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Posts from the ‘Wonder’ Category

Feb 27

Ordinary, Fresh Wonder

“We’re invited to pay attention to the enchanted world around us in a new way, to be open to the possibility of an encounter with God at every moment.”― Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder

“Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.”― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Open the windows
Hair in the wind
Clear the clutter
Create space
Slow, yield, pause
For joy, wonder, enchantment, awe
In small, ordinary, daily moments
Rhythms, signposts, practices
Spring woven in winter
Open the windows
Ordinary, fresh wonder

“To experience the richness of life in God’s kingdom, we must reorder our lives. We need to see through the shallow promises of our culture, and we need rhythms, signposts, and practices that reorient us to another world.”― Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder

Nov 26

Hushed Expectations

“Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”― Ann Patchett, State of Wonder

“May you grow still enough to hear the small noises earth makes in preparing for the long sleep of winter, so that you yourself may grow calm and grounded deep within.

May you grow still enough to hear the trickling of water seeping into the ground, so that your soul may be softened and healed, and guided in its flow. May you grow still enough to hear the splintering of starlight in the winter sky and the roar at earth’s fiery core.

May you grow still enough to hear the stir of a single snowflake in the air, so that your inner silence may turn into hushed expectation.” – Brother David Steindl-Rast

Grow still enough.
Soft heart.
Quiet works.
Hushed expectation.
Ground within.
Grow still enough.

“Great works are often quiet works.”― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

Oct 6

Discoveries of this Day

“Only the blindness of habit convinces us that we continue to live in the same place, that we see the same landscape. In truth, no place ever remains the same because light has no mind for repetition; it adores difference. Through its illuminations, it strives to suggest the silent depths that hide in the dark. Light”
― John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

“…May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.”― John O’Donohue, Benedictus: A Book of Blessings

Adore difference as light does.
No mind for repetition.
Stray from habit.
Wander off trail.
Let fresh air in.
Live this day with love, reverence and awe.
A journey of discovery, richness before you.
In this very place.

“When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you.”― John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Apr 16

A Sacred Thing

“A journey can become a sacred thing.
Make sure, before you go,
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you towards
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life;
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.” – John O’Donohue

The Hero Path by Joseph Campbell

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known …
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination
we shall find a God.
And where we had thought to slay another
we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.”

May awe, wonder, ease claim you today.
In the temporal and transcendent.
Thin spaces, wide open fields.
Big and small.
Far and wide.
Near and far.
Moving, unfolding, and following that still small voice.
Trusting intuition, swimming upstream, going off trail.
Inquiry, open, awake.

“One of the most exciting and energizing forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore, the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. One of the reasons that we wonder is because we are limited, and that limitation is one of the great gateways of wonder.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

Mar 25

Imbued with Wonder

“All thinking that is imbued with wonder is graceful and gracious thinking.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

“FOR A NEW BEGINNING In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge. For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown. It watched you play with the seduction of safety And the gray promises that sameness whispered, Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this. Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And out you stepped onto new ground, Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you. Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning That is at one with your life’s desire. Awaken your spirit to adventure; Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, For your soul senses the world that awaits you.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

May you never give up on new beginnings.
Fresh starts.
The promise of unfolding, growing, changing.
Crossing thresholds to new rooms that await your arrival.
Leaving, entering, and the spaces and place in between.
Trust the journey.

“At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter?”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Mar 1

Flowing Wonder

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“Wonder is the precondition for all wisdom.”― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

Amid activities and obligations, may you attune to joy, beauty and awe.
Wonder and delight.
Laughter and song.
Slowing and still points to look around and within.
Blank canvas, new day.
Learning, unlearning, awakening.
Fluid and at ease.
Water over, through, around rocks.
The flow of life.

“Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.”― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

Feb 15

Calm and Grace

“Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.”― Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Although life is hard in pace
Lose not thy calm and grace.
If thee are not tender
Vow not to surrender
Eternity lies right before thy face.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, ACross Tic

 Words soft, kind.
Ears open, attune.
Slowing to notice, awake.
Create calm in chaos.
Grace in this place.
Observe. Listen. Wonder.
Awe in thin places, still points.

“Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”― Margaret J. Wheatley

Nov 30

Foothold

“Take time to see the quiet miracles that
seek no attention.”― John O’Donohue

“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

In the slowing
The pause
Of thoughts
Of motion
Of season
Of time
To rest
Empty out
Fill up
Create space
Heal and bind up
Wintering
Hibernation
Cocoon
Clearing the clutter
A respite from the noise
A freshness
A restoration
Not to stay but to prepare
Seed time
Before the threshold of bloom
Readiness to cross thresholds
To feel the earth anew
To find your feet again
To get up and move
In a different yet familiar place of becoming
Blushed with beginning
Fresh with possibility
Ready to dance with rigor
Sing a new song
Woven, bound and anchored in wonderment
Moving with ease and flow

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Aug 2

Ground of Wonder

“What if wonder was the ground of our gathering?”― Ross Gay, Inciting Joy: Essays

“Because in trying to articulate what, perhaps, joy is, it has occurred to me that among other things—the trees and the mushrooms have shown me this—joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me, which is, among other things, the great fact of our life and the lives of everyone and thing we love going away. If we sink a spoon into that fact, into the duff between us, we will find it teeming. It will look like all the books ever written. It will look like all the nerves in a body. We might call it sorrow, but we might call it a union, one that, once we notice it, once we bring it into the light, might become flower and food. Might be joy.”― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

To look through the eyes of love.
To stand on the ground of wonder.
To pay attention and see new in the same.
To teem, steep and overflow with gratitude.
To find joy woven into each day.
And delight waiting to dance.
Look longer.
Notice.
It just might be joy sitting next to you.

“The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking.”― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

Mar 27

Planting Trees You’ll Never See

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.” – Diane Ackerman

“First day of spring
The whole world’s wakin’ up and turnin’ green
And everything connects to everything

It’s a beautiful design
It just takes love and faith and grace, a little time

We’re all sons and daughters, just ripples on the water
Trying to make it matter until our time to leave
One day, they’ll carve your name in stone
And send your soul on home

‘Til then it’s prayin’ for rain and pullin’ up the weeds
Plantin’ trees we’ll never see”
– Lyrics to Amy Grant’s newly released song Planting Trees We’ll Never See

A drive, music turned up high.
Windows open to let spring air in, stale air out.
New music and familiar too.
A fresh playlist to enter a new season.
Winding roads to take.
Twists and turns.
Trees lining the path.
Small and big.
Scatter seeds. Pull weeds.
Planting trees you’ll never see.
Leave a legacy of love wherever you go.

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