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Posts from the ‘Love’ Category

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

Sep 16

Tend to the Garden

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” – Frances Hodgson Burnett

“I Choose Love…
No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. I choose love. Today I will love God and what God loves.

I Choose Joy…
I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

I Choose Peace…
I will live forgiven. I will forgive so I may live.

I Choose Patience…
I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I’ll invite him to do so, Rather complain that the wait is to long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.

I Choose Kindness…
I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for that is how God has treated me.

I Choose Goodness…
I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I accuse. I choose goodness.

I Choose Faithfulness…
Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My friends will not question my word. And my family will not question my love.

I Choose Gentleness…
Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it only be in praise. If I clench my fist, may it only be in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.

I Choose Self-Control…
I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ. I choose self-control.

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace. And then when this day is done I will place my head on my pillow and rest.”― Max Lucado

Perspective and intention.
Abundance or scarcity, a bit of both.
Thoughts and words.
How they turn into action or inaction.
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Gifts and fruits of the spirit.
For a world in desperate need.
Daily choices.
Choose well.
Love trumps fear.
Tend to the garden.
Cast light.

“A world of grief and pain
flowers bloom—
even then.” – Kobayashi Issa

Jun 25

Bloom Joy

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”― St. Teresa of Avila

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”― Anne Lamott

With the passage of time, I have fewer opinions, judgments, assumptions, need for certainty.
Assuming the best, that there’s more to the story.
Caring little about what “they say” I should do or not do.
Not bothering with approval, permission, acceptance.
Picking up fewer rocks to carry.
Owning less to walk softly, lightly.
Open heart, hands, fresh eyes.
To see the same differently.
Fear turns to hate, constricts, diminishes, condemns, narrows.
Love multiplies, invites, allows, welcomes, expands, deepens, seeks understanding, yields, connection.
Giving worth to all people, things, self.
Walk in love today.
A smile, laughter, a call, asking, listening, observing.
Transform your patch of the world.
Cast light, plant love, bloom joy.

“Thank God for the things that I do not own.”― St. Teresa of Avila

Jun 24

Bear Fruit Not Busy

“Love turns work into rest.”― Teresa of Avila

“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”― St. Teresa of Avila

Till and turn.
Dig and loosen.
Rich soil.
Plant seeds.
Water and wait.
Nurture and pull weeds.
Thoughts, words, right action.
Change and be changed.
Growth and fruition.
Hope, joy, enthusiasm, kindness, generosity, encouragement, laughter, delight.
Daily practices to live big, each ordinary day.
Bear good fruit not empty busy.

“Pessimism, cynicism and fear will only lead to a very small life. Don’t live small.”― Neil Abramson

Jun 19

Take In and Give Out Good

“Taking in the good, whenever and wherever we find it, gives us new eyes for seeing and living.”― Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

“But if I’ve learned anything, it is that goodness prevails, not in the absence of reasons to despair, but in spite of them. If we wait for clean heroes and clear choices and evidence on our side to act, we will wait forever, and my radio conversations teach me that people who bring light into the world wrench it out of darkness, and contend openly with darkness all of their days. […] They were flawed human beings, who wrestled with demons in themselves as in the world outside. For me, their goodness is more interesting, more genuinely inspiring because of that reality. The spiritual geniuses of the ages and of the everyday simply don’t let despair have the last word, nor do they close their eyes to its pictures or deny the enormity of its facts. They say, “Yes, and …,” and they wake up the next day, and the day after that, to live accordingly.” – Krista Tippett, Speaking of Faith

Fight the good fight.
Do not back down.
Do not despair.
Work to do.
Get to it.
Daily.
Love wins.
Long hard haul, worth the trip.
Journey and destination,
Till dry soil.
Dig deep to fertile soil.
Plant seeds.
Tend, nourish, feed.
Bloom love, kindness, curiosity, enthusiasm, resolve, joy, freedom, resilience, hope.
Cast light.

“Generous listening is powered by curiosity, a virtue we can invite and nurture in ourselves to render it instinctive. It involves a kind of vulnerability – a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own best words and questions.”― Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

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