It’s a cloudy and quiet morning at Lake George of Silver Bay YMCA in the Adirindacks of NY.
In the early grey morning here, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins seems perfect.
I’m always drawn to his subtle and evocative poem Pied Beauty.
Whether it’s a feast or crumbs, whether it’s in the quiet mountains or commuter traffic, we can remember beauty, beautiful places that restore, Christ who is always present with us.
We can remember him anywhere, and praise him. Not because every thing is gonna go our way today, but because we have a little bit of a rebel in us, and we will praise him, remember him, look for the beauty in everything, even when it’s overcast and cloudy.
The glorious sun is there, even if we can’t see it. Praise him anyways!
“Glory be to God for dappled things-
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; a dazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
