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Posts from the ‘Hope’ Category

Sep 14

Building Cathedrals

“May I be at peace, May my heart remain open, May I awaken to the light of my own true nature, May I be healed, May I be a source of healing for all beings.”― Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

“There is an old story about three masons who are laying bricks. A man walks up to them and asks them each the same question: “What are you doing?” The first mason spits on the ground and looks up. “I’m laying bricks. What in hell does it look like I’m doing?” The second mason groans and mops his brow. “I’m earning a living.” The third mason looks up with light in his eyes and says, “I’m building a cathedral.” Who do you think feels most refreshed at the end of the day?”― Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

From laying bricks to building cathedrals
Of kindness
Possibility
Joy
Purpose
Empathy
Connection
Delight
Peace
In gratitude, grace, generosity of spirit
Keep building cathedrals each day
A brick at a time.

“Let me be open to all possibilities, living the full circle of my life in gratitude no matter when that circle is complete.”― Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

Jul 25

Hope, Dare, Bother

“Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.”― Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times

“Dare to Be

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.
When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.
When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.
When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.
When times are tough, dare to be tougher.
When love hurts you, dare to love again.
When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.
When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.
When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can –
At all times, Dare to be!”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Interior resilience to respond rather than react
Ebb and flow of what comes in and what goes out
Daily choosing
Kindness, empathy, joy, laughter, play, gratitude, curiosity, encouragement, faith, trust, grace, peace, love
Planting seeds on the path you walk this day
Bear fruit
Hope, dare, bother.

“We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place–or not to bother”― Jane Goodall

Jul 24

Butterfly Dance

“Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.”— Rachel Naomi Remen

“THE OLD WISDOM

When the night wind makes the pine trees creak
And the pale clouds glide across the dark sky,
Go out my child, go out and seek
Your soul: The Eternal I.

For all the grasses rustling at your feet
And every flaming star that glitters high
Above you, close up and meet
In you: The Eternal I.

Yes, my child, go out into the world; walk slow
And silent, comprehending all, and by and by
Your soul, the Universe, will know
Itself: the Eternal I.”
― Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

Present
Awake
Attune
Conversation
Communion
Walk slow
Notice
Comprehend
Hope, joy, peace
Dancing with butterflies.

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”― Joanna Macy

Jun 27

Wonder Beyond Words

“To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe — to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it — is a wonder beyond words.”― Joanna Macy

“Active Hope is not wishful thinking.
Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued . . . .
by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life
on whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world.
The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.
With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store,
strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.
Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths
in ourselves and in others;
a readiness to discover the reasons for hope
and the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts,
our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose,
our own authority, our love for life,
the liveliness of our curiosity,
the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence,
the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.”― Joanna Macy

Active, tough, resilient hope.
A muscle to flex and build daily.
Attention, curiosity, readiness.
Full presence and participation.
Deep gratitude.
Overflowing kindness and compassion.
To love well.
Imperfect, flawed beautiful mess and miracle woven with awe, wonder and joy.
Life is today.
A moment at a time.
Keep showing up.

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”― Joanna Macy

May 30

Thought and Sight

“Prayer is a refusal to settle for what is.”― Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out

“No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than man could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.”― John Ruskin, Modern Painters: Volume 3. Of Many Things

Thought and sight.
Slow and awake.
Witness and partake.
May the sky at sunrise and sunset capture your attention every time.
A flower in bloom jolt you into delight.
Hope that anchors and sails.
Walking out love every day.
Mostly in small, seemingly insignificant ways.
Seeds on fertile ground.
A smile, an encouraging word or two, asking, listening, laughter, gratitude.
All forms of prayer.

“Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.”― Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

Apr 19

Holy Saturdays

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who also was himself a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.”—Matthew 27:57-61

The days after when before became after with no turning back
Tipping points, pivotal moments, thresholds crossed
Moments in our lives when grief kicked down the door down and plopped down
Moved in and became the loud neighbor
In our holy saturdays, the middle space between our own crosses and resurrections
Hope remains, faint, but remains
Wait, not yet, but soon
Soon, soon, soon

“Blessed are you, who feel undone,
too tired even for tears,
longing to be spoken back into being.

Blessed are you, who ache to remember
the bonds of love that formed you,
that hold you still, even now.
May they be as iron
that strengthen your soul.

Blessed are you,
who glimpse, however faintly,
that this present darkness
is not all there is.

And blessed are we who dare to say:
I am known.
I am loved.
I can love again.
Even—especially—here,
in this very moment.” – Kate Bowler & Jessica Richie

Apr 2

Hope Beams

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu

“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama

Beautiful, tangible, tough, gritty hope.
Fight the good fight.
Stay the course.
Stick the landing.
Keep going.
Light breaks through.
Spring never skips its turn.

“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

Mar 12

2 Comments

Anchor of Hope

“All of us experience, to a greater or lesser extent, a loneliness that results from not having enough anchors, enough absolutes, and enough permanent roots to make us feel secure and stable in a world characterized by transience.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart

Blessing when you need a little hope

“These days feel heavy and dark,
like hope packed up and left,
and forgot to send a postcard.
We cry: Where are the good things?
And honestly, where are the good people—
the sensible ones
fighting for what matters?
Why does it feel like bad stuff
always elbows its way to the front,
pushing everything good to the sidelines?
We’re tired. Exhausted, really.
Desperation is knocking,
and it’s tempting to surrender.

Blessed are you,
who see the world as it is:
the sickness and loneliness,
the injustice that never seems to end,
the greed and misuse of power,
the violence and intimidation,
the mockery of truth,
and disdain for weakness,
and worse—
the seeming powerlessness
of anyone trying to stop it.

Blessed are you,
worn down by hard-earned cynicism,
running on fumes,
with no promise of a destination.

Maybe hope isn’t so distant.
Maybe it’s there—small, persistent, and stubborn.
May you grasp something
in the heaviness.
A glimmer of what could be,
and walk, step by step,
toward the possibility that goodness exists.
Hope is an anchor dropped into the future
pulling you forward,
toward something better—
even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

– Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

In 1999, I found out I had melanoma on Ash Wednesday
And by Easter, all clear
Some don’t get that short a trip through cancer or other diagnosis, but I did
Lent had an even deeper meaning that year
Journeys we don’t choose but choose us
Some of our struggles are chronic
Some are broken or frayed relationships
Some loneliness
The grief, and growth if we allow, from all of the deaths before death
The alignment of Lent and the world right now
Again, not unnoticed
How the hell did we get here?
What is underneath all of this?
Where will I/we end up?
Will the struggle end?
What should I do?
Good questions with answers that so often only unfold only by walking out it out
Spring, Resurrection comes only by going through winter, the ashes, the desert
Not the pep talk most want to hear
We frantically look for short cuts, hacks, others to blame
Whatever journey you are on, one step, one day at a time
Lent’s invitation is one of pause
Reflection
Slowing
Withdraw
Quiet
Rest
Wandering
Listening
Shedding
Forgiving
Rending
Healing
Discernment, direction, clarity down the road
40 days in the desert, feeling like years
No shortcuts but brimming with small, persistent, stubborn hope
An anchor dropped into the future pulling us forward
Easter coming, walk it out.

“Those who have courage and faith shall never perish in misery”― Anne Frank

Mar 2

2 Comments

Tender Hope, Sweet Grace

 

“We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.” – Seneca

“Hope has holes in its pockets. It leaves little crumb trails so that we, when anxious, can follow it. Hope’s secret: it doesn’t know the destination-it knows only that all roads begin with one foot in front of the other.” – Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

One foot then the next
To walk in joy
To plant seeds of kindness, peace, compassion
To keep our power, resilience, wonder, awe
Steady, consistent, small acts
One foot then the next
Tender hope, sweet grace
Love well, cast light
The long cut.

“There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.”
― Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Poets Project at Casa Grande

Feb 19

Bright, Fresh Hope

“What we must do,
I suppose,
is to hope the world
keeps its balance;
what we are to do, however,
with our hearts
waiting and watching—truly
I do not know.”— Mary Oliver

“Thick is the darkness–
Sunward, O, sunward!
Rough is the highway–
Onward, still onward!
Dawn harbors surely
East of the shadows.
Facing us somewhere
Spread the sweet meadows.
Upward and forward!
Time will restore us:
Light is above us,
Rest is before us.”
― William Ernest Henley

Time, light, rest.
Onward, forward, upward.
Hope never fails.
Onward, still onward!
And in the struggle.
Entertaining joy, beauty, delight.
Bright, fresh hope.

“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

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