Author Archives: veerjih

World Soil Day “’Do you pray?’ a good friend asked me recently. ‘I just wondered where you get your hope from?’ It’s a bit of an odd question to ask someone who doesn’t believe in God… ‘I don’t pray in the way that I grew up praying but I suppose I do pray,’ I tellContinue reading “Thought for the day, Friday 5th December”

“Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” Edith Cavell (1865 – 1915), nurse executed for helping Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium, born on this day

“Our disenchantment of the night through artificial lighting may appear, if it is noticed at all, as a regrettable but eventually trivial side effect of contemporary life. That winter hour, though, up on the summit ridge with the stars falling plainly far above, it seemed to me that our estrangement from the dark was aContinue reading “Thought for the day, Wednesday 3rd December”

“My God, so gently life begins again today,as yesterday and so many times before.Like these butterflies, like these laborers,like these sun devouring cicadasand these blackbirds hidden in the cold dark leaves,let me, oh my God, continue to live my lifeas simply as possible.” Francis Jammes, French poet (1868 – 1938), born on this day

“”Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day… The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”Seneca, Moral Letters, 101.7b-8a “Live each day as if it were your last”Continue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 1st December”

Saint Andrew’s Day and First Sunday of Advent “Clear as the endless ecstasy of starsThat mount for ever on an intense air;Or running pools, of water cold and rare,In chiselled gorges deep amid the scaurs,So still, the bright dawn were their best device,Yet like a thought that has no end they flow;Or Venus, when herContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 30th November”

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People “If I must die,you must liveto tell my storyto sell my thingsto buy a piece of clothand some strings,(make it white with a long tail)so that a child, somewhere in Gazawhile looking heaven in the eyeawaiting his dad who left in a blaze–and bid no one farewellnotContinue reading “Thought for the day, Saturday 29th November”

“To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveAll pray in their distress;And to these virtues of delightReturn their thankfulness. For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveIs God, our father dear,And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveIs Man, his child and care. For Mercy has a human heart,Pity a human face,And Love, the human form divine,And Peace, the human dress.Continue reading “Thought for the day, Friday 28th November”

“Every particle of the world is a mirror,In each atom lies the blazing lightof a thousand suns.Cleave the heart of a raindrop,a hundred pure oceans will flow forth.Look closely at a grain of sand,The seed of a thousand beings can be seen.The foot of an ant is larger than an elephant;In essence, a drop ofContinue reading “Thought for the day, Thursday 27th November”

“The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened.” Ellen G. White (1827 – 1915), co-founder of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, born on this day