2005

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
3100 Murfreesboro Pike
P. O. Box 741
Antioch, Tennessee 37011
615-361-4100

  Click on Page Number 2005

Dear People of God,

As we enter the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany we are surrounded by images of Light. The star the wise men follow leads them and us to the Light of the World. “Now is the time to know  / That all you do is sacred."

That is how the poet Hafiz puts it. This is the season in which we begin again our journey to Jerusalem, the Cross, and indeed to the heart of God. Light shines upon us revealing the Way. Light illumines our hearts revealing the Love we are to be and proclaim. It is the heart and soul of our faith that we are privileged to Proclaim to those who are broken in body, mind or spirit that the Light has come into the world and the darkness has not and will not overcome it. Be of good cheer and let us lift up our hearts and lift those who are the least among us that they too may know, "that all they do is sacred". 

God's Peace,

Battle+

Now Is The Time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child’s training wheels

To be laid aside

When you can finally live

With veracity

And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy

Whom the Beloved

Has written a holy message upon. 

My dear, please tell me,

Why do you still

Throw sticks at your heart

And God? 

What is it in the sweet voice inside

That incites you to fear?

 Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

 This is the time

For you to deeply compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is sacred.

- reprinted from The Gift – Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master, translations by Daniel Ladinsky, Penguin Books, 1999.