| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take
them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry
and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own
eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same
time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down
when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our
integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up
and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of
him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.
FOR SELF-FORGETFULNESS
LORD, the creatures of thy hand, thy disinherited children, come
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tanach: Song_of_songs 7: 12 (7:13) Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see whether the vine hath budded, whether the vine-blossom be opened, and the pomegranates be in flower; there will I give thee my love.
Song_of_songs 7: 13 (7:14) The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and at our doors are all manner of precious fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
Song_of_songs 8: 1 Oh that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, and none would despise me.
Song_of_songs 8: 2 I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, that thou mightest instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranate.
Song_of_songs 8: 3 His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.
Song_of_songs 8: 4 'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem: Why should ye awaken, or stir up love, until it please?'
Song_of_songs 8: 5 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple-tree I awakened thee; there thy mother was in travail with thee; there was she in travail and brought thee forth.
Song_of_songs 8: 6 Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave; the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the LORD.
The Tanach |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
'But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case,:
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Came for additions; yet their purpos'd trim
Pierc'd not his grace, but were all grac'd by him.
'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
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