VICAR
Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust that You are well.
This week I’d like You to reflect on being calm. How do You reach a state of tranquillity in Your lives?
Please read the following by an unknown author:
On This Day….
Mend a quarrel
Search out a forgotten friend
Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust
Write a love letter
Share some treasures
Give a soft answer
Encourage youth
Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed
Keep a promise
Find the time
Forego a grudge
Forgive an enemy
Listen
Apologise if you were wrong
Try to understand
Flout envy
Examine your demands on others
Think first of someone else
Appreciate, be kind, be gentle
Laugh a little more.
Deserve confidence
Take up arms against malice
Decry complacency
Express your gratitude
Worship your God
Gladden the heart of a child
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth
Speak your love
Speak it again
Speak it still again
Speak it still once again….
I leave You this week with a prayer to slow down. God Bless You all.
Please slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me,
Amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music
Of the singing streams
That live in my memory.
Help me to know
The magical power of sleep,
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down
To look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend
Or make a new one;
To pet a dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day
That the race is not always won by the swift;
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the soil of life’s enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of our greater destiny.
Amen