Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Sundays are for gratitude, and every day the Almighty extends the same invitation: to be aware of the gift of life and faith, rather than be blind to it. Grateful hearts listen, see, and respond. They bear fruit thirty-, sixty-, or a hundredfold—all to the glory and honor of the One who planted the seed. The harvest belongs to the Master, but we still play our small part by following Him, trusting in Him, and serving Him. Not that He has any need of our service, but He delights to share His goodness through us, with us, and in us.

Today’s longer reflection comes from Sir Walter Raleigh and his poem, penned (or at least believed to have been penned) the night before his beheading. In the reign of Elizabeth, he had been a favorite of the Queen and prospered greatly as a result. He is perhaps best known to posterity as a courtier, navigator, and adventurer—the man credited with introducing potatoes and tobacco to England.

Gotta love a man who brought us both potatoes and tobacco! I’ve never met a potato I couldn’t eat, and I do enjoy smoking a pipe from time to time, along with the occasional cigar. Blessed Sunday dear neighbors!

The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage

Give me my Scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of Faith to walk upon,
My Scrip of Joy, Immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation:
My Gown of Glory, hope’s true gauge,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given
Whilst my soul like a white
Palmer Travels to the land of heaven,
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the Nectar fountains:

And there I’ll kiss The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
On every milky hill.
My soul will be adry before,
But after it will thirst no more.

And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful Pilgrims I shall see,
That have shaken off their gowns of clay,
And go appareled fresh like me.
I’ll bring them first To slake their thirst
And then to taste those Nectar suckets
At the clear wells Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by Saints in Crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we,
Are filled with immortality:
Then the holy paths we’ll travel
Strewed with Rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral and pearl bowers.
From thence to Heaven’s bribeless hall
Where no Corrupted Lawyers brawl
No Conscience molten into gold,
Nor forged accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferred, nor vain spent Journey,
For there Christ is the King’s Attorney:
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath Angels, but no fees.

When the grand twelve million Jury
Of our sins with dreadful fury,
Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live,
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted Lawyer, true proceeder,
Thou movest salvation even for alms:
Not with a bribed Lawyer’s palms.

And this is my eternal plea,
To him that made Heaven, Earth and Sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

Jose Albafotos - Monk Pilgrimage- Pixabay