Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This morning I arose and beheld the glory of the Living God in every trembling late-summer leaf in my backyard. As I prepared for such lofty and poetic tasks as filing for unemployment and food stamps, I looked skyward and saw the clear vapor-trail of a passing airplane, white against celestial blue, crossed by the trajectory of a lone bird in flight.

I decided then and there to post this poem (and let us remember that Almighty God, who gave us the Bible, is, among other things, the greatest poet of the universe):

[from Psalm 19,  King James Version]

The heavens declare the glory of God;
      and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

 Day unto day uttereth speech,
      and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

 There is no speech nor language,
      where their voice is not heard.

 Their line is gone out through all the earth,
      and their words to the end of the world.

In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
     Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
      and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

 His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
      and his circuit unto the ends of it:
       and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

And now a lesser, yet equally intense poem
by a merely terrestrial poetic group, Pink Floyd:

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Little by little the night turns around.
Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn.
Lotuses lean on each other in yearning.
Under the eaves the swallow is resting.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Over the mountain watching the watcher.
Breaking the darkness
Waking the grapevine.
One inch of love is one inch of shadow
Love is the shadow that ripens the wine.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.

Witness the man who raves at the wall
Making the shape of his questions to Heaven.
Whether the sun will fall in the evening
Will he remember the lesson of giving?
Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.

It is a new day.

May God be with you.
And also with me.