Sounding the Seasons Quotes

“In vain we search the heavens high above, The God of love is kneeling at our feet. Though we betray him, though it is the night, He meets us here and loves us into light.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“O place my hands with yours, help me divine The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“Our God beyond, beside us, and within.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“St Michael and All Angels Michaelmas gales assail the waning year, And Michael’s scale is true, his blade is bright. He strips dead leaves, and leaves the living clear To flourish in the touch and reach of light. Archangel bring your balance, help me turn Upon this turning world with you and dance In the Great Dance. Draw near, help me discern, And trace the hidden grace in change and chance. Angel of fire, love’s fierce radiance, Drive through the deep until the steep waves part; Undo the dragon’s sinuous influence And pierce the clotted darkness in my heart. Unchain the child you find there, break the spell And overthrow the tyrannies of hell.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“Hide and seek Ready or not, you tell me, here I come! And so I know I’m hiding, and I know My hiding place is useless. You will come And find me. You are searching high and low. Today I’m hiding low, down here, below, Below the sunlit surface others see. Oh find me quickly, quickly come to me. And here you come and here I come to you. I come to you because you come to me. You know my hiding places. I know you, I reach you through your hiding places too; Feeling for the thread, but now I see – Even in darkness I can see you shine, Risen in bread, and revelling in wine.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“Mothering Sunday At last, in spite of all, a recognition For those who loved and laboured for so long, Who brought us, through that labour, to fruition, To flourish in the place where we belong; A thanks to those who stayed and did the raising, Who buckled down and did the work of two, Whom governments have mocked instead of praising, Who hid their heart-break and still struggled through; The single mothers forced on to the edge, Whose work the world has overlooked, neglected, Invisible to wealth and privilege, But in whose lives the Kingdom is reflected. Now into Christ our mother Church we bring them, Who shares with them the birth-pangs of his Kingdom.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“All the kingdoms of the world ‘So here’s the deal and this is what you get: The penthouse suite with world-commanding views, The banker’s bonus and the private jet, Control and ownership of all the news, An “in” to that exclusive one percent, Who know the score, who really run the show, With interest on every penny lent  And sweeteners for cronies in the know. A straight arrangement between me and you, No hell below or heaven high above, You just admit it, and give me my due And wake up from this foolish dream of love . . .’ But Jesus laughed, ‘You are not what you seem. Love is the waking life, you are the dream.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“First of the four, Saint Matthew is the Man; A Gospel that begins with generation, Family lines entwine around the Son Born in Judea, born for every nation, Born under Law that all the Law of Moses Might be fulfilled and flower into Grace; A hidden thread of words and deeds discloses Eternal love within a human face. This is the Gospel of the great reversal: A wayside weed is Solomon in glory, The smallest sparrow’s fall is universal And Christ is the heart of every human story: ‘I will be with you, though you may not see, And all you do, you do it unto me.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“From the first yearning for a Saviour’s birth To the full joy of knowing sins forgiven, We start our journey here on God’s good earth To catch an echo of the choirs of heaven. I send these out, returning what was lent, Turning to praise each ‘moment’s monument’. The lectern Some rise on eagles’ wings, this one is plain, Plain English workmanship in solid oak. Age gracefully, it says, go with the grain. You walk towards an always open book, Open as every life to every light, Open to shade and shadow, day and night, The changeless witness of your changing pain. Be still, the lectern says, stand here and read. Here are your mysteries, your love and fear, And, running through them all, the slender thread Of God’s strange grace, red as these ribbons, red As your own blood when reading reads you here And pierces joint and marrow . . . So you stand, The lectern still beneath your trembling hand.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“At the heart of its virtues are brevity, clarity, concentration, and a capacity for paradox, for expressing, juxtaposing and containing contradiction, all of which are required if we are to approach the paradox and mystery that is at the heart of the Christian faith.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“Palm Sunday Now to the gate of my Jerusalem, The seething holy city of my heart, The Saviour comes. But will I welcome him?”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“It is in the nature of poetry that it speaks to the heart as well as the head.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“Abel’s blood still cries from every land. One silence only might redeem that blood; Only the silence of a dying God.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year

“But here a pure change happens. On this tree Loss becomes gain, death opens into birth. Here wounding heals and fastening makes free, Earth breathes in heaven, heaven roots in earth. And here we see the length, the breadth, the height, Where love and hatred meet and love stays true, Where sin meets grace and darkness turns to light, We see what love can bear and be and do.”
― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year: Seventy sonnets for Christian year