Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

     I d o dimly perceive that whilst everything  around me is ever changing, ever dying,  there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates...for I can see that in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness, light persists.

 I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight  of racism and war that the daylight of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that  unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

 Acquire the Spirit of Peace and  a thousand around you are saved.

 An awe so quiet     I don't know when it began.   A gratitude had begun to sing in me. Was there  some moment dividing song from no song? When does dewfall begin? When does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them?  When is daybreak?  

  Deep peace of the running wave to you Deep peace of the flowing air to you Deep peace of the quiet earth to you Deep peace of the shining stars to you Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you

 Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to rest.

 When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.

 Thanks and blessing be to the Sun & the Earth for this bread & this wine,          this fruit, this meat, this salt, this food; thanks be and blessing to them who prepare it, who serve it; thanks and blessing to them who share it (& also the absent & the dead). Thanks and blessing be to them who bring it (may they not want), to them who plant and tend it, harvest and gather it (may they not want), thanks and blessing to them who work & blessing to them who cannot; may they not want - for their hunger sours the wine & robs the salt of its taste. Thanks be for the sustenance & strength for our dance & the work of justice, of peace.

 When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and the princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart. 

Give us courage, gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all the changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

Ask about your enemy's wounds and scars. Feed your enemy's children.Seek his hidden cause of trouble. Learn their word for  home. Repair their well. Learn their sorrow's history. Trace their lineage of the good. Ask them for a song. Make tea. Bake bread.

From the place where we are right flowers will never grow in the spring. The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard. But doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole, a plow and a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood.