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Dec 9

Bloom Goodness

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”― St. Teresa of Avila

“There is within each one of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining; for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgment; for loving unconditionally.”― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Judge less.
Love more.
Take down walls.
More doors and windows.
Let the light in.
Go out into the world.
Soak in color.
Be interrupted.
Be patient, generous and kind.
Smile, delight, listen.
Wonderstruck, childlike, filled with awe.
Bloom well.
Blessed by being a blessing.

“We often tend to ignore how much of a child is still in all of us.”― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Dec 8

YES and…

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”― Pema Chödrön

“i imagine that yes is the only living thing.”― E.E. Cummings

A resounding YES! to enthusiasm, beauty, life, wholeness.
A grounding, followed by trust then a leap.
Starting without knowing the exact way.
A compass rather than a map.
A pull, gravity, forward motion.
Engaging rather than merely existing, checking boxes.
We are bigger than we allow and enter.
Off autopilot and dive into life.
Yes’s and No’s appropriately placed.
Creating space for what already resides within awaiting release.
Commit.
Contemplation to action.
Yes and move.

“At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dec 7

Astonishment

“Witness each moment in astounded jubilation. Take every holy breath in gratitude. Rejoice in life!”― Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life

“A Permeable Life is about what presses out from the heart, what comes in at a slant and what shimmers below the surface of things. To live permeably is to be open-hearted and audacious, to risk showing up as our truest self, and embracing a willingness to be astonished.”― Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays

To unknow things.
To forget.
To be naive, or brilliant.
To see each day with astonishment, pause, praise.
A series of firsts, of surprise and enchantment.
Transformed rather than informed.
Wonder, awe, delight.
A place to not only visit but to set up residence.
To make home.
Wandering there often will work too.
Be interrupted by beauty, joy and delight each day.
Find what shimmers below the surface of things, of you, of others, of life.

“But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment . . .”
― Linda Pastan

Dec 6

Sacred Echo

“I call them sacred echoes because I noticed that throughout my relationships, daily life, and study, the same scripturally sound idea or phrase or word will keep reappearing until I can no longer avoid its presence.” -The Sacred Echo”― Margaret Feinberg

“Create your own permission slip for joy. Write three words: Accept. Adapt. Depend. Carry this permission slip with you. Tell your friends you’re working on becoming more content, more joyful. Take a nap. Live with a messy house for a time. Order takeout. File an extension on your taxes. Stare out the window. Linger in the company of a friend. Breathe in the fullness of life. Use those words to fight back with joy.”― Margaret Feinberg, Fight Back With Joy: Celebrate More. Regret Less. Stare Down Your Greatest Fears.

Do not dismiss the power of joy, of awe, of wonder.
Found right in the middle of ordinary days.
Slow long enough to see and sit here awhile.
When “someday” becomes today, we awaken fully to the depth of now.
Pause. Listen. Look.
Then run swiftly into peace.
Permission slip granted.
No expiration date.

“Run into peace.”― Meister Eckhart

Dec 5

Interrupted

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

We interrupt autopilot, to-dos, busyness, chaos, boredom, ego, the monotony of this day.
To wake you up to gratitude, imperfect and amid struggle.
To laughter and joy woven into seasons of grief and loss.
To peace and ease in the backdrop of turmoil.
To quality and depth over quantity and surface.
To a new point of entry.
A return to self, the authentic not manufactured or curated.
A response to the still small voice.
A resounding Yes!
Life interrupted by lifeforce, goodness, light.
Plunge in.
To mystery, beauty, trust, hope.
A greater expanse awaits.
Be interrupted.
And changed.

“At some point we must plunge in to discover a greater expanse; yet when this broader horizon does appear, a new depth will open up at our point of entry.”― Edith Stein, Potency and Act

Dec 4

Own the Day

“This is the homely heart of Incarnation, this meeting of God in man with men and women, this simple face of divine graciousness in ordinary life rather than in the hymns of church fathers or in the dry elaborations of theologians.”― Eugene Kennedy, The Joy of Being Human: Reflections for Every Day of the Year

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

 Hope, anticipation, joy.
May this be the ground you stand on each day.
To see color, light, beauty.
To hear birds, music, poetry, hums.
To feel an embrace, ease, delight.
To smell flowers, fresh air, cookies in the oven.
To be found in the searching and standing still.
Write it on your heart.
Own the day.

“But it isn’t easy, said Pooh. Because poetry and hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.” – AA Milne

Dec 3

ADVENTure

 

“Out of the Darkness, Into the Light: The Time before Christmas is the Time of Light and mutual Love.”― Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann, 24 Days Until Christmas: 24 Christmas Poems

“God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

Expectancy.
Possibility.
A tough gritty hope.
Waiting.
Preparing.
More waiting.
Pushing.
Pulling.
Sitting silent.
A softening.
A wide-open field.
An invitation for all, not some.
Light in darkness.
A warm embrace.
Never giving up or giving in.
Persistent.
Resilient.
Beyond all comprehension.
May the season of Advent, of hope, anticipation, waiting, grace, overwhelming love overtake you with peace, wonder, joy and awe.

“The message of Advent doesn’t fit neatly into a sound-bite or vignette. It’s too complex, too deep, to compete with glitter and noise; and it’s a hard sell in a culture that would rather skip straight to the big finish. But Advent is too important to be forgotten, because it is this season that prepares us to encounter our Lord.”― Kerry van der Vinne, Advent: Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

Dec 2

The Art of Harvesting

“Breath is the finest gift of nature. Be grateful for this wonderful gift.”― Amit Ray, Beautify your Breath – Beautify your Life

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Living waters, not stagnant.
Stir it up.
Beginnings and start lines.
Move forward with hope coupled with action.
Vibrancy and engagement.
Gratitude, grace and gumption to you this day.
To see anew.
Along with a side of whimsy, awe and delight.
See where these take you.
Harvest the beauty.
Plant seeds along the way.

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

Dec 1

Climate of Grace

“TO COME HOME TO YOURSELF May all that is unforgiven in you Be released. May your fears yield Their deepest tranquilities. May all that is unlived in you Blossom into a future Graced with love.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Homecoming, each day
Space, place, self
A warm embrace
Familiar and safe
Holy, sacred, grace
May this be the journey each day
Blossoming with color, beauty, light
Never stop pursuing
Awakening all that is unlived
Ready to be cast into the world.

“Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness; the perennial infusion of springtime into the winter of bleakness.”― John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Nov 30

Foothold

“Take time to see the quiet miracles that
seek no attention.”― John O’Donohue

“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

In the slowing
The pause
Of thoughts
Of motion
Of season
Of time
To rest
Empty out
Fill up
Create space
Heal and bind up
Wintering
Hibernation
Cocoon
Clearing the clutter
A respite from the noise
A freshness
A restoration
Not to stay but to prepare
Seed time
Before the threshold of bloom
Readiness to cross thresholds
To feel the earth anew
To find your feet again
To get up and move
In a different yet familiar place of becoming
Blushed with beginning
Fresh with possibility
Ready to dance with rigor
Sing a new song
Woven, bound and anchored in wonderment
Moving with ease and flow

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

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