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Posts tagged ‘Everyday Life’

Jan 3

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Gardening

“The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.”― Sir Thomas More

“I have learned that
everything has its own language and that
if I listen carefully to the birds and the creatures,
and even the grasses,
I will hear the sound of God
in the music of the silence.” – Catherine Garland, Learning Life poem

The gift of pause, reflection
Music of silence
Of thresholds
Bridges
Blank canvases
Fresh beginnings
New day, new month, new year
Plant seeds
Tend your garden
Ever blooming, becoming, arriving
Cast light, color, gratitude, kindness, joy

“I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it.”― Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

Sep 10

The Currency of Grace

“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.”― Rabindranath Tagore

“The new life into which we are baptized is lived out in days, hours, and minutes. God is forming us into a new people. And the place of that formation is in the small moments of today.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Passing moments unnoticed.
Daily tasks repeated.
Nuance.
Hue.
Hint.
Layers.
Flavor.
Delicate.
Wisp.
Ordinary days.
Unseen and bypassed for other and next.
Put the map down.
Pin where you are and enter the space of today.
This is the place of your life before you in plain and beautiful sight.
Calling softly to enter, dance, delight in.

“Ordinary love, anonymous and unnoticed as it is, is the substance of peace on earth, the currency of God’s grace in our daily life.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Mar 30

Pup Cups and Other Simple Things

“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Sometimes, we have to stand on the commitment and hard work of others. Yet, there are other passages in life that each of us has to journey through alone. We can call the first process, progress, and the second, incarnation.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

So much resides and lives in the simple things.
Time with family and friends.
Making new friends, connecting with a stranger, if but for a moment.
Laughter, a walk in the woods, trips to dog parks to chase balls and other dogs, and the newly discovered “pup cup” filled with whipped cream.
Find your path into the clearing.
We’ll see each other on the way.
Walking along side, sharing the road.
Paying attention to the simple things.
Tripping on joy and grace.
Incarnation, vastness, doing for others, seeing for self.

“Like everyone before us, we each must find our own path into the clearing, where we can build a home near the vastness of life. And we each must pass on what we can, so that those who follow will have the chance to awaken their own lives, which no one but they can live. Like everyone who will follow us, we are each called to reveal and enliven the twin ethics of doing for others and seeing for ourselves.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

Feb 13

Connected in the Deep, Hidden in the Ordinary

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”― William James

“As you take a few minutes each day to quiet your mind, you will discover a nice benefit: your everyday, “ordinary” life will begin to seem far more extraordinary. Little things that previously went unnoticed will begin to please you. You’ll be more easily satisfied, and happier all around. Rather than focusing on what’s wrong with your life, you’ll find yourself thinking about and more fully enjoying what’s right with your life. The world won’t change, but your perception of it will. You’ll start to notice the little acts of kindness and caring from other people rather than the negativity and anger.”― Jack Canfield

May we greet this day and each other with a newness, a hospitality, a welcoming, belonging.
Connected and created for relationship, joy, awe, unfolding, unfurling, wonder.
Open space, home coming, extraordinary in the midst of even a Monday.
Awaken your senses, seek surprise, allow fresh air in to breathe in delight woven into this ordinary day.
Gratitude, grace and a keen awareness of blessings to you today.

“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

Jan 10

Continual Arriving

“Silence is a source of Great Strength.”― Lao Tzu

“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”― Lao Tzu

When the water pools, find the passage to the river.
Flowing and free.
Static to dynamic.
Separate to connection, belonging.
Real time awareness.
Reflection for witnessing.
Intuition and experience.
Beginner and wanderer.
Mystery and meaning.
Hold patterns and landings.
Beginnings and endings. Repeat.
Before, after and the in between where we reside the most.
Create the space and grace for the mix of it all.
The cycle of continual arriving.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”― Lao Tzu

Aug 25

Don’t Wait, Fill Your Cup

“No matter how much light I carry within me, there will always be times of feeling lost, being confused, seeking direction. It is the way of the human heart.”― Joyce Rupp, The Star in My Heart: Experiencing Sophia, Inner Wisdom

“if I wait to be
perfect
before I love myself
I will always be
unsatisfied
and ungrateful

if I wait until
all the flaws, chips,
and cracks disappear
I will be the cup
that stands on the shelf
and is never used”

― Joyce Rupp

In clouds, in sun, in imperfection, in the present moment, fill your cup up in all things. Don’t wait, the time is now.

Mar 30

Infinite Beauty

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” – William Blake

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ― Brene Brown

Enter the space of today, of where you are right now.
Let it be.
Observe, listen, grieve, shout, leap, laugh, dance, cry, embrace it all.
Shortcuts, going around, avoidance all lead to shallow existence, stasis.
Going through is the only viable path.
Tend to your life.
Prune, nurture, wait, bud, bloom.
There’s beauty in winter and in the giving way to spring.
Joy, gratitude, belonging, grace, delight remain in all seasons, in endings, in transitions, and in new beginnings.
Life is finite and the infinite is woven through ordinary moments where awe, beauty and light enter, take hold, awaken and stir us to newness.
The infinite power of our own light, seek and discover.

“How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?” – Alexander the Great

Dec 7

An Essay

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” – Neil Gaiman

Life is an essay not multiple choice.
A journey not a checklist.
A mystery and comedy.
Rich with context, content and connection.
Emptied with loss, change and struggle.
Filled with love, light and joy.
Concurrently.
Many choices and answers.
Different paths.
Decisions made, not made.
Fight, flight, freeze.
In it all.
In the nouns, verbs and prepositions.
We write the story.
Others write the story.
Life writes the story.
God writes the story.
It continues, expands, contracts.
Find the gifts, grit and grace in it all.
Keep writing, editing, rewriting.
A work in progress.

“If we are lucky, we see God in something really mysterious, like a miracle. But mostly we see God in regular surprises like love and forgiveness.”— No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) by Kate Bowler

Nov 21

In the Meantime…

“As you get older, you want less from the world; you just want to experience it. Any barriers to feeling emotions get dismantled. And ordinary things become beautifully poetic.” – Richard Linklater

“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.” – Blaise Pascal

Between points A and B lies the meantime;
Not quite there yet;
In between;
The middle;
In transition;

Like the water between fall and winter and winter and spring;
Frozen in areas and open in others;
Stable and unstable;
Clear and choppy;
We spend most of our life in the meantime;
Often bound up looking back to point A or ahead to point B;
Missing the space in between called the present;

Do not forgo the meantime;
Seeds are slowing becoming buds preparing to break ground;
Joy and contentment can be found in the waiting, in the journey, in the straddling, in ordinary days;

In the meantime, remain in the meantime.

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” – William Arthur Ward

Oct 2

Room for Rest

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” – Etty Hillesum

The past two days, I’ve had the privilege of picking up my great nephew Liam from full-day school. It’s been the highlight of my week since he’s my life coach and best friend. Each day, 10 minutes into the drive back to my house, he’s fallen asleep exhausted, out like a light. I’ve looked at him and it sums up the way many of us are feeling these days.

After hour upon hour of zoom meetings and running as fast as possible to figure out how to save the world of business and take care of our family, it’s natural to be worn out. So as we move through this reality, I’ve come to two conclusions:

  1. Go easy on yourself and allow yourself space and grace to feel what you feel without judgment;
  2.  When you’re ready, ask “now what?” – we need time to process and grieve and then we need to figure out what’s next and what we are going to do about it.

This is one rare occasion in our collective life that we are really “all in this together” so let’s give each other a break, be kind, empathetic and supportive.

Rest, give yourself a break. There is light, joy and hope now and ahead.

 

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