"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful. At the same
time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel
called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.
I found this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a book of religious poetry published in 1926:
When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new –
What hope? What help? What music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship’s sigh,
Not reason’s subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels’ sweet ‘All hails,’
Met in the smile of God: Nay, none of these.
Speak Thou, availing Christ! – and fill this pause.
For a large collection of poems and stories, visit:
http://www.all-creatures.org/poetrydir.html
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