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Posts from the ‘Grace’ Category

Mar 7

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Grace, Grief, Gratitude

“…
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.”― John O’Donohue, Benedictus: A Book of Blessings

“I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.
​
A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.
​
I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.
​
I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.
​
I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious
abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.
​
I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.” – Julia Fehrenbacher

Grace, grief, gratitude.
All at once.
In memories, in this moment
To be present.
To yield to joy.
To be at home.
On the ground of this day.
Abby and Sasha sitting by Mom’s chair.
Three years gone, yet everpresent in each day.
Grace, grief, gratitude.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

Jan 22

Altars in the Ordinary

“Walk on air against your better judgement.”― Seamus Heaney

“Isn’t that a kind of prayer? The care and maintenance of the web of our noticing, the paying heed?”― Kathleen Jamie, Findings

Walking on air
Better yet, running with abandon, delight, ease
Attention, witnessing, partaking
Overflowing, abundant, intricate
Altars in the ordinary
Found in pause, quiet, noticing
Invitation and homecoming
To kneel in reverence, awe, wonder
With gratitude, gravity, grace
Woven in the beautiful mess, imperfected, unfinished, unfolding
Awaiting our care and maintenance
Reciprocating the same and so very much more.

“It’s poetry’s job, isn’t it, to keep making sense of the world in language, to keep the negotiation going? We can’t relinquish that.”― Kathleen Jamie, Findings

Jan 12

Grounding and Grace

“Children, like animals use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way…Or now and then we’ll hear from an artist who’s never lost it.”― Eudora Welty

“I go fishing in my mind. I put out bait, the bait of my own longing, my desire, and my hunger for connection, for a tug of something alive at the end of a line. Something that I may have to struggle with to pull in, but that will be wild and important to me, whether I keep it or let it go.”― Pat Schneider, How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice

Crisp air
Deep breath
Awakening senses
Calm and wonder
Delight and awe
Grounding and grace
What to keep
What to let go
Choose well

“Be led by your joy.”― Pat Schneider, How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice

Oct 19

Transformation Work of Grace

“Could it be that we are so worn and desperate for ways to better ourselves because we’ve missed the power, inherent in the grace of God, that eradicates self-improvement altogether? Is it possible that we keep trying to answer the wrong question— “Am I enough?” —when we’re really wanting to know: “Is God Enough?”
― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace

“It’s a grace that enables the hope that sustains us in times of uncertainty, pain, and when our lives don’t look the way we hoped or expected. God’s grace isn’t an afterthought for a believer walking through unexpected circumstances; it’s the anchor.”― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace

Anchor of grace
Given freely
Tethered by hope
Imagination widening the view
More than enough, overflowing
Presence and trust, without explanation
Even here, wherever here is for you
Keep walking, story unfolding, transformation at work
Peace, love, joy

“I walked through times and seasons that felt like exile, God was always writing a story in my life that was more than I could imagine.”― Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace

Sep 4

Blooming with Grace

“To the ones that bloomed when the world expected them to wither.”― Lisina Coney, The Brightest Light of Sunshine

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change.” — Buddha

Wherever planted this day, this week, this season
Bloom
With color
Hope
Resilience
Gratitude
Wonder
Joy
Grit
Curiosity
Awe
Grace
Most of all.

“Wherever life plants you, bloom with grace”― Lisina Coney, The Brightest Light of Sunshine

Jul 16

Pure Gold

“The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.” – Heraclitus

“Reclaiming ourselves usually means coming to recognize and accept that we have in us both sides of everything. We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength. These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life. Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. It is a real world. In calling ourselves “heads” or “tails,” we may never own and spend our human currency, the pure gold of which our coin is made.

But judgment may heal over time. One of the blessings of growing older is the discovery that many of the things I once believed to be my shortcomings have turned out in the long run to be my strengths, and other things of which I was unduly proud have revealed themselves in the end to be among my shortcomings. Things that I have hidden from others for years turn out to be the anchor and enrichment of my middle age. What a blessing it is to outlive your self-judgments and harvest your failures.”― Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal

Complicated, real, messy, beautiful life.
Unfolding and unfurling.
Stasis and motion.
Dark and light.
Slow and fast.
Sweet and salty.
Desert and oasis.
Sunrise and sunset.
And all of the in-between where we reside most.
For grace and sense to outlive self-judgement, harvest failure, walk with awe, dance with wonder, grow and deepen, and love well.
Pure gold.

“It is not that we have a soul, but that we are a soul.”― Rachel Naomi Remen

Jun 28

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Otherness in the World

“we have so many allies in this world, including just the color blue in the sky,”― David Whyte

“Life can find you only if you are paying real attention to something other than you own concerns, if you can hear and see the essence of otherness in the world, if you can treat the world as if it is not just a backdrop to your own journey, if you can have a relationship with the world that isn’t based on triumphing over it or complaining about it.”― David Whyte, The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship

Attention and reverence.
Beauty and peace.
Grace and light.
Love and gratitude.
Enter into the conversation, dance, communion.
Find and be found.

“Love is the conversation between possible, searing disappointment and a profoundly imagined sense of arrival and fulfillment; how we shape that conversation is the touchstone of our ability to love in the real inhabited world.”― David Whyte

Jun 18

Grace of Wonder, Beauty, Light

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“May the beauty of your life become more visible to you, that you may glimpse your wild divinity.
May the wonders of the earth call you forth from all your small, secret prisons and set your feet free in the pastures of possibilities.
May the light of dawn anoint your eyes that you may behold what a miracle a day is.
May the liturgy of twilight shelter all your fears and darkness within the circle of ease.
May the angel of memory surprise you in bleak times with new gifts from the harvest of your vanished days.
May you allow no dark hand to quench the candle of hope in your heart.
May you discover a new generosity towards yourself, and encourage yourself to engage your life as a great adventure.
May the outside voices of fear and despair find no echo in you.
May you always trust the urgency and wisdom of your own spirit.
May the shelter and nourishment of all the good you have done, the love you have shown, the suffering you have carried, awaken around you to bless your life a thousand times.
And when love finds the path to your door may you open like the earth to the dawn, and trust your every hidden color towards its nourishment of light.
May you find enough stillness and silence to savor the kiss of God on your soul and delight in the eternity that shaped you, that holds you and calls you.
And may you know that despite confusion, anxiety and emptiness, your name is written in Heaven.
And may you come to see your life as a quiet sacrament of service, which awakens around you a rhythm where doubt gives way to the grace of wonder, where what is awkward and strained can find elegance, and where crippled hope can find wings, and torment enter at last unto the grace of serenity.
May Divine Beauty bless you.” – John O’Donohue, Beauty – The Invisible Embrace

Beauty, imagination, kindness, hope, wonder, beauty, joy, enthusiasm, awe, generosity, love.
Ignite, fan the flames, stoke the fire.
“May the outside voices of fear and despair find no echo in you”
Grace of wonder, wings of hope, urgency of spirit.
Thoughts, words, actions.
Cast light.

“Hope is a waking dream.”― Aristotle

May 7

Fecund

“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

“Grace is one of the most majestic words in theology. It suggests the sublime spontaneity of the divine which no theory or category could ever capture. Grace has its own elegance. It is above the mechanics of agenda or operation. No one can set limits to the flow of grace. Its presence and force remain unmeasurable and unpredictable. Grace also suggests how fluent and seamless the divine presence is. There are no compartments, corners or breakages imaginable in the flow of grace. Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness. It suggests a compassion and understanding for all the ambivalent and contradictory dimensions of the human experience and pain. This climate of kindness nurtures the sore landscape of the human heart and urges torn ground to heal and become fecund.” .. John O’Donohue

Beneath the chaos
Above the noise
Beyond the hustle
A whisper
A soft breeze
Sacred ground
Thin spaces
Detached from effort or earning
Unforced rhythm of grace
Awaiting reception without explanation
Partaking without delay
Partake

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. ”― Mary Oliver

Mar 10

The Gardener’s Work

“We mature by meeting life, just as God and nature designed it, and accepting there the invitations that beckon us ever deeper into the heart of life itself.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Sacred Fire

The Gardener by Mary Oliver

“Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.”

Live
Love
Right Action
Gratitude
Grace
Till, plant, water, wait, trust, rest, hope.
Winter creates the runway.
Spring always lands.
The Gardener of all seasons ever-present.
Tending.

“True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness, a way of being in life. It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace and prayer. We are restful when ordinary life is enough.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God

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