of being a famous writer in his day, Thompson did achieve God’s grace and left us with a heart wrenching, yet uplifting, poem of his attempts to flee God’s grace. “Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”
“Thompson did achieve God’s grace and left us with a heart wrenching, yet uplifting, poem of his attempts to flee God’s grace.”
Thank you John, you just proved my point that there are only two things in life that are
very, very hard for human beings.
1. Learning how to permanently live free, and
2. Po – et – ry
John 8:32