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Posts tagged ‘Faith’

Dec 15

The Sound of Hope

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.
“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, ‘Wait and Hope.”― Alexandre Dumas

Yesterday, my sister-in-law Tina got to ring this bell of hope at the Mayo Clinic.
Well-earned and deserved after six long months of treatment for breast cancer.
Doctors appointments, surgery, several hour and half trips to Rochester, radiation rounds followed by chemo, exhaustion, side-effects, rides in ambulances when white blood cells tanked and dehydration set in.
Feeling better just in time to go back for another round.
I sat with her for a little while yesterday and then had to leave for meetings.
I didn’t get to see her ring the bell but went past it when my brother walked me to the car.
We could all hear the bell loud and clear.
The sound of hope that waits with us through struggles, twists and turns and embraces us at the finish lines.
Hope that is tough, gritty, resilient, ass-kicking.
Pulling us forward when the path is hard, uphill and rocky.
Tina moved through this journey with grace, strength, toughness, resilience.
Way to fight the good fight Tina, carry hope well, showing others what the sound of hope is through a weathering journey.
As Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption wrote to Red, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
So to the good thing, the best of things called hope and those who stick the landing of hope every day on paths not of their choosing but choosing hope over despair.
The beautiful sound of hope.

“We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Dec 11

A Wider Gaze

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.”― Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Beauty can hold our gaze for a moment of perfect stillness. Then, when it is done dismantling us, beauty can bring us back to ourselves with a wider gaze and a surer sense of connection to every living thing, ready to engage the divine work of creating more beauty in the world, more justice and true love.”— Barbara Brown Taylor, Always A Guest: Speaking of Faith Far From Home

This time of the year is both beautiful and difficult.
Missing those not here.
Unmet expectations.
Disappointments.
Allow both beauty and struggle, the human condition.
They coexist.
Lean on beauty, connection, love.
Invite color and light in.
To open you up to see what remains, to anticipation of what will come.
A wider gaze, the one of children.
The masters of Christmas.
Hope, peace, joy – a state of mind, a way to live.

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. ”― Mary Ellen Chase

Nov 10

Give into Joy

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. ”― Mary Oliver

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don’t Hesitate)”― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Hope, joy, kindness, faith, generosity, empathy, laughter, grace, love.
May you be a prisoner of these.
Never to be released and set free.
Open to color, light, beauty.
Dazzled.
Unafraid.
Joy.
Much more than a crumb.
Plenty to go around.
Give in.

“Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.”― Mary Oliver

Nov 7

Row Your Boat

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
…live in the question.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“We must row in whatever boat we find ourselves in.”― Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

Less angst, paralysis and analysis about the boat you are in.
Or comparing to other boats.
More rowing.
In action rather than inaction.
Listening, faith, movement.
The path unfolds in the traveling, the daily rowing.
Unknowing, unlearning to see what lies beneath the surface.
Emergence at the right time, slower than our demands.
Ready and steady.
Answers and more questions leading to more clarity, discernment.
Live in, with and through the questions.
Row the boat. Your boat.

“We make our way through Everything like thread passing through fabric, giving shape to images that we ourselves do not know.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Nov 3

At the Same Time and More

“I don’t want to sit like a brooding hen on the nest of my past achievements. I want to keep on going deep into the uncertain act of making, to see the unknown world stretch out before me and to devote myself to exploring it.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”― Rumi

We can hold grief and gratitude at the same time.
Not one or the other but both and more. And more.
There’s always more right in front of us.
Give yourself permission to experience and move through both and all.
Rough and smooth patches. Usually a mix.
With hope, faith, devotion and more hope.
Changing, evolving with time, space and distance.
Joy, hope, resilience, grace, laughter, peace.
Doing their work in us and through us.
We have the capacity and calling to love deeper and louder.
Find contentment wherever you are.
There are no rules or 10 easy steps.
Not alone, keep walking this sacred ground.
Rooted in the present, moving forward a step at a time.

“I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.”― William Stafford

Oct 26

3 Comments

Keep Going, Growing and Gratitude-ing

“Love is the beauty of the soul.” – Saint Augustine

“In the second half of life, we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us.”― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Abby is my birthday buddy today. Born 7 years ago. I begin the last year of another decade moving well into the second half of life, assuming longevity. We don’t know what happens or when it will happen. So steep in this day alone and be present to what is right now. Not lingering in the past or moving too far into the future.

The past 7 years have been a long season filled with joy and loss, change and transformation, being stretched and pulled, made new from many things I wouldn’t choose. Loss of parents, dogs, aunt and the grief that follows and remains. Gain of five great nephews and delight and hope overflowing from children. An unexpected and necessary career change. Good friends. Caregiving. Two marathons. Cancer diagnoses for family members (ugh and heavy sigh). A three plus year pandemic woven through it all. Resilience, grit and gratitude.

Any advice from it all?

Keep going.
Take full count – more blessings than burdens, sometimes they are the same.
There’s compound interest in loving well.
Be present in each day.
Ordinary days are ripe with joy, laughter and delight if you choose to see and partake.
Don’t become your job, making it your identity.
You are bigger than what you do.
Diversify. Try new things.
I’m two months into guitar lessons and love being a beginner and struggling to improve slowly with practice and fortitude.
Keep learning.
Life is in the little things.
Small exchanges with friends and family.
Sticking when times get tough.
Forgiveness required and imperfection a staple.
Believe in something bigger than yourself.
My name for this something bigger is God.
Pause, pray, praise.
Faith, grace, hope required daily.
Someday is today.
Always get the squeaky yellow tennis balls – the best for ball chasing and shredding (Abby’s insight)
Know what you stand for not just what you are against. Focus on that.
Work and pray for things to get better – it’s not the government or the “other guys” job.
Give up cynicism and criticism – dead end road and merely adding to the noise.
Be generous and kind.
Laugh a lot and allow tears to release and heal.
Love is the journey and the destination.
When all else fails, keep choosing love.
Life keeps happening – be a participant, not a spectator.
May you keep going, growing and gratitude-ing (just made this word up – gratitude is a verb – put it in action)
And don’t forget to celebrate.
Happy birthday Abby and me.

“Wholly unprepared, we embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world? No, thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”― C.G. Jung

Oct 14

The View of a Sunflower

“The morning glories and the sunflowers turn naturally toward the light, but we have to be taught, it seems.”― Richard Rohr

“Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!”― Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations

It takes time for things to mend, grow, bloom, bind up and be hemmed into the story of our life.
And the story is written each day.
In our choices.
In things we don’t choose.
Reactions and responses.
Where we put our attention.
Distractions, delays and detours.
Order. Disorder. Reorder.
We are never done.
Dynamic. Changing. Emerging.
In the waiting, wandering and the work, find joy, delight and ease.
Keep turning toward the light.
Opening up to unknowing, to mystery, to unfolding.
Recycle the boxes.

“God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.”― Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

Sep 30

Simultaneously

“Love is the beauty of the soul.” – Saint Augustine

“But your ways of being in the world are not set in stone. It’s more like they are set in sand. Your childhood is not your fate. Your natural disposition is not your fate. The neighborhood you grew up in is not your fate. The research shows this clearly. Nothing that has happened in your life precludes you from connecting with others, from thriving, or from being happy. People often think that once you get to adulthood, that’s it—your life and your way of living are set. But what we find by looking at the entirety of research into adult development is that this just isn’t true. Meaningful change is possible.”― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

May you be open to seeing the world and yourself in it differently.
Try new things.
Think fresh thoughts.
Make connections.
Foster relationships.
Life is hard and lovely at the same time.
Struggle and ease.
Light and shadow.
Gratitude and grace.
Keep the faith.
Trust the unfolding.
Begin again each day with optimism and hope.
A masterpiece and a work in progress.
Possibility always in bloom.

“You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.” – Sophia

Sep 25

Held and Hemmed

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Saint Augustine

Most days are ordinary.
One after another.
To dos, commitments, activities.
Daily living.
Often going unnoticed and unseen.
And then there are those thresholds, doors, bridges crossed.
One ways.
“Befores” to definitive “afters”.
No going back.
Foreign land we didn’t choose.
A diagnosis, death, relationship fractures, job loss.
The big things that make the small things that trip us up insignificant.
It is here where we relearn to walk again.
To breathe.
To carry on different and never the same.
Wear a helmet time.
No detours or shortcuts, just right up the middle.
So a blessing for all who are in the midst of before and after time.
You are held, hemmed in love and not alone.

for the life you didn’t choose by Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

“Blessed are you when the shock subsides, when vaguely, you see a line appear that divides before and after. You didn’t draw it, and can barely even make it out. But as surely as minutes add up to hours and days, here you are, forced into a story you never would have written.

Blessed are you in the tender place of awe and dread, wondering how to be whole when dreams have disappeared and part of you with them, where mastery, control, determination, bootstrapping, and grit are consigned to the realm of Before (where most of the world lives), in the fever dream that promises infinite choices, unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the After zone, loudly shouting: Is there anybody here? We hear the echo, the shuffle of feet, the murmur of others asking the same question, together in the knowledge that we are far beyond what we know.

God, show us a glimmer of possibility in this new constraint, that small truths will be given back to us.

We are held.
We are safe.
We are loved.
We are loved.
We are loved.”

Sep 15

One More Time

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”― Robert Frost

“When Medieval Monks were asked how they practiced their faith, they said, “By falling down and getting up.” This is the human journey from which no one is exempt. We are constantly challenged to get up one more time than we fall, to open one more time than we close, and to put things together one more time than we take them apart.”— Mark Nepo, Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength

Transitions of seasons.
External and internal.
Thresholds and openings.
Starts and stops.
Betweenness.
Trips and stumbles.
Overcoming and ease.
Emergence.
Trust the journey that flowers and butterflies know by heart.
Seed in the dark. Bloom in the light.
Weight of the cocoon. Lift of flight.
Time. Waiting. Anticipation.
Getting up again and again.
Seeing beauty along the way.

“In a modern age that commodifies everything, our challenge is to grow from the inside out, letting every holy calling find its own expression within us and between us. After decades of listening to the stories and struggles of others, I can bear witness that teaching, in its most profound form, is not moving a life from here to there, or from effort to achievement, or even from chaos to order. Rather, teaching is creating the enduring environment in which the seed of the soul can know itself and blossom.” — Mark Nepo, Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength

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