Introductory Note:

Today, we start off with a short poem of gratitude from Gerard Manley Hopkins for the “pied beauty” of the world—those lovely flashes of two or more colors with which God paints so many things. Whether stippled trout or brinded cow, a finch’s wing or ploughed up field, may we all find some time to revel in the “original, spare and strange” in all the places we may discover them.

Renovaré Team

Pied Beau­ty

Glo­ry be to God for dap­pled things –
For skies of cou­ple-colour as a brind­ed cow;
For rose-moles all in stip­ple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-fire­coal chest­nut-falls; finch­es’ wings;
Land­scape plot­ted and pieced – fold, fal­low, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tack­le and trim.

All things counter, orig­i­nal, spare, strange;
What­ev­er is fick­le, freck­led (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adaz­zle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beau­ty is past change:
Praise him.

In the pub­lic domain via Inter­est­ing Lit­er­a­ture. (Please vis­it their site; they have engross­ing write-ups of this and oth­er Ger­ard Man­ley Hop­kins poem.)

📚 The 2022 – 23 Ren­o­varé Book Club

This year’s nine-month, soul-shap­ing jour­ney fea­tures four books, old and new, prayer­ful­ly curat­ed by Ren­o­varé. Now under­way and there’s still time to join.

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