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Posts from the ‘Gratitude’ Category

infinitesimals

“I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and I keep the eyes wide, every fiber of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt and I could be an expert on the life full, the beauty meat that lurks in every moment.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“The whole of the life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Fullness of time
Made of moments
Ordinary days
Encounters
Glances and gazing
Attention and expectation
Joy before us each day
Woven in beauty, gratitude, grace and noticing

“Wherever you are, be all there.” I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Stacking Stones

“We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.”― William Arthur Ward

“The adventure of life is to learn.
The purpose of life is to grow.
The nature of life is to change.
The challenge of life is to overcome.
The essence of life is to care.
The opportunity of like is to serve.
The secret of life is to dare.
The spice of life is to befriend.
The beauty of life is to give.”
― William Arthur Ward

Generosity of spirit
Deep well of gratitude
Overflowing awe and wonder
Kindness, laughter, love
Learning, grow, change, overcome, care, serve, dare, befriend, give
Stacking stones
Build some beauty, delight, joy today

“There is no small act of kindness.
Every compassionate act makes large the world.”― Mary Anne Radmacher

Cultivate, Wait, Flow

“In the continuous flow of blessing our heart finds meaning and rest.”― David Steindl-Rast

“Times that challenge us physically, emotionally, and spiritually may make it almost impossible for us to feel grateful. Yet, we can decide to live gratefully, courageously open to life in all its fullness. By living in a gratefulness that we don’t feel, we begin to feel the gratefulness we live.”― David Steindl-Rast

Wait or cultivate
A grateful heart when circumstances don’t warrant
When others don’t cooperate, go our way
Laughter amid “serious” business
Joy in dailyness
Gratitude forced to flowing
Platitude to planted
Cultivate and wait, tend
Deep breath
Thankfully rooted on the ground of this day
On the wave of presence
At-homeness.

“When we cultivate that gratefulness to life, we not only cultivate trust in life and openness for surprise, we practice again and again saying yes to our limitless belonging to this great Earth household. That roots us and makes us at home; it gives us that great at-homeness.”― Brother David Steindl-Rast

To See Today’s Beauty

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

For eyes to see the beautiful thing
Ears to hear the symphony
Words for today
Stamina and resilience to stay and participate
Gratitude to root and anchor
Grace of presence
Light to cast
Love to offer
Devotion to what matters
Joy on the journey
A life’s work.

“Be committed to creating a life’s work, not a season. If you get overexcited and rush everything for fear of missing out, you run the risk of being a flash in the pan and fading away fast. Have the stamina to stay in the game. To do it for the devotion and pleasure alone.” – Rebecca Campbell, Rise Sister Rise

No Moment Too Small

“There is a necessary wisdom in the give-and-take of nature—its quiet agreements and search for balance. There is an extraordinary generosity.”― Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

“There is no moment too small in the world. Nothing should be lost. Everything has a purpose, and everything is in need of care. This is my creed. Let us embrace it. We can watch it rise. Just like that, at any time—all the time—wealth and grace will soar.”― Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

May you notice the big in the small.
Experience calm in the storm.
Drink in beauty, around and abound.
Pause, kneel, praise.
Magnificence woven in ordinary days.
No moment too small.

“We think that most important clues are large, but the world loves to remind us that they can be beautifully small.”― Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

Birthday Reflections and Gratitude

“Now is the time to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.
Open your eyes and see the friends,
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encouraging you to live everything here.
See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.” – John O’Donohue

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life.” – Mary Oliver

Happy Birthday to me and 9th Birthday to Abby, my birthday buddy.
Blessed with family, friends, love.
Sharing a few of my favorite things … poetry, quotes, reflections.
“What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
And to stay in the arena, striving, coming up short, with great enthusiasm, devotion daring greatly.
Awaken to the wonder of life.
To stay awake each day with inquiry and curiosity.
To keep unlearning, relearning, growing, becoming, no matter age.
Reflection and presence.
Kindness and generosity of spirit.
Hope, resilience and peace that passes understanding.
Grace, gratitude, laughter, slowing, savoring,  joy, delight.
Deepening faith and trust in God’s plan, not my own.
With reverence, wonder, awe.
Seeking wisdom rather than knowledge.
Joy on the journey wherever it leads.
To celebrate each day.
And most of all, cast light.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”― Theodore Roosevelt

Easily Overlooked, Look Again

“We ‘re all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren ‘t we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we’ll at least try and change the course of things. We must try, that’s all” ― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.”― Sue Monk Kidd

In the details
Ordinary days
Delays, detours and distractions
Take a breath, a pause, hard stop
Look up, look in, notice with new eyes
What’s right before and in reach
Small everyday blessings
Awe, wonder, delight
Persist in love, joy, gratitude
Look again.

“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.”― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Two Lives

“This sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love
Love.”― Hafez, The Gift

“My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my soul is in a hurry.
I don’t have many sweets
in the package anymore.
I want to live next to human people,
very human,
who know how to laugh at their mistakes,
and who are not inflated by their triumphs,
and who take on their responsibilities.
Thus, human dignity is defended, and we move towards truth and honesty.
It is the essential that makes life worth living.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have been taught by the hard blows of life to grow with gentle touches of the soul.
Yes, I’m in a hurry, I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I don’t intend to waste any of the leftover sweets.
I am sure they will be delicious, much more than what I have eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones
and my conscience.
We have two lives.
And the second begins when you realize you only have one.” – Mário Raul de Morais Andrade

Urgency to slow, deepen
Attention to find beauty and joy woven in this very day
Seen with fresh eyes, open heart
Reverence for presence
Love, grace, gratitude
Awe, wonder, delight
Kindness, light, love
Rooted and in flight.

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.”― Søren Kierkegaard

Receiving of Giving

“FINDING FAITH IN A FLOWER
Sometimes when faith is running low
And I cannot fathom why things are so,
I walk among the flowers that grow
And learn the answers to all I would know.
For among my flowers I have come to see
Life’s miracle and its mystery,
And standing in silence and reverie,
My faith comes flooding back to me.”
― Helen Steiner Rice, A Collection of Encouragement

“Time is not measured
by the years that you live
But by the deeds that you do
and the joy that you give-
And each day as it comes
brings a chance to each one
To love to the fullest,
leaving nothing undone
That would brighten the life
or lighten the load
Of some weary traveler
lost on Life’s Road-
So what does it matter
how long we may live
If as long as we live
we unselfishly give.”
― Helen Steiner Rice

Kindness
Connection
Ease
Laughter
Beauty
Delight
Joy
Wonder
Awe
Gratitude
Grace
In a word, love
May you receive all today
Give it away freely too
Cast light.

“The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

Waiting for You, Everything

“There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.”: — Melody Beattie

Everything is Waiting for You
by David Whyte

“Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.”

Alertness
Attention
Awakening
Fresh eyes
New day
Brimming with possibilities
Woven in the ordinary
At our feet, in arms reach
Waiting for our participation
To not be lulled into complacency, counting, comparison
Grateful for this day
With things unfinished, cracked, imperfect
And so many good things too
Swelling presence
Easing into conversation with this day.

“The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.”: — Melody Beattie