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GONE FROM MY SIGHT: THE PARABLE OF IMMORTALITY

Natasha Bochenek

I am standing upon the sea shore.
A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of
white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle
with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, ‘There, she is gone.’
Gone where?
Gone from our sight. That is all.

She is just as large in mast, hull, and spar as she was when she
left our sides, and she is just as able to bear her load to her
destined port.
Her diminished size is in us, not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, ‘There, she is gone,’
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready
to take up the glad shout,
‘Here she comes!’

Reverend Luther F Beecher [1813-1903]

DEAR BETTY

David Selman

ADDRESS

Reverend James Mercer

A CELTIC BLESSING

May the road rise to meet you,
the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rains fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again, until we meet again,
may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.