Jul 12
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
Not sure what to do, where to go?
Start moving.
The road unfolds before us.
A step at a time.
Direction rather that detailed map.
Compass, pull of true north.
Detours, delays, rerouting all parts of the journey.
When interrupted, be present and see where you can contribute.
Generous of spirit and presence.
Flooded by marvelous light.
Do good work.
“You can’t steer a parked car.” – Joyce Meyer
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“God, you called me to love, but people are inherently risky. Telling my story, being known, asking for help, complaining again about the things I worry might sound cliche 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 walls 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’m 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 will get back up again today. Yes, I will 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.” – Kate Bowler & Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have
I am raptly aware and deeply grateful for the “flying buttresses” in my life.
Those who walk beside me and hold me up.
Those I can hold up too.
May we support, love without condition (the definition of love), extend, invite, build up and let the colorful light in and out.
Thank you for the encouragers, the path lighters, the hand holders, the strengtheners, the generous, the cheerleaders, the blockers and tacklers.
We do not walk this path alone.
Thank God for the flying buttresses.
Amen.
“There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware how important this is and how this can change our world. It can change our world in immensely important ways, because if you’re grateful, you’re not fearful, and if you’re not fearful, you’re not violent. If you’re grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live.”― David Steindl-Rast
“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder
“Sometimes, we have to stand on the commitment and hard work of others. Yet, there are other passages in life that each of us has to journey through alone. We can call the first process, progress, and the second, incarnation.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity
So much resides and lives in the simple things.
Time with family and friends.
Making new friends, connecting with a stranger, if but for a moment.
Laughter, a walk in the woods, trips to dog parks to chase balls and other dogs, and the newly discovered “pup cup” filled with whipped cream.
Find your path into the clearing.
We’ll see each other on the way.
Walking along side, sharing the road.
Paying attention to the simple things.
Tripping on joy and grace.
Incarnation, vastness, doing for others, seeing for self.
“Like everyone before us, we each must find our own path into the clearing, where we can build a home near the vastness of life. And we each must pass on what we can, so that those who follow will have the chance to awaken their own lives, which no one but they can live. Like everyone who will follow us, we are each called to reveal and enliven the twin ethics of doing for others and seeing for ourselves.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity
Jul 24
“If you keep telling the same sad, small story, you will keep living the same sad, small life.”― Jean Houston
Open to newness.
Consider a fresh narrative.
Put aside opinion, assumption, judgment, measurement, comparison.
Explore connection, depth, expanse.
Your story is still being written.
By you or others?
Empty page waiting to have new words fall on to it.
Write and be written on with curiosity, forgiveness, forgetting, exploration, adventure, joy.
Space to allow a big life to unfold through wonder, beauty and awe hidden in ordinary days.
Emergence.
“The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time.”― Jean Houston
Jun 28
“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.” – Swami Vivekananda
Invite and entertain new thoughts.
Engage in conversations to create connection.
There’s a vast landscape to be discovered in front of us.
Understanding, depth, a sacredness.
Be kind and generous.
Remove the layers to reveal the gift.
Grace given. Grace received.
Who will you meet today?
“The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.” – Swami Vivekananda
“Zen pretty much comes down to three things — everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”― Jane Hirshfield
“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Lives of the Heart
May you feel the air surging through your chest;
The power you hold in your hands;
Understand what is yours to do and what is not yours to do;
And to get being as well as doing;
To begin again writing the story of your life each day anew.
“One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read – in such a moment, anything can happen.”― Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry
“What I do is the opposite of building walls. I build bridges. A bridge is something that connects instead of separating.” – Santiago Calatrava
“The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” – David Russell
In, of
From, for
Before, after
Along, between
On, off
Until, except
Over, under
Prepositions are words that “indicate relationships with other words in the sentence” per Grammarly.
Bridges, connections, pathways to tie pieces together.
Creating story, meaning.
What are your “from”s? – where have you been?
What are your “for”s? – or who, for what reason, for what purpose?
What bridges needs to be crossed over to get from “before” to “after” and remain there, not circling back again and again?
Find a bridge or two today. Build a few too. Bridges rather than walls. Connect, pass over, enjoy the journey and all that ties it together.
“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” – Thornton Wilder
