Skip to content

Archive for

Dec 11

2 Comments

To the Earth Below

“You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? … The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

Winter Snow
Lyrics by Chris Tomlin, sung by Audrey Assad

“You could’ve come like a mighty storm
With all the strength of a hurricane
You could’ve come like a forest fire
With the power of heaven in Your flame

But You came like a winter snow
Quiet and soft and slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the Earth below

Oh, You could’ve swept in like a tidal wave
Or a big ocean to ravish our hearts
You could have come through like a roaring flood
To wipe away the things that we’ve scarred

Oh, but He came like a winter snow
So quiet, so soft, so slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the Earth below”

Waking to a coating of fresh snow.
First real one of the season.
A surprise.
Quiet. Soft. Slow.
Still. Small. Hidden.
Present.
Beautiful.
Advent summed up.
Let it unfold in your heart.
In the waiting.
In the winding roads.
In the delays and detours.
Spring blooming in winter.

“But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside”― David Whyte, Where Many Rivers Meet

Dec 10

How We Love

“Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength; love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. Love therefore does great things; it is strange and effective; while he who lacks love faints and fails.”― Thomas à Kempis, The Inner Life

“God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.”― Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Encouragement rather than criticism.
Kindness, generosity, compassion.
Forgiving first again.
Taking the high road.
No walls, limits, exclusions, exceptions, burden, toil.
The transformative power of love.
Poured out in simple intentions followed by actions.
A daily choice to make again and again.
Swinging above its weight.
Winning every time.
When all other schemes, plans, pursuits, shortcuts, hacks, work arounds fall short again and again.
Love remains.
Inviting us back to the only thing that works.
That ever will.

“True faith manifests itself through our actions.”― Francis Chan

Dec 9

Atmosphere of Possibility

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking out new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

“Desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves every moment, as if breathing from the atmosphere of possibility itself. A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, which, of itself, is in conversation with the elements.”― David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

Same place.
Fresh eyes.
Open heart.
Fertile ground.
Till. Seed. Feed. Wait.
Discovery. Attention. Awe. Wonder.
Rooted and rising in love.
A life’s work.

“Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Dec 8

Wrists of Idleness

“So very many silences, and kinds of silence: chapels and churches and confessionals, glades and gorges, pregnant pauses and searing lovemaking; the stifling stifled brooding silence just before a thunderstorm unleashes itself wild on the world; the silence of space, the vast of vista; the crucial silences between notes, without which there could be no music;”― Brian Doyle, The Plover

“Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain. Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another—why don’t you get going? For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Slow to pause.
Hard stops woven throughout.
To put it all down for a spell.
To not do, multitask, grind.
Space to reflect.
Whitespace to create.
Recalibrate, reconsider, refresh.
Crucial silences to compose.
To be made new.

“As long as you live, you will be subject to change, whether you will it or not – now glad, now sorrowful; now pleased, now displeased; now devout, now undevout; now vigorous, now slothful; now gloomy, now merry. But a wise man who is well taught in spiritual labor stands unshaken in all such things, and heeds little what he feels, or from what side the wind of instability blows.”― Thomas à Kempis

Dec 7

North Side of a Mountain

“You see, you are not so soft after all; you are rock and wave and the peeling barks of trees, you are ladybirds and the smell of a garden after the rain. When you put your best foot forward, you are taking the north side of a mountain with you.”― Ella Frances Sanders, Eating the Sun: Small Musings on a Vast Universe

“For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”― F. Scott Fitzgerald

May you root and rise in possibilities
Step by step
Day by day
Always unfolding and unfurling
Climbing and loving
Never done.

“There is only one question; how to love this world.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Dec 6

1 Comment

Opaque Guidance

“Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually. Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

“Knowing is a pilgrimage. It requires taking personal responsibility, born of love, to pledge allegiance to what we do not yet know. It requires relying on seemingly opaque guidance to venture into the darkness of half-understanding. We invite its gracious and surprising self-disclosure, seeking to indwell its clues to make sense of a hidden pattern. We risk our forever being changed. It is an adventure.”― Esther Lightcap Meek, A Little Manual for Knowing

Futility of shortcuts, bypasses.
Demanding others, circumstances to change, the past to return.
Or.
Taking our own journey.
Off path, eyes on the road ahead, rooted in today.
Into unknowing, inquiry, observing.
Taking the pilgrimage with intent and resolve.
To change, be changed, transformed.
Born again and again.
Curiosity rather than resistance.
Indwelling, seed sowing, fertile ground, preparation, waiting, watering, more waiting.
The makings of Advent, of springs sure return, of perpetual growth.

“Congratulations, if you have changed.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Dec 5

Distance and Proximity

“Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

“Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

The things we see.
The stuff we carry.
The stuff we choose to put down, daily.
Who we surround ourself with.
Our expectations and view.
Abundance or scarcity.
Walls or bridges.
Optimism or cynicism.
Distance and proximity.
Quiet and connection.
To be in not of the world, and love it even so.
May the light of blessings on the ground I stand burn bright and long.
Awakening wonder, awe, reverence, delight.
To steep long and deep in unknowing.
Overflowing with curiosity and love.

“Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.”― Mary Oliver, Devotions: A Read with Jenna Pick: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Dec 4

Yield to Silence

“Sometimes it’s the quiet currents that tell the deepest truths.” – Stephanie Duncan Smith, Even After Everything

“A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.

A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
Its marvelous lute and drum.

Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?

I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,

To Dance within,
In celebration of Love’s Victory”
― Hafez, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

Pilgrimage of silence.
A day, an hour, a few minutes.
Woven through the day.
Beams, chards, threads.
Peace awaits.
Yield.

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”– Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas

Dec 3

Beauty Distilled

“How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its Being.
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too Frightened”― Hafez

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.
Even After All this time The Sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the whole sky.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.”― Hafez

In the hurry
Doing
Performing
Over functioning
Busy
Pushing
Scarcity and never enough

In the opening
Being
Inviting
Allowing
Abiding
Reflection
Stillness
Abundance overflowing

Astonishing light
Fear dissipates
Beauty appears where it is rooted and blooms
Front and center
Fertile ground
The whole sky
Fresh eyes, soft heart, arms open.

“When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes:
To love more,
And be happy.”― Hafez

Dec 2

Season of Light

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life.” – John O’Donohue

“That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been….Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”― George Saunders

Luminous.
Light.
Energy.
Thin spaces.
Quiet, steady light within.
Shine.
Christmas unfolding slowly.
Enter the season of light.

“During Advent, we occupy our greatest longings.”– Ruth Haley Barton

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »