June 19, 2013

Did you get what you wanted from life?

Posted by johnmangels under Looking for God | Tags: , , , |
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One of our writing prompts today at our clergy writing group was from this “Late Fragment” by Raymond Carver:

And did you get what
you wanted from tis life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Which led me to this:

What do I want from life?  I think I may, at this point, have a clue. (more…)

 

September 3, 2010

Wheelock’s “Night Thoughts in Age”

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I might as well finish up with Wheelock now.  This is another poem about aging.  But I think there are some wonderful things, things filled with wonder, that speak to me in it.  He talks about age as a time for praise and adoration and gratitude.  he talks about the face “from which the eyes of love look out at us.”  He talks of his house, “marvellous with ghosts, where so much love Dwelt for a little while and made such music … Oh, all is music!  All has been turned to music!  All that has vanished has been turned to music!”  He seems to strike a wonderful balance between the inevitability of loss and ending and suffering and the wonder of living in God’s creation.  So here it is: (more…)

 

September 3, 2010

Aphrodite, 1906

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Here is another poem by John Hall Wheelock, that caught my fancy — this time from the other end of life!  I don’t know much about his life at all, but this would have happened (I’m thinking it reflects something that happened, but I could be wrong) when he was young.  It makes me think of the Dylan Thomas poem (more…)