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Aug 9

Magic and Wonder

“The magic of story. The wonder of words. The fertility of imagination.”― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-satiated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord’s amazing grace.”― Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

Anticipation, hope, enthusiasm
Thoughts, words, actions
Forgiveness, releasing, open heart
Reflection, rest, restoration
Letting the past be done
Allowing the future to unfold
Fertile ground of this day
Planting seeds of attention, gratitude, encouragement, presense, praise.
Amazing amazing grace.
Joy chosen and given in real time.

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”― Kahlil Gibran

Aug 8

Gracious in Awareness, This Hour

“Peace is always beautiful.” ― Walt Whitman

“Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour.”― Walt Whitman

Gaze long
Gratitude deep
Joy flowing
Peace beautiful
Calm rooted
Delight overflowing
For this hour, for this day.

“May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.” – John O’Donohue

Aug 7

Joy Doing and Receiving

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”― Walt Whitman

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Reclaim reverence, awe, wonder.
Keep it close.
Restore delight, frolic, play.
Weave it in the ordinary.
Release all that is not yours to carry.
Walk lightly with the rest.
Awake, aware, tending.
Sacred, holy ground of this day.

“Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.”― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Aug 6

Float like Lilies

“Lilies bloom when we laugh together.”― Suyasha Subedi

The Pond― Mary Oliver, Felicity

“August of another summer, and once again
I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.
I know now what they want is to touch each other.
I have not been here for many years
during which time I kept living my life.
Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes he
could sing,
I wish I could sing.
A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.
This is how it has been, and this is how it is:
All my life I have been able to feel happiness,
except whatever was not happiness,
which I also remember.
Each of us wears a shadow.
But just now it is summer again
and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,
then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,
close, close to one another,
Soon now, I’ll turn and start for home.
And who knows, maybe I’ll be singing.”

A little thanks from every throat
Praise and presence
Song and dance
Smile and laughter
Floating like lilies
Drinking in the sun
Casting light.

“Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons
off the tree! I don’t want
to forget who I am, what has burned in me,
and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -”― Denise Levertov

Aug 5

Today Such a Day

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”― Rumi

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Curiosity, inquiry, observation.
Reverence, reverie, reflection.
Open hands, heart, eyes.
Breeze, sky, beauty.
Notice and partake.

“On a day
when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a day.”― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Aug 4

Find and Found

“true solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation” — the places where “one’s inner voices become audible.” – Wendell Berry

“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything . . . It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it.”― Gordon Hempton

Presence in silence.
Stay awhile.
Find and found.

Aug 3

Daily Tax of Presence and Appreciation

“To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds,”― William James

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.”― William James

Effort, daily
Kindness, consideration, care
Small acts
Planting seeds
Sooner than later
Drops to waves
Wings spread
Pay attention
Put in effort
Give before receiving
Fearless and bold
Postpone no more
Joy, delight, gratitude, narrow path, extra mile
Baptized by, with, for love.

“We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead… By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.”― William James

Aug 2

Sweet Nectar of Tending

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”― William James

“Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration of consciousness are of its essence. It implies a withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.”― William James

Attendance, full participation in this day.
Autopilot off.
To do list aside.
Rapt attention, reverence.
Expansion of presence
Exploration, wandering, sensing.
Sweet nectar of tending.

“Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”― William James, The Writings of William James

Aug 1

Secret Symmetry

“Take refuge in your senses, open up to all the small miracles you rushed through. Become inclined to watch the way of rain when it falls slow and free… Draw alongside the silence of stone until its calmness can claim you.”― John O’Donohue

“Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.” – John O’Donohue

Small quiet miracles
Silence of stones
Claimed by calm
Sacred gift of this day
Wrapped in wonder

“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”― John Ortberg, Soul Keeping

Jul 31

Loving Us into Light

“In vain we search the heavens high above, The God of love is kneeling at our feet. Though we betray him, though it is the night, He meets us here and loves us into light.”― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons

“I have often noticed how interesting footpaths and bridleways start just beyond the brambles at the end of tarmacked roads marked ‘dead end’. And it seems to me that this is very often where prayer starts too.”― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness

In, on, through the journey
Detours, delays, distractions
Arrivals, departures, middles
In the busy, rushing, performing
Vain searching, disappointments, celebrations
Kneeling at our feet
Always there. always
Loving us into light.

“Our God beyond, beside us, and within.”― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons

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