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Mar 27

Gathering Counterweights

“When we take ourselves too seriously, we are at the risk of taking other things, including God, too lightly,”― James J. Martin, Between Heaven and Mirth

“This is not a ‘silver lining’ situation, where pain and injustice are minimized for the sake of flimsy optimism or playing nice. It’s not even about hoarding our favorite things. We are not guaranteed to have those things within our reach. The practice of gathering counterweights is about creating moments of sustenance from the raw materials of what we’re given. It is about holding everything in honest tension. Both/and. Our counterweights help us move forward and breathe through the heaviness.” – Shannan Martin

Goodness
Kindness
Generosity
Delight
Laughter
Flowers
A smile
Asking
Listening
Art
Music
Movement
Joy
Frolic
Counterweights
To gather and hold
A sense of imperfect yet palpable balance, ease
Atune, awake, off autopilot
Run the race, marathon not sprint
To fight the good fight
Of love, gratitude, peace
Precisely and on purpose
In the middle of the mess, chaos, noise, uncertainty
Long game, resilience, grit, grace
Make the world a little softer today for yourself and others
Cast light.

“What on earth can we do to make this sad and beautiful world a little softer for everyone?”― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You

Mar 26

Benediction of Spring

“After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction.” ― Dan Simmons, Drood

“And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and scents.”― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden

Cusp of spring.
Slivers and beams of things to come.
Of things already here.
Transition into transformation.
Close but not yet.
Bloom under construction.
Time and timing.
Confetti of color.
Souls of beautiful things.

“Surely the flowers of a hundred spring are simply the souls of beautiful things!”― L.M. Montgomery, The Watchman and Other Poems

Mar 25

Sacrament of Ploppage

“Stillness is a brilliant teacher.”― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello

“So how do you connect with the real person inside you… You just… stop. You do what I call the “sacrament of ploppage”—you sit down, and you start to realize that everything electronic will usually work again if you just unplug it. And that includes you, too.” — Anne Lamott, Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage

Stop, sit, stay
From doing and speed to being and stillness
Unplugged and undone
Sensing, observing, absorbing
Small things in ordinary
Color, detail, beauty
Simple and plentiful
Strewn and scattered throughout each day
To gather and hold
Look up and around
In awe, reverence, wonder
Sacrament of ploppage

“Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.”― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Mar 24

Further Shore

“Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.”― Seamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist

“So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.”
― Seamus Heaney

Poetry of this day.
What will you read?
What will you write?
The pen is in your hands.
Signatures of your own frequency.
Cures and healing wells, deep and wide.
Shores to reach.

“You lose more of yourself than you redeem
doing the decent thing. Keep at a tangent
When they make the circle wide, it’s time to swim
Out on your own and fill the element
with signatures on your own frequency.”
― Seamus Heaney, Station Island

Mar 23

Bringing to Life

“The natural world is built upon common motifs and patterns. Recognizing patterns in nature creates a map for locating yourself in change, and anticipation what is yet to come.”― Sharon Weil, ChangeAbility

“Tenderness is the art of personifying, of sharing feelings, and thus endlessly discovering similarities. Creating stories means constantly bringing things to life, giving an existence to all the tiny pieces of the world that are represented by human experiences, the situations people have endured and their memories. Tenderness personalizes everything to which it relates, making it possible to give it a voice, to give it the space and the time to come into existence, and to be expressed.” – Olga Tokarczuk

Easy to harden in this world.
To check out.
Autopilot.
Surface and skim.
Do not succumb.
Till the dry soil.
Let fresh air in.
Wander with wonder.
Anticipation, hope, joy, delight, tenderness, laughter, gentleness, enthusiasm.
Let beauty, light, grace in to awaken, abide, transform.
Easy threads weaving together the tapestry of this day.

“A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.”― George Herbert

Mar 22

Wide Awake Presence

“At other times I wake up from the half sleep I’d fallen into, and hazy images with poetical and unpredictable colours play out their silent show to my inattention.”― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“May today’s moments move you
to where love can reach you.
May a deep truth remind you
with each step.
May you grow where you are,
sending down roots into trusted truths,
to where love lives,
and beauty is wide awake.
Let your heart seek the one good step.
And then the next.
Movement.
That is the way.” – Kate Bowler

Pay attention.
Be tender.
Offer kindness.
Walk lightly.
Love well.
Small noticing, slivers of light, bold color.
Love well.

“We are light, sound, color, and form living a physical reality. Add the element of love and you have everything.”― Deborah Bravandt

Mar 21

Drawing the Luminous

as architect of choosing, I choose…
to disrupt the energy of the status quo,
to eclipse the realms of ordinary,
& to live–a life-well lived.
w/ spirit, substance & style.”
― LaShaun Middlebrooks Collier

The People Who Keep Lamps Lit by Jen Shoop

“There are those people who draw light to themselves, and almost can’t help it.
They just stand still and keep the lamps lit.

These are the people who pull out a chair for you when you approach the table: “please,” they say, gesturing you into it, earnest and unaware of their outsized generosity. It is instinctive, their pre-disposition to include.

These are also the people who say “atta girl!” to strangers who have just ridden a big wave, or run the bases, and they fill the hungry heart with pride, and they do it with such ease, and egolessness, having learned some time ago that there is no economy of compliments.

These, too, are the people who say “my pleasure” and mean it, who gamely forebear conversations with the lonely or unhappy, who are practiced in the art of “yes, and–” thinking. They teach us that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that there is enough good in the world to go around, and then some.

What made them this way?

Not the absence of pain, no. More often than not, heartbreak is the holy ground that anoints them.

The more of these light-gatherers I meet, the more I believe it’s will, and will forged anew each day. They wake up and they call forth an adamantine determination to resist the ease of despair, and to believe that reality is mainly possibility — even when the wicked comes knocking.

I would like to learn from them how to draw the luminous, too,
how to stand still and shine,
how to turn on every last light in the city,
flame to flame,
unbound luminescence.”

Light
In all forms
Soak in
Sop up
Take in
Inquire
Observe
Steep
Create
Beauty
Nature
Play
Flowers
Music
Art
Joy
Untethered
Pourous
Light
Luminescence
Fill up
To cast light back out

“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

 

Mar 20

Divine Economy

“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

“Most of us are under pressure, external and internal, to do everything, be good at everything, be accountable to everyone for everything! It is not so. In the divine economy each of us has a particular grace, gift and devotion. Finding out what that is, and learning how to be guilt-free about not doing everything else, may be part of what our Lenten journey is for.”― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness

Lent, rooted in lengthening of days, springtime, renewal
Christian tradition, 40 days before Easter
Don’t let religion, the religious and righteous, old wounds, rules keep you from God
Who’s already there waiting and knows
Relationship, companionship, inquiry, anger, loneliness, disappointment, ego, exhaustion, delight, gratitude, joy, peace
God can hold it all and you at the very same time
Held, always loved
Take the journey

“a mature and balanced faith is not one that has refused the agony and the wrestling but one that has been through them and grown from the experience.”― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness

Mar 19

Cardinal Points

“If self is a location, so is love:
Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points,
Options, obstinacies, dug heels, and distance,
Here and there and now and then, a stance.”― Seamus Heaney, District and Circle

“Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.
Awake! arise! the athlete’s arm
Loses its strength by too much rest;
The fallow land, the untilled farm
Produces only weeds at best.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Winter, spring
Spring, winter
Wintering rest
Spring rising
Fallow to fertile
Cardinal points
New creation unfolding
Within first, moving out anew.

“If you feel like you don’t fit into the world you inherited it is because you were born to help create a new one.”― Ross Caligiuri, Dreaming in the Shadows

Mar 18

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Walking on Air

“Walk on air against your better judgement.”― Seamus Heaney

“Blessed are the noticers.
The ones who see the full story.
Blessed are the attenders.
The witness-bearers.
The story-holders.
The ones who tiptoe to the edge with us,
knowing that it will break their heart, too.
Choosing us anyway.
Blessed are those who are amazed
by a life lived in its fragility,
in its brevity, in its beauty.” – Kate Bowler

Daily noticing.
Tending.
Attention.
Abiding.
Rooting, weeding, uprooting.
Gratitude, grief, grace.
All, most, some.
In ordinary days.
In waiting, wading, weighting.
Timorous or bold, in between
More bold, walking on air.

“The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.”― Seamus Heaney

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