Bigger Than Life

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls.
The most massive characters are seared with scars."

-Khalil Gabran

From Grief to Glory

Decadence
Again the templed forest
Is changed to haunts of gloom,
It's vesture, drooping, dying,
A garment for the tomb.
And I must leave you mourning,
When death would bring you grief.
For I'm the fleeting summer
And you are the fading leaf.

Love in Grief
O love, so brief appearing
Within a summer day,
As rapture in the temple
Whose colonnades are clay.
O love and loved in sorrow
Lie fallow and forlorn
While God prepares the morrow,
The endless wedding morn.

Spring Returns
Murmuring merrily rounde-lay
Out from the cool, cool shade,
Into the sun,
Babbles a brooklet to carry away
Dawn and dream in its magic spray
Into the sun.

Life
Its voice impels the forest
Again to stir with song
Tranforming grief to glory
As life begins to throng
The parting pain is healing
And love unites with love
The Father fills His temple
With music from above.

- lyrics by Oscar R. Overby (1936)

Pagan Symbolism - Modern Public Health Issue

"Cinderella dressed in yella,
Went upstairs to kiss a fella,
Made a mistake and kissed a snake.
How many doctors did it take
1, 2, 3, . . . ."

From St. Olaf

O day full of grace, which we behold,
Now gently to view ascending;
Thou over the earth thy reign unfold,
Good cheer to all mortals lending,
That children of light in every clime
May prove that the night is ending.

How blest was that gracious midnight hour,
When God in our flesh was given;
Then flushed the dawn with light and power,
That spread o’er the darkened heaven;
Then rose o’er the world that sun divine
Which gloom from our hearts hath driven.

Yea, were every tree endowed with speech,
And every leaflet singing,
They never with praise God’s worth could reach,
Though earth with their praise were ringing.
Who fully could praise the light of life
Who light to our souls is bringing?

With joy we depart to the promised land,
And there we shall walk in endless light.

—Danish, 14th century/Nicolai F.S. Grundtvig, 1826
tr. O.H. Smeby, G.T. Rygh, C. Doving, 1911