The Ascension of the Lord

Today we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord when Jesus' resurrected body departed our world and was "taken up in glory" (1 Tm. 3:16) where He "is seated at the right hand of God" (Col. 3:1).  His mission accomplished; Jesus returned to His Father in heaven.  While the Ascension marks the end of Jesus' physical ministry here with us, it is a sign to all His disciples that our work building the kingdom of God is just beginning.

The disciples did not go out to build the kingdom unprepared.  Jesus told them to wait "until [they were] clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49).  Once the "power of the Holy Spirit" came upon them, they could fulfill their mission to carry on the work Jesus began.  Their mission was to preach "repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Luke 24:47) and to proclaim the good news "in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  That mission is now our responsibility.  Jesus expects us to witness, to teach and to proclaim the same good news.  And like the first disciples, we too are prepared.  We are "are clothed with power from on high."

Next Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost.  During these days leading up to Pentecost please pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our Church and on all of us so that we can follow Jesus’ instructions to preach the gospel of the kingdom “throughout the world as a witness to all nations” (Matt. 24:14).

Lord our God,

your Son Jesus Christ lives in your glory

to be nearer to us through his Holy Spirit

and to be near to all people through us.

Give us the Holy Spirit,

that we may have the courage

to help you save the world by serving it

and by building up your kingdom

of justice, truth, and love,

in the name of him whom we await,

Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord

and our Savior forever.

Amen.

10% / 90%

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.

My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, "Why did you just do that? That guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"

This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage -- frustration, anger, disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.  Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it.

All Work is Honorable

Like a lot of high school students, he needed a summer job. It wasn't easy finding one, but Colin did what he could. When there was an opening, he worked day jobs on soda trucks. And that's what he had. That was the opening. Just occasional day jobs helping out on trucks delivering soft drinks.

But because he was there, he heard about an opening at the Pepsi plant. It was a lousy job, one of cleaning up soda syrup. No one else even wanted the job. But Colin took it.

And get this; he did such a good job there, the plant manager asked him to come back the next summer. That summer, he moved over to a bottling machine. By the end of the summer, he was a deputy shift leader.

Colin was getting an important lesson in life. One success builds on another. "All work is honorable," he later wrote. "Always do your best, because someone is watching."

From job to job, success to success, Colin moved up in the world. We knew Colin - Colin Powell - as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Gulf War, and later, Secretary of State under President George W. Bush.

From job to job, assignment to assignment, Colin Powell modeled something for us. You can use past success as a building block for future success, even if the only past success you have is mopping up soda syrup really, really well.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Freedom Is Not Free

I watched the flag pass by one day.

It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.

- Kelly Strong

Memorial Day

Memorial Day Poem

In distant field of sunny France
Where strangers come and go,
Amid the farms of Flanders, where
The fragrant breezes blow,
Our solder-dead in quiet sleep,
'Neath crosses row on row.

Here shrapnel shells once shrieked and burst
And took their toll of death;
The very wind, itself a foe,
Bore poison on its breath.

Above their graves the birds now sing
As round that home of yore,
When, carefree boys, they romped and played;
Those childhood days soon o'er,
The boys to brave and strong men grown,

They romped and played no more.

They put aside their childish toys,
A man's work each must do,
And when their country called for them,
To her they answered true.

“We must protect our native land:
She shall not suffer wrong
For she has reared and nurtured us,
We're men and we are strong.
We'll bid good-bye to those we love;
It will not be for long.”

With aching hearts and tear-dimmed eyes
We watched them go away.
Some have returned but many sleep
In foreign lands today.

Where English roses bloom and fade,
In France where lilies grow,
Among the fields of Flanders, where
The scarlet poppies blow,
Our soldier-dead are not forgot
Though strangers come and go.

Directions

The airline pilot announced over the intercom, "Folks, I've got good news and bad news for you. The bad news is … we're lost. The good news is … we're making great time!"

It's too easy to live our lives like that, isn't it? Always a bit too busy. In a hurry to accomplish the day's tasks. Rushing around but not clear exactly where we want to ultimately end up.

It's been provocatively said, "Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." The problem is they know they would like to accomplish something important with their lives or they would like to make a certain income or they would like to be happy. But when it comes to making the journey toward those destinations, they feel stuck. In short, they are lost.

Author and speaker Danny Cox, in his book SEIZE THE DAY (Career Press,1994), tells of a man who made a great success of his life in spite of tremendous hardships. The moment that ultimately turned this man's life around was when he sat down and asked himself four important questions:

1) What do I really want? He didn't want to just sleepwalk through life, nor look back someday and feel regret.

2) What will it cost? In time, money and commitment.

3) Am I willing to pay the price?

4) When is the best time to start paying the price?

Answer these four questions and you will be clear on the direction you want to take your life. Commit to these answers and you'll make great.

6th Sunday of Easter

Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter; our celebration of this holy season is near its end.  Next Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord.  And in two weeks, on June 9, we celebrate the glorious Feast of Pentecost.  In today's gospel, John 14:23-29, Jesus is preparing the disciples for his departure.  He promises that God the Father will send them an Advocate to be with them always, "the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it" (John 14:17).  He also promises them the gift of Peace.

This peace that Jesus offers the disciples and us is not worldly peace, it is a gift from God that "surpasses all understanding"  (Phil. 4:7).  The peace that Jesus offers us is peace of heart; a peace that helps us to overcome our very human fears and anxieties. We receive God’s gift of peace when we keep God’s word (John 14:23).  In his Letter to the Colossians, St. Paul gives us clear instructions on how we can attain God’s peace, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put-on love, that is, the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:12-14).  And finally, we must “Let the word of Christ dwell in [us] richly,” through prayer, thanksgiving and “gratitude in [our] hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).

During the next two weeks leading up to Pentecost, all of us should pray that the Holy Spirit, our Advocate who is with us always, will teach each of us what we need to know and continually remind us of everything Jesus said. Then we all can share God’s gift of peace, a peace the world cannot give.

Great and loving Father,

Your abiding gift to us

Is the Advocate promised by your Son, Jesus.

Calm all troubled hearts,

Dispel every fear.

Keep us steadfast in love

And faithful to your word,

That we may always be your dwelling place.

Grant this through Jesus Christ,

The first-born from the dead,

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit

God for ever and ever.

AMEN.

Is The Messiah Among You?

Once a great order, a decaying monastery had only five monks left. The order was dying. In the surrounding deep woods, there was a little hut that a Rabbi from a nearby town used from time to time. The monks always knew the Rabbi was home when they saw the smoke from his fire rise above the tree tops. As the Abbot agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to him to ask the Rabbi if he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot at his hut. When the Abbot explained the reason for his visit, the Rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the Abbot and the Rabbi sat together discussing the Bible and their faiths. The time came when the Abbot had to leave. “It has been a wonderful visit,” said the Abbot, “but I have failed in my purpose. Is there nothing you can tell me to help save my dying order?” “The only thing I can tell you,” said the Rabbi, “is that the Messiah is among you.”

When the Abbot returned to the monastery, his fellow monks gathered around him and asked, “What did the Rabbi say?” “He couldn’t help,” the Abbot answered. “The only thing he did say, as I was leaving was that the Messiah is among us. Though I do not know what these words mean.”

In the months that followed, the monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the Rabbi’s words: The Messiah is among us? Could he possibly have meant that the Messiah is one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one of us is the Messiah? Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even so, Elred is virtually always right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. Of course the Rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah?

As they contemplated in this manner, the monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah and in turn, each monk began to treat himself with extraordinary respect.

It so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the beautiful forest and monastery. Without even being conscious of it, visitors began to sense a powerful spiritual aura. They were sensing the extraordinary respect that now filled the monastery. Hardly knowing why, people began to come to the monastery frequently to picnic, to play, and to pray. They began to bring their friends, and their friends brought their friends. Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the older monks. After a while, one asked if he could join them. Then, another and another asked if they too could join the abbot and older monks. Within a few years, the monastery once again became a thriving order, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.

– Author Unknown: Adapted from the Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by Dr. M. Scott Peck

Write the Other Way

Henry L. Mencken said it first: "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." Several 7-Eleven stores learned the truth of that statement.

According to a New York Times  article, a number of the convenience stores had a problem with teenagers hanging out in their parking lots at all hours of the day  and night. Not that they didn't like kids. But the teens were noisy.  Customers had to walk around them to get into the stores. And they  left discarded wrappers, cigarette butts and paper cups on the grounds.

Managers tried various methods to solve the problem. They asked the  young people to move elsewhere. They asked them to pick up their trash. They even spoke to the police, but nothing worked.

Each solution was simple, neat, and ineffective.

Finally, one manager came up with an unusual idea to dissuade the  teenagers from loitering in front of the stores. He suggested that all  the shops start piping easy-listening music into the parking lots. Immediately, the young people stopped hanging around. (Maybe his  tactic was ruthless, but it worked!)

Sometimes we need a good answer. Again and again we butt up against  the same old problem, whether it is relational, professional or  personal. It seems that whatever we try is not working.

Perhaps you need to approach your persistent problem with a new way of  thinking. The Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez said, "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." Is it time to exercise more creativity in your pursuit for the "right" answer?

I believe that humanity's best ideas have not yet been thought of. And  the best solution for your problem may likewise be waiting to be conceived. It just might happen when you turn the paper sideways and write the other way!

Bike on Ceiling

A bicycle hanging from the ceiling cannot achieve its intended purpose.

The same thing can be said of The Bible sitting on the shelf in your room!

Happiness Within

Even before Christ, there existed wonderful philosophy in Greece and Rome. The ancient Romans were practical people. They did not ask themselves theoretical questions. They asked how they, as people, could become happy. They concluded that they must keep the source of happiness within themselves. They were the Stoic Philosophers. The writers included Epictetus and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. They were wise and wonderful.

The Stoics believed that they could not depend on the "outside" for happiness. The "outside is beyond my control. I must keep some control over my happiness or I will always be a victim. Example: I would be happy if my wife (or husband) were cheerful in the morning. I will be happy when I win the lottery. This is not the road to happiness. Happiness is securely found only from within.

The Stoics said that we could not let our desires go unrestrained. If I let my desires go wild, I can convince myself that I need a yacht to be happy. I do not need a yacht, or a DVR or a Porsche, or a widescreen TV. We can decide what we need; we can be content with what we have. In this regard, there are two ways to get rich. I define a rich person as one who earns more than s/he wants to spend. You could earn a fortune, more than you could ever want to spend. Or you could limit your desire to spend. J.P. Morgan chose the first way. Francis of Assisi chose the second. They were both rich.

The Stoics were a secular philosophy. They did not bring God into the picture. When we take the Stoic wisdom and add our spirituality, then we really have a plan of life. Look inside yourself for happiness. Inside you find the God who loves you. This God is the only sure source of happiness. Now we find that Francis of Assisi just might have been the happiest individual whoever lived.

Two Scenarios

Imagine these two different scenarios in your life:

In the first instance, you have just experienced a religious high. Through prayer or some other religious or human experience, you have a strong, imaginative sense of God’s reality. At that particular moment, you feel sure of God’s existence and have an indubitable sense that God is real. Your faith feels strong. You could walk on water!

Then imagine different moment: You are lying in your bed, restless, agitated, feeling chaos around you, staring holes into the darkness, unable to imagine the existence of God, and unable to think of yourself as having faith. Try as you might, you cannot conjure up any feeling that God exists. You feel you are an atheist.

Does this mean that in one instance you have a strong faith and in the other you have a weak one? No. What it means is that in one instance you have a strong imagination and in the other you have a weak imagination.

Faith in God is not to be confused with the capacity or incapacity to imagine God’s existence. Infinity cannot be circumscribed by the imagination. God can be known, but not pictured. God can be experienced, but not imagined.

When the prophet Isaiah glimpsed God in a vision, all he could do was stammer the words: Holy, holy, holy! Holy is the Lord God of hosts! But we misunderstand his meaning because we take “holy” in its moral sense, that is, as virtue. 

Isaiah however meant the word in its metaphysical sense, namely, as referring to God’s transcendence, God’s otherness, God’s difference from us, God’s ineffability. In essence, he is saying: Other, completely different, utterly ineffable, is the Lord God of hosts!

Accepting that God is ineffable and that all of our thoughts and imaginative constructs about God are inadequate helps us in two ways: We stop identifying our faith with our imagination, and, more importantly, we stop creating God in our own image and likeness.

A New Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the people I cannot change,
which is pretty much everyone,
since I’m clearly not you, God.
At least not the last time I checked.

And while you’re at it, God,
please give me the courage
to change what I need to change about myself,
which is frankly a lot, since, once again,
I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect.
It’s better for me to focus on changing myself
than to worry about changing other people,
who, as you’ll no doubt remember me saying,
I can’t change anyway.

Finally, give me the wisdom to just shut up
whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter
than everyone else in the room,
that no one knows what they’re talking about except me,
or that I alone have all the answers.

Basically, God,
grant me the wisdom
to remember that I’m
not you.

Amen

5th Sunday of Easter

Throughout his ministry, the scribes and Pharisees tried to trick Jesus on matters of the Law.  He deflected their ploys by consistently going back to the most basic and most important commandments in the Old Testament:  "you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Deut.6:5) and "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:18).  In today's gospel, Jesus gives his disciples and us a new commandment, "love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another" (John 13:34).

This new commandment to love one another as Jesus loves us is the greatest challenge facing most of us as Christians.  This love is total, unconditional, selfless, merciful, sacrificial and forgiving love.  It is a force so absolute and boundless that St. Paul declares " I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

The challenge for us is putting this commandment into practice.  Talking about love is easy.  Practicing total, unconditional, selfless, merciful, sacrificial and forgiving love is something each of us most struggle with every day.  What Jesus is telling us in this new commandment is that we must love the people who hurt us, we must love the people who hate us, we must love the people who are angry with us and we must love the people who let us down and disappoint us. There is no room for compromise here.  In Luke 6:27-35, Jesus makes his point explicitly clear:  "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners do the same.  But rather, love your enemies and do good to them then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked."

By striving to love one another as Jesus loves us, we are building the "new Jerusalem" that St. John saw so vividly in Revelation 21:1-5a.  We are working in partnership with God our Father to "make all things new" so that he can dwell with us here in Peachtree City, Georgia and we can prove we are his people. 

God, loving Father,
you made us aware of the depth of your love
when your own Son laid down his life for us.
Jesus asks us to love one another
the way he has loved us.

Make this new commandment of love
the very foundation of our lives,
so that, loving you and loving one another
we may show that we are Christ’s disciples.
We ask this through Jesus Christ,
the first-born from the dead,
who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.

AMEN

Grace

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the empty valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks through our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, “You are accepted.  You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know.

Do not ask for the name now, perhaps you will know it later.

Do not try to do anything, perhaps later you will do much.

Do not seek for anything,
Do not perform anything,
Do not intend anything.

Simply accept the fact you are accepted.”

If that happens to us, we experience grace.

Wish You Enough

Recently, I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport as the daughter's departure had been announced.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, "I love you, and I wish you enough."

The daughter replied, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom."  They kissed and the daughter left.

Then the mother walked over to the window where I sat. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry.

I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

"Yes, I have," I replied. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this, a forever good-bye?"

"I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is the next trip back will be for my funeral," she said.

"When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?"

She began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone."

She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and she smiled even more.

"When we said 'I wish you enough' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them."

Then turning toward me, she shared the following, reciting it from memory:

 "I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

 I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun.

 I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

 I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

 I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

 I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

 I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye."

She then began to cry and walked away.

A Prayer of Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new; And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you, your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Rain

A little girl had been shopping with her Mom in a store. She must have been 6-years-old, this beautiful red-haired, freckle-faced image of innocence. It was pouring outside. The kind of rain that gushes over the top of rain gutters, so much in a hurry to hit the earth it has no time to flow down the spout. We all stood there under the awning and just inside the door of the Walmart.

We waited, some patiently, others irritated because nature messed up their hurried day. I am always mesmerized by rainfall. I got lost in the sound and sight of the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world. Memories of running, splashing so carefree as a child came pouring in as a welcome reprieve from the worries of my day.

The little voice was so sweet as it broke the hypnotic trance we were all caught in: “Mom, let's run through the rain.” she said.

“What?” Mom asked.

“Let's run through the rain!” she repeated.

“No, honey. We'll wait until it slows down a bit.” Mom replied.

This young child waited about another minute and repeated: “Mom, let's run through the rain."

“We'll get soaked if we do." Mom said.

“No, we won't, Mom. That's not what you said this morning.” the young girl said as she tugged at her Mom's arm.

“This morning? When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?”

“Don't you remember? When you were talking to Daddy about his cancer, you said, 'If God can get us through this, he can get us through anything!' ”

The entire crowd stopped dead silent. I swear you couldn't hear anything but the rain. We all stood silently. No one came or left in the next few minutes.

Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say.

Now some would laugh it off and scold her for being silly. Some might even ignore what was said. But this was a moment of affirmation in a young child's life. A time when innocent trust can be nurtured so that it will bloom into faith.

“Honey, you are absolutely right. Let's run through the rain. If God lets us get wet, well maybe we just needed washing.” Mom said.

Then off they ran. We all stood watching, smiling and laughing as they darted past the cars and, yes, through the puddles. They held their shopping bags over their heads. They got soaked. But they were followed by a few who screamed and laughed like children all the way to their cars.

And yes, I did. I ran. I got wet. I needed washing.

I See His Blood Upon the Rose

I see His blood upon the rose 

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887–1916)

An Old Woman of the Roads

O, To have a little house! 

To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there's never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
Out of the wind's and the rain's way.

Padraic Colum