Chasing Hats has a piece by April Clark which really gave me a deeper appreciation for Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Her heartfelt insights and exploration of the beauty in the story are worth your time.

i refer readers to Francis Mooney's site for great thoughts and reflections on the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Adding to the already insightful comments is Francis' inclusion of the words to a great hymn _ Be Thou My Vision.

The Great Lover Calls:

I tell you I love you,
Still you walk away.
I tell you I love you,
You say: "Don't bother me again."

I hold my arms open,
Ready with a warm embrace;
But you spend your time
Lookin' at somebody else's face.

Give you everything _
You go off sleeping with the enemy.
Turned wine into water;
Now you're in over your head.
If you weren't already,
By now you feel pretty dead.
A voice you used to know;
Comeback has a long way to go.

Still, I stand here and love you.

Cloud of Unknowing

There's a cloud of unknowing that hangs o'er my head.
It hovers and haunts as i lie in my bed.
It flickers and fades on the edge of my brain,
Then parks itself right in the middle again.

The Order Police try to sweep it away
But there it is back the very next day;
Sometimes much more quickly, it's stubborn, you know;
Hope against hope, it refuses to go.

It nips at my heels, it yells in my ear,
It tempts me to steal, then binds me in fear;
Voices they swirl and thoughts start to blur;
Darkness descends and life seems to end.

Then louder than ever another voice calls
It beckons me follow "whatever befall;"
And there in the cloud, His broad hand nearly glowing;
He calls me to enter the Cloud of Unknowing.