Summer Serenade...and Welcome, July

Summer, wash through us like wave-song

Turn the pages in your book

With the flutter of a baton

Teasing blue heron and brook

Soften hope’s hard lines with flowers

Drive us crazy with your smile

Dappling ditches, hills and bowers

With daisy and chamomile

Marinade your luscious moments

In translucent honeyed-gold

Let us savour your full flavour

Sweet and salty, sanguine, bold

Run your bow across a fiddle

Made of meadow-grass and wheat

Before buoyant strings grow brittle

In your whittling wind and heat

Let your hymn of nature soothe us

‘Neath a green-treed canopy

Satisfy the poet’s pathos

With its timbre of the sea

Summer, draw us to your garden

Saturate us with your sigh

Before you beg our pardon

In a leafless lullaby

© Janet Martin

Somber Celebration...Happy Canada Day!

I have often shared excerpts from Peter Marshall's
 The American Dream(for the whole message click link)

which I read each Canada Day because the message applies to Canadians just as well! 

...if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves

 and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, 

then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chron.7:14

Land of liberty’s allowance

Brims with bloom and ‘freedom’s vote’

While it wavers in a balance

With a noose around its throat

Land that boasts of milk and honey

Tables heaped with fortune’s fruit

From a tree of borrowed money

With a sickle at its root

Land of ebbing comprehension

Where Endeavor’s Ego flies

Posting plans of intervention

From quick-sands of compromise

Land of bounty, land of beauty

Freedom is bought with a price

Land built on far more than duty

Land that stands on sacrifice

God, who made thy mountain rafter

Carved through rock thy coursing sea

Forgive those who scorn with laughter

Thou who keeps us strong and free

Somber is our celebration

Aware like never before

Of a rift in the foundation

And a wolf outside the door

© Janet Martin

 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: 
be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Matt.10:16

 Our National Anthem

 written by Calixa Lavallée


"O Canada" (French: Ô Canada) is the national anthem of Canada. The song was originally commissioned by Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony; Calixa Lavallée composed the music, after which, words were written by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The original lyrics were in French; an English translation was published in 1906. Multiple English versions ensued, with Robert Stanley Weir's version in 1908 gaining the most popularity, eventually serving as the basis for the official lyrics enacted by Parliament.^[1] Weir's lyrics have been revised three times, most recently when An Act to amend the National Anthem Act (gender) was enacted in 2018. The French lyrics remain unaltered. "O Canada" had served as a de facto national anthem since 1939, officially becoming the country's national anthem in 1980 when Canada's National Anthem Act received royal assent and became effective on July 1 as part of that year's Dominion Day (now known as Canada Day) celebrations.

O Canada
Lyrics

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

The words of the original poem of 1908 by Stanley Weir are as follows:

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love thou dost in us command.
We see thee rising fair, dear land,
The True North, strong and free;
And stand on guard, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.

Refrain
O Canada! O Canada!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!

Refrain

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!

Refrain

Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominion within thy loving care;
Help us to find, O God, in thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the Better Day,
We ever stand on guard.

Refrain
Original Poem by Judge, R. Stanley Weir, 1908

Music by: Calixa Lavallée

Greatest Universal Call

Of pauper or rich men

Of steel-muscled builder

Of cook in the kitchen

Or hand at a mill

Of teacher and student

Or preacher and pulpit

Of captain and cruiser

Of surgeon with skill

Of high-dollar business suit

Blue-collar hero

Grease-stained mechanic

Or farmer with field

Of lawyer or convict

Of merchant or patron

Of servant or master

Of mother with child

Of painter or poet

Or winner or loser

Or athlete or invalid

Whether short or tall

Or bashful or boastful

Or hasty or careful

None are exempt

From this life's greatest call

Of bowing before Him

The Lord of Creation

This Greatest Work

Should be rendered with care

For nothing is greater

Or of more importance

Than meeting our Maker

In war-rooms of prayer

© Janet Martin

 As I read this parable I couldn't help but mourn/fear the Great Fall of our great country of Canada/North America as its builders reject the Stone ...

Psalm 118:22-

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

 Isaiah 28:16
So this is what the Lord GOD says: 

"See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, 

a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken.

Matt.7:24-27

 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them,

 I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, 

and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not,

 shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; 

and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Undressing Selfishness...(quick, grab me a towel)

Without God on the throne of our hearts

if we are totally honest with ourselves...we are monsters!

Undressing selfishness makes one want to run for cover...quick!
Grab me a towel... anything!
Through the whole of writing this I kept thinking 'this is harsh, kinda vulgar'
I'm not THAT bad, am I?!
Oh. Yes.

Lord of self, oh, hellish hunter

Always stalking your next prey

Never caring who you trample

In the quest to have your way

Heaping, like a greedy glutton

Hearts upon your dinner plate

Lord of self, you will be lonesome

In your little hut of hate

Lord of self, you’ll never find it

The hollow you try to fill

Always leaves you empty-minded

Even after the Big Kill

Lord of self, you are a monster

In spite of well-dressed disguise

You can’t hide the hurt and hunger

Gleaming in your loveless eyes

Lord of self, those heads you step on

While you strain to the next hole

Chains you like a neutered lion

To deep sadness of the soul

Lord of self, pitiful patron

Self is never satisfied

You will be the lord of longing

In your little hut of pride

© Janet Martin

Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

James 3:16

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

Here's a song to draw us to the comfort of the One who saves us from ourselves!