Balancing Hurry and Peony...oops I mean Poetry...

To peer into a peony

Grants us a glimpse of God...

Social media is full of pictures of peony delight these days

and with good reason, because peony-season is stunning and brief

and its precious joy too pretty not to share!

Hurry-hurry, and poetry do not go hand in hand

Time flies; while I must learn to slow my pace and feel the sand

That slips through fingertips, then seasons, like a starry sea

Where echo-petals fall to halls of haste’s necessity

Hurry-hurry and poetry are hard to mediate

While one hand wants to loiter the other scolds ‘don’t be late’

The gate to dreamy meadowlands oft blocked by Duty’s bars

While all the while life’s silver sands run rife with Beauty’s stars

Hurry-hurry and poetry ignite a tug of war

One winks with possibility, one wields work’s common chore

One feeds the soul, one feeds the mouth, both play a vital part

In maintaining a healthy balance of body and heart

Hurry-hurry and poetry must learn to coexist

Ecclesiastic vanity unfurls its painted mist

Where Sacred Immortality is near, as near can be

Thus, life too short to waste in haste and miss its poetry

© Janet Martin

May your day of rest be blessed with a break from 'hurry'

and whether the poetry you delight in is found on a page or in a peony,

enjoy and give God thanks!

So, so thankful for a day of Sabbath-rest!

Thank-you God, for your perfect order.

(so thankful to be able to worship

with fellow-believers in person today, 

after long lock-down restrictions

have been lifted to allow fifteen percent)

Ex.20:8-11

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: 

in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, 

thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,

 nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,

 and rested the seventh day: 

wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

.Read full chapter

Be Still, My Soul