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Posts from the ‘Love’ Category

May 2

Till Soil, Root in Love

“I am in love with this world… I have tilled its soil, I have gathered its harvest, I have waited upon its seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.”― John Burroughs, The Summit of the Years

“Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good.
By itself it makes that which is heavy light;
and it bears evenly all that is uneven.
It carries a burden which is no burden;
it will not be kept back by anything low and mean;
It desires to be free from all wordly affections,
and not to be entangled by any outward prosperity,
or by any adversity subdued.
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble,
attempts what is above its strength,
pleads no excuse of impossibility.
It is therefore able to undertake all things,
and it completes many things and warrants them to take effect,
where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Though weary, it is not tired;
though pressed it is not straightened;
though alarmed, it is not confounded;
but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.
Love is active and sincere, courageous, patient, faithful, prudent, and manly.”
― Thomas A Kempis

Love
Not the fluffy, surface, fleeting kind
Thoughts, words, actions
Weary yet not tired
Pressed yet not straightened
Alarmed yet not confounded
Gritty, tough, resilient
On the ground beneath your feet
Till soil
Root in love
Gather the harvest
Peace, kindness, love
Cast light.

“The lesson which life constantly repeats is to ‘look under your feet.’
You are always nearer to the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
Do not despise your own place and hour.
Every place is under the stars.
Every place is the center of the world.”― John Burroughs, Studies in Nature and Literature

Apr 20

Steadfast Work of Love

“Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors’ souls and come to their rescue.”― Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.” – Maria Popova

Gentle steadfast work of kindness, tending, accompanying
Mirror and magnify
Kindness and generosity
Compound and multiply
Love does that
Do love today
Cast light

“Somehow you have got to know more than what you experience individually.” – Lorraine Hansberry

Apr 2

Root in Love, Bloom in Kindness

“Remember finally, that the ashes on your forehead are created from the burnt palms of last Palm Sunday. New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.” – Richard Rohr

“We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.” – John O’Donohue

Opening a door
Yielding in traffic
Sitting with a friend
Greeting a stranger
An encouraging word
Last suppers that we didn’t know would be last
A $20 to a soul on a corner
Playing hopscotch with a child
Asking, listening
Washing feet
Eucharist of the ordinary
Holy places
Without counting or conditions
Love

“In the humility of the washing of the feet, we find the greatest heights of love.”— Pope Francis

Feb 23

Plant a Rose

“Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.” – Katharine Lee Bates

“Let grace go first.
Let it carve a path, however small,
and show that
even the tiniest efforts
can multiply in love.” – Kate Bowler

Love well today.
How?
Call to say “hi”
Ask and listen, ask more
Smile, eye to eye contact
Yield in traffic (ugh)
Warm embrace
Laughter and play
Encouragement and enthusiasm
Gratitude and grace
Small, beautiful ways to plant seeds, prepare for bloom.

“It is the hour to rend thy chains, the blossom time of souls.” – Katharine Lee Bates

Feb 7

The Hard and Only Way

“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Anger … it’s a paralyzing emotion … you can’t get anything done. People sort of think it’s an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don’t think it’s any of that — it’s helpless … it’s absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers … and anger doesn’t provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever.”― Toni Morrison

To thick, dense, gritty, tough, resilient, scrappy, unflinching, deep love
To overcome
To rise again and again
To keep moving
To not get distracted, delayed, distraught
Jumping, leaping, building, creating, compounding, strengthening, bold and bright
Hope, light, love
The real kind that doesn’t waiver or wane, keeps swinging
Cast light.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”― Maya Angelou

Jan 28

Dappled with Light and Love

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Like most hearts, it was complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light.”― Kate DiCamillo

Love
Not the surface greeting card stuff
The kind that sticks and stays
That accompanies and sits quietly in grief
That leaps with joy in the wins
And all of the ordinary days in between
Tough, resilient, soft, kind
Sees humanity in others
That does not diminish in disagreement
Nor demand agreement
No lectures, shame, othering, pontificating, I told you so, I was right
Found in small acts
Yielding
Conversation and connection
May you find this kind of love today
And offer it first without condition
Be a helper, a door opener, a homecoming
Cast light, love well

“Do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Jan 19

Faith, Hope, Love

“This is the urgency: Live!
And have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.”― Gwendolyn Brooks, The World of Gwendolyn Brooks

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Faith, hope, love
The greatest is love
Unconditional or it’s not real
The resilient, gritty, tough, stick and stay, fight the good fight kind
Jumping hurdles, leaping fences, knocking down walls
Cast light, with a side of hope, and an extra helping of joy and peace.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou

Jan 11

Open Heart, Beams of Light

“Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.”― Walt Whitman

“You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.”― Wystan Hugh Auden

Reverence. Awe. Wonder.
Right here.
Right now.
More than enough.
Abundant, overflowing.
For a grateful, full, soft heart.
To live awake on ordinary days.
With extraordinary care, love, kindness, light.
May I move it into action with expediency.
Inches, acts, beams.
Cast light.

“To live in the kingdom is to be ready to rub shoulders with all kinds. God’s love is given freely and is accepted by many. I pray for a heart that is open to those who are not like me.”― The Irish Jesuits

Jan 10

When, How, Now

“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”― Goethe

“When warmth is in our hearts
there is grace in us
When love is in our hearts
there is harmony in our souls
When silence is in us
there is peace in the world”
― Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Peace. Love. Kindness.
Actions not fluff.
Plant seeds.
Cultivate and foster.
Steadfast and consistent.
Do the work.
Hope. Acts. Generosity.

“love rules without rules”― Thomas More

Jan 9

North Star

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”― John O’Donohue

Compassion
Kindness
Generosity
Gentleness
Decency
Humility
Empathy
Humanity
Encouragement
Abiding
Accompanying
Gratitude
Grace
Love
Give, receive, repeat.
Cast light.

“If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.”― W.H. Auden

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