Skip to content

Jun 6

Sun In a Cup

“Bring me the sunset in a cup.”― Emily Dickinson

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Hope, light, joyTeaspoons and cups
Ordinary and abundant
For the taking
In the receiving
In the giving especially
Dwelling quietly in each day
Awaiting presence, noticing, participation

“I dwell in possibility…”― Emily Dickinson

Jun 5

Holy Brimming in Beauty

“Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

In naming and bucketing
We simplify, reduce, minimize
In judging and ordering
We miss nuance, depth, hue
In criticizing and complaining
We forgo joy, gratitude, delight
To notice holy woven through ordinary
Daily call.

“Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish—separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Jun 4

Layers and Landscapes

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”― Henry David Thoreau

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.”― Tony Schwartz

Curiosity
Interest
Inquiry
Seeking
Discovery
Surprise
Spaciousness
Playground, open field, horizons
Fresh eyes, new landscapes.

“It’s a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.― Pema Chodron

Jun 3

Highest of Arts

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

Deep breath
Soft shoulders
Long gaze
Rapt presence
Reawakening
Well of peace
Within
Grounded in this day
Choices
Before each to decide
To affect the quality of day
Highest of arts, indeed.

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”― Henry David Thoreau

Jun 2

In the Details, Life Ablaze

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” — Henry Miller

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

In the details, such beauty
The pause, immensity
The gaze, discovery
The stillness, symphony
The witnessing, amazement
The idleness, expansion
Holy, sacred ground we stand
Ordinary days, brimming with life
In wonder, reverence, goodness, grace

“God is in the details.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Jun 1

Weight of Joy

“Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June.” – Al Bernstein

“For love is not what we do after we get other things done, if we have any energy left over. Love is what we do, period. It is not how we work; it is the work.” – Eugene Peterson, The Hallelujah Banquet

Show up
To this day
Anew
Changing the world, self first
Weight of joy
Gravity of delight
Grounding of gratitude
Open heart
Small acts
Love is the work.

“When I make changes to me and the way I show up in the world, the world changes too.”― Genevieve Davis, Magic Words and How to Use Them

May 31

Plenitude in Presence

“Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”― James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness.”― James Thurber

Weave, braid, knit sabbaths into each day
Shabbat – to cease, to rest
Pull over, pause, be still
Pockets, slivers, teaspoons
Beauty, awe, wonder
Inquiry, awareness, observation
Emergence
Plenitude in presence.

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”― James Thurber

May 30

It

“Finding a sanctuary, a place apart from time, is not so different from finding a faith.”― Pico Iyer

“The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace.”― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

Let it be
Put it down
Busy
Production
Efficiency
Performance
Speed
Judgment
Comparison
To dos
Whatever your “it” is that distracts from grace, gratitude, peace.

“In spring, we expand and stretch in all directions. It’s green exuberance and giddiness, bright clown colors and Easter colors, too; the rebirth of the tender growing soul.”― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

May 29

Harvester of Presence

“If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

“The art of disappearing certainly has its own kind of value. In a strange way, in modern society we seem to be inhabiting the world of absence more than presence through the whole world of technology and virtual reality. Very often it seems that the driven nature of contemporary society is turning us into the ultimate harvesters of absence, that is, ghosts in our own lives.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

Quiet miracles
In abundance
Clay of landscape
Pay attention
Harvester of presence in, on, through, with this day.

“Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

May 28

The Beauty of Things

“It seems that intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“Let’s be in awe
which doesn’t mean
anything but the courage
to gape like fish at the surface
breaking around our mouths
as we meet the air.”― Mark Nepo

Do not let this day slip by unnoticed
Brake for wonder
Pull over for delight
Make a U-turn for peace
Poetry of ordinary days
Surface for fresh air
To the beauty of things.

“To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”― Mark Nepo

← Older Entries