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Apr 28

Tender Grace and Gratitude

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” – Henry Ward Beecher

“Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Longer hugs
Glance to deep gaze
Hearty laughter
Rapt attention
Overwhelming gratitude
Imperfectly beautiful and messy ordinary days
Phone call, text, check in for no reason
Connection and communion
Daily abiding, tending, holding
Slowing down to see the details
Kneeling in praise, awe, reverence
Sweet memories past and under under construction today, double blessing
Dark nights of the soul, the middle, the other side
Going through, getting through, striving to thriving
Faith, grace, trust, kindness, generosity, more laughter, yielding, listening
God woven through all of it, especially the small
Corners and crevices
Creator, companion, comedian, gardener, light bearer, weight carrier, friend
Notice your life today, each day anew
The stupid, frustrating, distractions, delays, delights, joys, gifts, pains in the ass, funny, poignant
It’s the road, not a detour
Love all of it while in it

10 years ago today, my Dad – best friend, leader of the pack, good man, really good, died unexpectedly
Yet, none of it should be unexpected
You never know how or when
Anticipatory grief steals time and joy
Do not miss this day and the people in it with you
Those gone ahead
Still ever present in different ways, shapes, forms
That’s what love does
Transcends time and space
Anchors and unbinds
Roots and flies
Transforms and travels
Twists and turns
Holds, carries and remains
Look behind and forward, but do not live there
Love well today – thoughts, words, deeds
Cast light.

“You see, love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not—and cannot—exist without the other. They are the yin and yang of our lives… Grief is predicated on our capacity to give and receive love. Some people choose not to love and so never grieve. If we allow ourselves the grace that comes with love, however, we must allow ourselves the grace that is required to mourn.” – Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph. D.

Apr 27

Spring’s Paintbrush

“Daffodils, blossom and tulips jostle to the front of the stage in April. I love these early perennials: they may be more modest but they nearly all have that one special quality that a plant needs to transform your affections from admiration to affection – charm.” – Monty Don

“There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.” – William Cullen Bryant

Join the rhythm, unfolding of the earth awakening
Greening and rooting
Colors pushing through, seeking the light
Renewal, refreshment, rejoicing
Put down winter
Pick up spring
Tiptoe through the tulips.

“April is a promise that May is bound to keep.” – Hal Borland

Apr 26

Sudden Lift

“Shall we do without hope? Some days
there will be none. But now
to the dry and dead woods floor
they come again, the first
flowers of the year, the assembly
of the faithful, the beautiful,
wholly given to being.”
― Wendell Berry, Leavings

“Bless the moment that catches you off guard—
a laugh, a moment of levity,
a sudden lift.

Bless the laughter that feels almost wrong,
and the delight that doesn’t match the circumstances.

May you notice all that is unnecessary and beautiful—
the ridiculous, the fleeting, the most-alive.

And when joy feels impossible,
may it find you (or you find it) anyway.” – Kate Bowler

Softly and tenderly
Brisk and bold
Light and easy
Solo to choir of flowers bursting in color and harmony
Ferocious love, feisty hope, sudden lifts of delight.
To find and be found.

“May we be…the ones who hold our opinions loosely and yet love ferociously.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

Apr 25

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For the Beauty of the Earth Springing

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” — William Shakespeare

“For the beauty of the earth,
for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

“For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and mind’s delight,
for the mystic harmony,
linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.” – Folliot S. Pierpoint

Awestruck
Beauty
Silenced to reverence
To moments where heaven meets earth
Nature showing how to be fully alive
Spring, Easter, Resurrection
Unfolding and unfurling
For the sense to sing hymns of grateful praise.

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put together.” — John Burroughs

Apr 24

To Listen, Bearing Witness

“the holy things we need for healing and sustenance are almost always the same as the ordinary things right in front of us.”― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People

“Sometimes our most holy calling is to listen, to bear witness.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

The holy things
Front and center
Noticing and attention required
Quiet. Reflection. Beauty.
Rhythm of waves
Home in wilderness
Peace woven in now
Not in doing, trying, striving
Rather in bearing witness
With reverence, curiosity, kindness.

“The wilderness is home to God, even the wilderness inside you. Your life is already a place where God is quite at home.”― Sarah Bessey, Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith

Apr 23

Look Around and Up

“The only place to begin is where I am, and whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

“And the body is holding its losses like a fist. And a fleshy hope
is opening to an unprecedented vastness. And whatever we think
we are leaving behind will keep insisting. And the things we desire
will elude us. And our efforts will pose as failure. And we will not recognize
how far we’ve come. And we will solve one problem and create another.
And we will feel broken. And we will not be broken. And the silence
will be deafening. And we will love destructively. And no one
will appear to be listening. And there will be too many doors
to choose from. And we will keep saying, “I don’t know how to do this.”
And we will be more capable than we ever imagined.” – Maya Stein

Ebb and flow
In and outBoth and
Yes no
All of the above
In the wrestling and reckoning
Peace and ease
Vastness and awe
Wholeness woven of pieces
Gracious and spacious
Capable and mighty
Poetry of presence
Foundation of love.

“May we find our foundation in the work of Love; demanding, tiring, true and human and holy.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

Apr 22

Thick with Beauty, Possibility

“Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“Lost as we feel, there is no better
Compass than compassion.
We find ourselves not by being
The most seen, but the most seeing.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry

It’s right there
Front and center
At our feet
Holding our hand
In teaspoons and buckets
Slivers and slices
Glances and stares
Woven in and through each ordinary day
Beauty, grace, joy
Not the way we expect
Or command, demand
If we put down our rules, ways, shoulds and whens
Release our tight grip, open hands
The view widens, presence deepens
Colors are brighter
Hues and nuance sharpen
Steps are lighter, skip and hop
Reverence and awe
It’s right there
Thick with divine possibility, indeed.

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.” – Daniel Gilbert

Apr 21

Uprising to Light

“Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.”― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry

“The new dawn blooms as we free it,
For there is always light,
If only we’re brave enough to see it,
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
― Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb

Spring calls us to join in
To green up, bud
To shed the old, make room for new
To take hold of fresh bloom
Join in the uprising
Let some string out
Take flight
See it
Be it
Cast light.

“The first bud of spring sings the other seeds into joining her uprising.”― Amanda Gorman

Apr 20

Steadfast Work of Love

“Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors’ souls and come to their rescue.”― Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.” – Maria Popova

Gentle steadfast work of kindness, tending, accompanying
Mirror and magnify
Kindness and generosity
Compound and multiply
Love does that
Do love today
Cast light

“Somehow you have got to know more than what you experience individually.” – Lorraine Hansberry

Apr 19

Grand Show

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”― John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

“Everybody needs beauty…places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.”― John Muir

Drink in blue sky
Hold brilliant sun
Pull over
Wander off road
The work of not working
Of abiding, tending, praising, pause
To notice, to be awestruck, to delight
Ocean of exultation
Grand show
Beauty
Deep breath, releasing sigh
Suddenly, you are alive
May you meet beauty today
And sit with her.

“Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.
Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation.
Suddenly, you know you are alive.”― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

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