Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Hope’ Category

Feb 27

Borrowed Light, Shared Color

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”― Pema Chödrön

“If you can’t find hope
Borrow mine tonight
I’ve been lost too, just trying to get it right
The sun still rises even when you’re tired of the fight
If you can’t see the road, walk by borrowed light
We’re all just healing in real time
If you can’t find hope, borrow mine…

We’re just passing it down the line
‘Til the dark runs out of time” – Able Heart, lyrics – song

Hope, joy, kindness, enthusiasm
Resistance to succumb to chaos, noise, comparison, counting
Daily work, discipline, commitment
Often found in rest, reflection, deep breath, long gaze, communion
To stay soft, to care, to listen
Gratitude, grace, delight
The dark always runs out of time.
How we spend our time in the waiting defines our life.
Given or borrowed
Cast Light! Some brilliant color too.

Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
By William Shakespeare

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

Feb 20

Beams of Love

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.”― William Blake

“You can either practice being right or practice being kind.”― Anne Lamott

Kindness. Generosity. Hope. Joy. Laughter. Enthusiasm. Grace.
May these be the path I choose.
Daily.
To dare to bear the beams of love.
To be a beam.
Cast light.

“Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Feb 14

Hope, Spring Within

“The hummingbird represents beauty and joy. She is a creature of flight, bringing her closer to the cosmos with each wingbeat. She is constantly moving and is rarely seen at rest, preferring instead to perform her aerial acrobatics. Her heart is as fast as her wings and her colors are bright and shifting; they are colors that capture the sunlight in their iridescence. She brings love wherever she passes by.”― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“After the long and portentous eclipse of the patient sun
The sudden spring began”― Edith Sitwell, Green Song and Other Poems

40 degrees in February.
Light lingering longer.
Slow melt.
Winter not done.
Yet, a taste of spring.
Hope, spring within.

“The winter, the animal sleep of the earth is over
And in the warmth of the affirming sun
All beings, beasts, men planets, waters, move
Freed from the imprisoning frost, acclaim their love
That is the light of the sun.”
― Edith Sitwell, Green Song and Other Poems

Feb 4

Opened to Air, Carrying Love

“Likewise, every disturbance, whether resolved or not, is making space for an inner engagement. As a shovel digs up and displaces earth, in a way that must seem violent to the earth, an interior space is revealed for the digging. In just this way, when experience opens us, it often feels violent and the urge, quite naturally, is to refill that opening, to make it the way it was. But every experience excavates a depth, which reveals its wisdom once opened to air.”― Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

“Hope is the hardest love we carry.”― Jane Hirshfield, The Lives of the Heart

Beneath the surface
Above the noise
Beyond the chaos
Quiet and calm
Soft whisper
Invitation
Pause, abide, engage
Breaking ground
Open to air
Carrying hope, light, love.

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”― Thomas Paine

Jan 26

Part the Veil

“Be the lighthouse in the ocean.”― Delphanie Frank

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
– Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (Prayer for Peace)

In rupture, seeds of repair.
In grief, roots of love.
In hope, the path forward.
Be kind.
Be present.
Be help.
Be the lighthouse.
Peace. Hope. Love.
Cast light.

“My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other’s presence, each other’s wonder, each other’s human plight.”― Eudora Welty

Jan 24

Awash in Hope

“And hope is like love…a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“Nothing is more terrifying to evil than joy.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Beatryce Prophecy

Joy. Hope. Expectancy.
Not fluffy, naïve, futile.
Powerful, practical, transformative.
Fight the good fight.
Radical love.
Ridiculous wonder.
Bold delight.
Beauty, light, color.
Fuel for the journey.

“You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Jan 14

Path of Love

“In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.”― Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

“Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

Long run
Endurance
Daily decisions
To be kind
To care
To not succumb to indifference, to fear
To ask
To listen
To compassion
To go deeper
To understanding
To hope
To take right action
To walk the path of love
Fresh courage, soft heart, gentle spirit, generous heart
Cast light

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”― Anne Frank

Dec 2

Whispered Hope

“I know life is not rainbows and butterflies, but I’d rather die delusional than being a mature cynic.”― Abhaidev, That Thing About You

“Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter. They are places that make us feel something larger than ourselves, as though we are held in a place between worlds, beyond experience.”― Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Thin Places

Thin spaces
Beauty, color, light
Quiet and reflection
Pause and gratefulness
In the midst of this ordinary day
Holding room for butterflies, whispered hope.

“To stand together under a sky – that no matter how grey and uncertain – still holds room for butterflies, moths, dragonflies and things we once were too fearful to name; things like whispered hope.”― Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Thin Places

 

Nov 9

Invincible Summer

“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.”― Albert Camus

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

Invincible summer, in all seasons.
Curiosity, interest, exploration.
Attention, noticing, discovery.
Love, laughter, ease.
This day, not someday “when”
This day.
Cast light.

“In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus

Sep 17

Time will Come Good Again

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” – Henri Matisse

“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Away from the noise and chaos
Respite and quiet
Slow and low
Soft and light
Pause and reflect
Hope and joy
Generous and kind
Steadfast and resilient
Anchor and root
Fresh pastures of promise
Blushed with beginning

“It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little.”― Ellen Bass, Like a Beggar

« Older Entries