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Posts from the ‘Blessing’ Category

Jun 13

Waiting in Anticipation

“Happiness is not how many things you do, but how well you do them. More is not better. Happiness is not experiencing something else; it’s continually experiencing what you already have in new and different ways.”― Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Same in new and different ways.
Attention honed.
Awake, receptive.
Open the gifts of this day.

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.”― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Mar 17

Rainbows and Light to You Today

“May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow, for every tear, a smile, for every care, a promise and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share, for every sign a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer.”- Irish Blessing

“So I am first of all a simple country person, a refugee, and unlearned. I do not know how to provide for the future. But this I know for certain, that before I was brought low, I was like a stone lying deep in the mud. Then he who is powerful came and in his mercy pulled me out, and lifted me up and placed me on the very top of the wall. That is why I must shout aloud in return to the Lord for such great good deeds of his, here and now and forever, which the human mind cannot measure.” – Saint Patrick

Rainbows, sunshine, joy
May you allow them in
To lighten the load
To delight and renew
To ground and strengthen
To meet life with vigor, resolve and love
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

“I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me afar and anear, alone or in a multitude.”
― Saint Patrick

Mar 16

Invisible Cloak

“Spirituality is about what we do about the fire inside of us, about how we channel our eros.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing

BEANNACHT – Beautifully read by John O’Donohue, one of my favorite poets

“On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors, Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

Peace
Be Still
Nourishment, clarity, fluency, protection
An invisible, profound, grounding, freeing, all encompassing, overwhelming place and space
At your feet
A blessing, cup overflowing, love, awe, contentment, ease
Right where you are
Within you awaiting your arrival
Peace
Be Still
Welcome home.

“But within ourselves we can experience a real difference between restlessness and solitude. What is that difference? It is the difference between living in freedom rather than compulsion; restfulness rather than restlessness; patience rather than impatience; inwardness rather than frenzied outwardness; altruism rather than greediness; authentic friendship rather than possessive clinging; and empathy rather than apathy.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart

May 2

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May in May

“The present is the closest that you will ever get to the future.”― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

MAY by Donna Ashworth

“May your days be filled with laughter.
May your chores complete themselves.
May your mind have time to wander.
To a sandy beach of shells.

May your morning stretch be graceful.
May your lunch be full of taste.
May your inspiration find you.
May no moment go to waste.

May your lonely days be lacking.
May your friendships linger strong.
May your thoughts be full of wonder.
May your worries all be gone.

May your money flow like water.
May your problems float away.
May your needs be met and more so.
May you wake to sunny days.

May you find the strength inside you.
May you learn to look within.
May you see yourself more kindly.
May that journey now begin.”

May you be open to invite the mays, the blessings, the gifts of May.
The month where spring takes center stage and bursts with color, vibrancy, life.
An cue, prompt, call to participate, partake, begin anew.
The threshold to summer ease.
May spring spring in you.
Reawaken, rebirth, transformation.
May you allow in amidst the dailyness of tasks, imperfection, challenges, grief, gratitude.
All held in love, kindness and grace.

“Perhaps some detours aren’t detours at all. Perhaps they are actually the path.”― Katherine Wolf, Hope Heals: A True Story of Overwhelming Loss and an Overcoming Love

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

Sep 25

Held and Hemmed

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Saint Augustine

Most days are ordinary.
One after another.
To dos, commitments, activities.
Daily living.
Often going unnoticed and unseen.
And then there are those thresholds, doors, bridges crossed.
One ways.
“Befores” to definitive “afters”.
No going back.
Foreign land we didn’t choose.
A diagnosis, death, relationship fractures, job loss.
The big things that make the small things that trip us up insignificant.
It is here where we relearn to walk again.
To breathe.
To carry on different and never the same.
Wear a helmet time.
No detours or shortcuts, just right up the middle.
So a blessing for all who are in the midst of before and after time.
You are held, hemmed in love and not alone.

for the life you didn’t choose by Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

“Blessed are you when the shock subsides, when vaguely, you see a line appear that divides before and after. You didn’t draw it, and can barely even make it out. But as surely as minutes add up to hours and days, here you are, forced into a story you never would have written.

Blessed are you in the tender place of awe and dread, wondering how to be whole when dreams have disappeared and part of you with them, where mastery, control, determination, bootstrapping, and grit are consigned to the realm of Before (where most of the world lives), in the fever dream that promises infinite choices, unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the After zone, loudly shouting: Is there anybody here? We hear the echo, the shuffle of feet, the murmur of others asking the same question, together in the knowledge that we are far beyond what we know.

God, show us a glimmer of possibility in this new constraint, that small truths will be given back to us.

We are held.
We are safe.
We are loved.
We are loved.
We are loved.”

Sep 12

To Be Known

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

a blessing for friends who hold us up by Kate Bowler

“God, you called me to love
but people are inherently risky.
Telling my story, being known, asking for help,
complaining again about
the thing I worry might sound cliché by now. Shouldn’t I be over it already?

But something is happening when I am known.
I am becoming stronger somehow.

I am reminded of the pillars I’ve seen
holding up cathedrals.
Flying buttresses, engineered to provide support for a fragile wall,
allowing them to be built taller, more stunning, more covered with ornaments
or filled with stained glass,
letting all the colorful light dance in.

The walls would collapse without them there, but strengthened, they create something beautiful.
God, when I am no longer quite so tall and strong, give me those who hold me up
and remind me of who I am and that I’m loved.

Yes, I’ll get back up again today.
Yes, I’ll get those kids cereal
and help my parents with an errand.
Yes, I’ll go to work or come up with something better to do with retirement hours.

I will try again.
I know I will,
because someone else’s absurd faith in me
is fortifying

So, blessed are our flying buttresses.
For they hold us up
when everything seems ready to come apart, allowing us to face today—
not because we’re doing it alone—
but precisely because we aren’t.”

Monthly dinners.
Texts, calls to check in.
“Likes” and comments on Facebook posts.
Some things we agree on.
Some things we don’t.
The one thing we all agree on is the blessing of friendship.
Making time for connection.
Reaching out.
Creating new adventures.
Scheduling “play dates.”
Live the good life with what’s right in front of you, right now.
Foster, feed and nurture friendships.
The blossoms are beautiful.

“The good life is not always just out of reach after all. It is not waiting in the distant future after a dreamy career success. It’s not set to kick in after you acquire some massive amount of money. The good life is right in front of you, sometimes only an arm’s length away. And it starts now.”― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Study on Happiness

Aug 23

Full Account

“Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

When the counting comes up short.
The comparison leaves you behind.
The measure is half full.
Sit with it for a bit to let it out.
Going through is the path.
Especially the hard parts.
Then look up and around.
Recount. Recalibrate. Review.
Complete the picture.
Take full account.
Blessings and burdens coexist.
Not either or but both.
Neighbors with no fence.
Life is beautiful and hard at the very same time.
Don’t miss the beauty in difficulty.
Don’t dismiss the difficulty on the surface of denial.
It’s the mixture and texture of life, loss, love, gain.
Gratitude, hope, joy are gritty and tough.
Knowing the whole story, choose light, accept and grow in dark.

Pied Beauty by Gerald Manley Hopkins

“Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.”

Apr 3

When to Stop

“Blessed are we who are learning to hope. And how to let go. When to act. And when to stop.” — Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

“Things have changed. And it would be silly to imagine you haven’t been altered along with them. You are not who you once were. Bless that old self. They did such a great job with what they knew. They made you who you were—all the mistakes and heartbreak and naivety and courage. And blessed are you who you are now. You who aren’t pretending things are the same. You who continue to grow and stretch and show up to your life as it really is—wholehearted, vulnerable, maybe a tiny bit afraid. Blessed are you the changed.”— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

This week is a week to not merely pause, but to stop.
No doing. No rushing. No fear.
Hope. Let go. Act. Stop.
Framework and foundation.
In the process, unfolding of change, of a new day.
May each of us be blessed, present, wholehearted today, this week.
To keep trying, coming up short, starting again and again.
A resolve, a promise kept.
Winter lingers longer, spring, resurrection coming soon.
Love, trust and faith to you in this moment and each step on the journey ahead.

“But bring me back to this moment, God. The gratitude that rises up within me lifts my eyes and settles my soul. Resurrection has happened again today—you made the sun rise, and brought love to the world already, in the shape of a cross. The hardest work is already done. The work that remains is simply more of it: more love, more trust, more faith in the unseen pleasure you take just gazing at us, sitting here.”— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

Mar 23

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Shed the Nonessential

“No one is so advanced in prayer that they do not have to return to the beginning.— St. Teresa of Avila

“the only way to survive the storms of the world is to shed all that is not essential, …the only way to survive inner storms is to let everything through.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

Some will run.
Some will stay.
Some will wait.
Some will not.
No rules or regulations.
No counting or keeping track.
Gratitude and reverence for those who remain, reside, wait.
The journey is individual first.
Communal and universal next.
No map, signposts, or markers, nothing exact, predictable or precise.
One step at a time journey, each day new.
Grief is not a “fun” topic but each will go through it many times in a lifetime.
Called to be here now.
Awake and aware.
Writing and sharing is a vulnerable space.
Honesty is my only response.
Perhaps, it could be a gift, a foretelling, an invitation to communion, community, belonging.
Be present to the gifts that you are steeped in right now.
Life is both slow and fast.
Before to after in a beat.
Shed the nonessential.
Grief does not reside alone though.
Laughter, memories, tears, wonder, joy all woven through.
No shortcuts or bypasses, right up the middle.
Unfolding a step at a time.
Underlayment, grounded in hope, love and grace.
Cast light, especially now, when it means even more.
Unlacing and weaving something new.
In due time, a step at a time too.

“The great moments of living reside, not in banishing what goes wrong, but in unlacing trouble and weaving tapestries with the laces.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

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