A NEW DAY

This is the beginning of a new day.

I have been given this day

   to use as I will.

I can waste it - or use it for good,

   but what I do today is important

   because I am exchanging

   a day of my life for it!

 

When tomorrow comes,

   this day will be gone forever,

  leaving in its place

   something that I have traded for it.

 

I want i to be gain ... and not loss;

Good ... and not evil;

Success ... and not failure;

In order that I shall not regret

   the price that I have paid for it.

 

I will try just for today,

For you never fail

   until you stop trying.

There are only two things to worry about;

Either you are well or you are sick.

If you are well, there's nothing to worry about.

 

But if you are sick,

There are only two things to worry about:

Either you get well, or you die.

If you get well, there's nothing to worry about.

 

But if you die, there are only two things to worry about:

Either you will go to Heaven or Hell.

If you go to Heaven, there's nothing to worry about.

But if you go to Hell,

 

You'll be so busy shaking hands with friends

You won't have time to worry.

THE SENSE OF A GOOSE

A Reflection of Working Together

IN SPRING, when you see geese heading north for the summer, flying in a V-formation, you may be interested to know what scientists have discovered about why they fly that way.  It has been learnt that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following.  By flying in a V-formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying ability than if each bird flew on its own.

BASIC TRUTH 1:

People who share a common direction and a sense of communication get where they are going more quickly and more easily because they are travelling on the trust of one another.

BASIC TRUTH 2:

If we have even as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed in the same way as we are going.

When the lead goose gets tired, that goose rotates to the back and another goose takes up the lead.

BASIC TRUTH 3:

It pays to take turns doing difficult tasks.

The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep their speed, or reduce it.

BASIC TRUTH 4:

We need to be careful what we say when we honk from behind.

Finally, when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot or falls out, two geese immediately fall out from the formation and fly down to help and protct the one in trouble. They stay with the disabled goose until it is able to fly again or until it dies.

BASIC TRUTH 5:

If we have the sense of a goose we will stand by one another.

ORGAN PRELUDE

The Organ Prelude is a curtain of loveliness, woven between bitter distractions and your questing soul.  Listen quietly and let its harmony prepare your heart for the voice of God!

STAINED GLASS

 People are like stained-glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out.  But, when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. 

ELIZABETH KUBLER ROSS

IN TIMES OF DESPERATE NEED - PAUL COOPER

This is the prayer that Beethoven composed for himself on realising that his deafness was incurable and unrelievable.  He was 32.  His life was his music.  He had composed his first published piece before he was 12 and in the ensuing 20 years, he was to hold a royal appointment as assistant music master and harpsichordist, and compose a choral mass, two symphonies, three piano concertos and a host of other works.

    He had achieved fame - and now, as he put it in a letter to his brothers, his body had been "thrown by a sudden change from the best condition to the worst".  Not an easily sociable man, with a string of failed relationships, he called on God for help in his desperation.

    His situation is reflected today in so many personal disasters.  There is the horror of losing someone you love; the trauma of young people incapacitated through accident or military service, who despair of their future, the fear of parents who realise that the newborn child they had longed for is severely disabled; the shock of losing one's job or livelihood; the desperation of not knowing how to carry on; the hopelessness of the addict, the prisoner, the bedridden; the desolation of loneliness.

    It is reflected, too, in our realisation of our own human failings - anger, arrogance, addiction of one sort or another, having time only for ourselves, troubled relationships - when we desperately need God's help.

    At these times, what better than to echo Beethoven's prayer: "O God, give me the strength to be victorious over myself?"  With this strength, Beethoven broke any chains that existed in his mind.  His deafness did not succeed in chaining him - he went on to write most of the works that we enjoy.

    They were not composed by steely determination alone, although there must have been some of that.  He so wisely asked that his soul, "transported though God's wisdom, might fearlessly struggle upward in fiery flight."
    I like that "fiery flight".  Beethoven from all accounts, was a man of fiery temperament.  Good music, like good works, is not produced by grinding out scores in a mechanistic, determined way.  It comes from the soul - just as the loving care of a disabled child or the ministrations to a dying loved one come from the soul.  Beethoven needed his soul and his life, to be lifted up in inspired and spirited - yes, fiery - flight.  And they were.
    There are times when we all need our souls and our lives to be lifted up from the depths of depression.  Let us be encouraged by Beethoven's prayer and God's answer to it.

Paul Cooper is Parish Librarian at St Clement and All Saints, Hastings

faith

prayer for the week

O God, give me strength to be

victorious over myself, for

nothing may chain me to this

    life.

O guide my spirit,

O raise me from these dark

depths,

that my soul, transported

through your wisdom, may

fearlessly struggle upward in

    fiery flight.

For you alone understand and

can inspire me.

            Ludwig van Beethoven

                         (1770-1827)