The Song of Aragorn 11:14 AM

Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in the movie, The Lord of the Rings

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

The inextinguishable light of the human spirit sheds its beams through the ages in art, literature and music, pushing back the dark curtain of despair. 29 Pieces emerges here and now, a dream waiting its reality.

— Charme Robarts

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Defying Sorrow 10:51 AM

            

An invisible thread divides daylight from dark.

Stars fall on either side.

Each one kisses the other when its time comes.

Troubles of day give way to restfulness of night;

Terrors of night finally receive the light of day

Each does its part to defy sorrow, protesting its claim to hold an eternal grip — by sailing right through it.

The way from sorrow to joy is a chartless course, its length uncertain and its path unique for every traveler. 

Everyone will go this way, but not alone.

Sun, moon, and stars unmade by human hands map out, not the way, but the certainty of the infinite power of change that lives in the world.

So just as night turns to day and day to night making their difference melt at a single point, “never let me be burdened by the sorrow of not starting again.”*

– By Charme Robarts

* From Let Me Walk in Beauty” Attributed to Chief Yellow Lark

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Make My Hands Respect the Things That You Have Made 9:35 AM

I was walking . . . trying to figure out life . . . when I became aware of the acorns littering the path below my feet. It occurred to me that I had never actually seen one falling from the massive oaks that line the street.  Obviously, they do fall. There are dozens of them cracking under my feet. I had just never seen them in flight.   I suppose, then, that the dive to earth below was ordered to be surreptitious. 

Wait until the humans aren’t watching. They will think they somehow made it happen. They will think they know exactly when it is time to let go and start the free fall. But it is ours to know when to begin the clandestine journey, and each of us will take it, turning loose and searing through the sky just under the tree, cutting the path like a knife, throwing back our heads in uproarious laughter while the air parts like the sea to let us fly by.

It’s not that we don’t want them to enjoy such a ride, but the fact is they did not make us, and so they don’t quite understand us. Maybe they could try to imagine.
– Charme Robarts
www.29Pieces.org 

Make My Hands Respect the Things That You Have Made is from Let me walk in beauty, by Chief Yellow Lark. This passage is one of the passages from God Makes the Rivers to Flow

If The Very World Should Stop 10:19 AM

(Originally written on Oct. 1, 2010) 

Oct.1, seven days until my mother’s birthday, eight months since she passed away.  Six months since I moved to this city, fourteen days since he heard the word “remission.” Two days and the verdict will be handed down, next Friday the deal will be closed.  Three years since the summer melt of the Arctic Sea was recorded as the greatest in history, and forever since we weren’t at war.

What if this very world should stop? This world, marked by days and years, by tide and moon and the rising of the sun, and the pages in a planner. What if this very world should stop and we are transported to that plane that has been the fascination of holy and not so holy people throughout the ages? Would time be swallowed up and with it caskets, and letting go, and radiation, and guilt, and what seems to us like the withering of Mother Earth? And will then the swords be beaten into ploughshares*?  Will time melt like the ice caps and sweep us into the ocean of shalom**? I think so. 

- Charme Robarts

*Swords into ploughshares is a reference to Isaiah 2:4

**The Hebrew meaning of shalom carries with it the idea of wholeness, completeness, things being as they were designed to be. 

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