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Posts tagged ‘Faith’

Apr 8

Breathing Resurrection Air

“Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.” ― Wendell Berry

“True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness, a way of being in life. It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace and prayer. We are restful when ordinary life is enough.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Shattered Lantern

We’re good at “lent”-ing, lamenting, foreboding.
Not short on reasons.
And yet.
Easter, spring, bloom arrive.
Never skipping their turn.
Renewal, refreshment, restoration.
Showing up.
Right in the middle of the mess.
Where it will always be.
Calling us to breath resurrection air.
To succumb to joy.
In our ordinary, imperfect, abundant, overflowing, limited days.
Fresh eyes, light heart, trusting soul required.
Make tracks, practice resurrection.

“The resurrection tells us it is never too late. Every so often we will be surprised. We must believe that the stone will be rolled back, and we must be ready to poke out our timid heads, take off the linen bindings of death, and walk free for a time, breathing resurrection air.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing

Apr 1

Irreverent Defiance of Despair

“Curiosity lights our way to compassion.”― Shannan Martin, Start with Hello

“Here, in this unfinishable life,
we bring our burdens (so heavy)
to hands strong enough to carry them.
Blessed are you,
walking the path of courage:
finding improbable ways to love,
offering creative acts of mercy,
and practicing irreverent defiance of despair.
Blessed are you, who create
beauty in this world.
May you carry this quiet revolution into
a world aching for signs of hope.
Blessed are we, trusting that somehow,
even now, today could be a sign
of good things to come.” – Kate Bowler

Step out of the noise, distraction, clamoring
Of judgment, complaint, busy, comparison, counting, keeping score, opinion, advice, criticism, pessimism
Take a detour, go off path, cut a new trail
Into kindness, compassion, showing up, staying, listening, serving, holding a hand
Quiet revolution
Look for the helpers
And when others look for “the helpers,” be one of them
Signs of hope
Acts of love
Create some beauty in your slice of the world today
Cast light.

“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping” – Fred Rogers

Mar 20

Divine Economy

“I have often noticed how interesting footpaths and bridleways start just beyond the brambles at the end of tarmacked roads marked ‘dead end’. And it seems to me that this is very often where prayer starts too.”― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness

“Most of us are under pressure, external and internal, to do everything, be good at everything, be accountable to everyone for everything! It is not so. In the divine economy each of us has a particular grace, gift and devotion. Finding out what that is, and learning how to be guilt-free about not doing everything else, may be part of what our Lenten journey is for.”― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness

Lent, rooted in lengthening of days, springtime, renewal
Christian tradition, 40 days before Easter
Don’t let religion, the religious and righteous, old wounds, rules keep you from God
Who’s already there waiting and knows
Relationship, companionship, inquiry, anger, loneliness, disappointment, ego, exhaustion, delight, gratitude, joy, peace
God can hold it all and you at the very same time
Held, always loved
Take the journey

“a mature and balanced faith is not one that has refused the agony and the wrestling but one that has been through them and grown from the experience.”― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness

Mar 3

Spring Unfolding Slow and Sure

“March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” – Charles Dickens

“Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring. The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged. Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bug opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.

The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Slow softening of ground
Seeds opening beneath
Snow turning to steady streams
Warm sun, crisp cool air lingers
Mud, earth opening up for business
Of bloom, renewal, awakening
Join the slow waltz into spring.
Attune. Open. Awake.

“Keep everything open and live from openness to openness.”― Francis Lucille, The Perfume of Silence

Feb 18

Life Anew in the Layers

“God’s gifts put men’s best dreams to shame.”― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“We enter Lent to enter our own earth, to make a pilgrimage into our own terrain. We move into this season to look at our life anew, to consider what has formed us, where we have come from, what we are carrying within us. Lent invites us to look at the layers that inhabit us: our stories and memories, our imaginings and dreams. This season invites us to notice what in our life feels fallow or empty, where there is growth and greenness, what sources of sustenance lie within us, where we find our inner earth crumbling to reveal something new. Lent opens our own terrain to us, that we might meet anew the God who lives in every layer of our life.” – Jan Richardson

Ash Wednesday
Lenten journey begins
Desert time
Invitation within
For each and all
Relationship, not religion
Take your journey
All, all, are welcomed and loved
Made anew in the layers.

“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”― Elie Wiesel, Night

Feb 14

Hope, Spring Within

“The hummingbird represents beauty and joy. She is a creature of flight, bringing her closer to the cosmos with each wingbeat. She is constantly moving and is rarely seen at rest, preferring instead to perform her aerial acrobatics. Her heart is as fast as her wings and her colors are bright and shifting; they are colors that capture the sunlight in their iridescence. She brings love wherever she passes by.”― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“After the long and portentous eclipse of the patient sun
The sudden spring began”― Edith Sitwell, Green Song and Other Poems

40 degrees in February.
Light lingering longer.
Slow melt.
Winter not done.
Yet, a taste of spring.
Hope, spring within.

“The winter, the animal sleep of the earth is over
And in the warmth of the affirming sun
All beings, beasts, men planets, waters, move
Freed from the imprisoning frost, acclaim their love
That is the light of the sun.”
― Edith Sitwell, Green Song and Other Poems

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

Feb 2

Ask, Listen, Pay Attention

“Zen pretty much comes down to three things — everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”― Jane Hirshfield

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” – Zora Neale Hurston

Living the answers with grace and gratitude
Allowing more questions without knowing the answers
In thin spaces, quiet places, gentle throughways
Releasing the grip of control and knowing
Inviting and allowing
Sacred, holy ground of
Curiosity, inquiry, nuance, noticing, imagination, connection, laughter, gratitude, joy
Rooted in trust, fidelity, love
Different seasons
Each with its own gifts to bear
Opening the gifts
Of presence, awe, wonder, planting, abiding, slowing, savoring
No rushing to get to the other side, in a hurry or to be first
Alignment, attunement, rooting, rising
The work of eternal blooming.

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”― William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

Feb 1

2 Comments

Fresh Coat, New Day

“He who kisses joy as it flies by will live in eternity’s sunrise.”― William Blake

APACHE Blessing

“May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being,
May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

Scratch the surface of her joy,
And you will find a well of sorrow.
Dive into the well,
And discover her spring of hope.
Follow that spring to the river of her strength,
Compassion, and faith . . .
And you will have touched her soul.” – Terri St Cloud

Fresh coat of snow this morning
Brightening and refreshing the landscape
New day, new month, new start
Brilliant white, bold colors
Wakeup call
Invitation to seeing the same in different ways
Beneath the surface
Into a wellspring
Make space for joy today.

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.”― William Blake

Jan 25

The Cliff

“Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.”― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Steadfast
Constancy
Fidelity
Care
Calm
Courage
Right action
Rooted in love
Walked out in peace.

“How will the world change if we do not question it?”― Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant

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