I was thinking about what to put on this blog so I thought that I would start with a poem that meant a lot to me and that I really like, from a poet (Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)) who lived here in Dublin Ireland working with the poor of the city some years ago...

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I just think there is so much hope in this peom, I like it a lot. No matter what we have done to this world God is still here breathing his life into it!! What better hope can you get! He is still here and he still loves us and cares for us no matter how little we deserve it or walk away from his ways. WOW