“May I create plain fields by collecting clouds and bedeck them with arching rainbows.”― Suman Pokhrel
“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is “timing”
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”― Fulton J. Sheen
When I let go of their leashes, the girls running full speed into the open, unbound and free.
Not too far out, they stop, turning back to see where I am at.
Never out of sight but out of reach.
Waiting for me to catch up to join them in frolic and play, ball throwing, field pouncing.
Moving on ahead when I catch up, but not too far again.
Just enough and still close.
Wide open fields.
Big horizons.
Deep blue sky.
Waiting, wandering, joy-seeking and finding.
All available to us each day.
I’ll meet you in the field.
And wait.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”― Rumi
“No one is so advanced in prayer that they do not have to return to the beginning.— St. Teresa of Avila
“the only way to survive the storms of the world is to shed all that is not essential, …the only way to survive inner storms is to let everything through.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity
Some will run.
Some will stay.
Some will wait.
Some will not.
No rules or regulations.
No counting or keeping track.
Gratitude and reverence for those who remain, reside, wait.
The journey is individual first.
Communal and universal next.
No map, signposts, or markers, nothing exact, predictable or precise.
One step at a time journey, each day new.
Grief is not a “fun” topic but each will go through it many times in a lifetime.
Called to be here now.
Awake and aware.
Writing and sharing is a vulnerable space.
Honesty is my only response.
Perhaps, it could be a gift, a foretelling, an invitation to communion, community, belonging.
Be present to the gifts that you are steeped in right now.
Life is both slow and fast.
Before to after in a beat.
Shed the nonessential.
Grief does not reside alone though.
Laughter, memories, tears, wonder, joy all woven through.
No shortcuts or bypasses, right up the middle.
Unfolding a step at a time.
Underlayment, grounded in hope, love and grace.
Cast light, especially now, when it means even more.
Unlacing and weaving something new.
In due time, a step at a time too.
“The great moments of living reside, not in banishing what goes wrong, but in unlacing trouble and weaving tapestries with the laces.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity
“Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.”― Joan Chittister
“Hope is an anchor dropped into the future. We feel you pulling us toward it once again.” – Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have
I saw the sun yesterday.
I noticed it, pausing a moment.
An altar.
An upward anchor, a kite, a grounding.
The little things are enough, overflowing actually.
At our feet, surrounding us, holding us.
In words, but mostly in silence, in sheer presence.
In waiting, watching, witnessing.
Winter rain through the night.
Hastening the melting of deep snow, softening of earth, precursor to green.
Notice. Awe. Wonder.
Grace enters and sits right beside you on one side, hope on the other.
Love remains.
Holy. Sacred. Steady.
“Love is holy because it is like grace–the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
“The practice of paying attention really does take time. Most of us move so quickly that our surroundings become no more than the blurred scenery we fly past on our way to somewhere else.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
“Reverence requires a certain pace. It requires a willingness to take detours, even side trips, which are not part of the original plan.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
Put the weight down.
No need to carry it every minute.
Remember laughter, laugh.
Remember fun, play.
Remember delight, enter.
Remember spring, bloom.
Remember hope, let it carry you.
Remember gratitude, the full view.
Remember joy, invoke it.
Cross thresholds, aware of footholds, break loose.
Pause here a bit, life will surely pull you back in.
Remain longer, lighter, changed, transformed.
Reverence, attention, wisdom.
“Wisdom atrophies if it is not walked on a regular basis.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
“According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, “Grow, grow.”” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
“Moses could have decided that he would come back tomorrow to see if the bush was still burning, when he had a little more time, only then he would not have been Moses. He would just have been a guy who got away with murder, without ever discovering what else his life might have been about. What made him Moses was his willingness to turn aside. Wherever else he was supposed to be going and whatever else he was supposed to be doing, he decided it could wait a minute. He parked the sheep and left the narrow path in order to take a closer look at a marvelous sight.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
Paying attention.
No rushing or hurrying.
Remaining and residing.
Not moving on or going back.
Staying in the present moment.
Paying attention.
Not distracted, delayed or racing to the next thing.
Paying attention.
In reverence, in awe, in struggle, in ease, in wonder.
Song of a bird.
Burning bush.
Blade of grass.
Waiting and wandering.
Paying attention.
Tuning out the noise to hear the whisper.
Grow. Grow. Grow.
In due time, not our time.
In due time.
Paying attention.
“The practice of paying attention is as simple as looking twice at people and things you might just as easily ignore. To see takes time, like having a friend takes time. It is as simple as turning off the television to learn the song of a single bird. Why should anyone do such things? I cannot imagine—unless one is weary of crossing days off the calendar with no sense of what makes the last day different from the next. Unless one is weary of acting in what feels more like a television commercial than a life.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
“May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you. May the luck of the Irish enfold you. May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.” – Irish Blessing
“May good luck be with you Wherever you go, and your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow. May your days be many and your troubles be few, May all God’s blessings descend upon you, May peace be within you, May your heart be strong, May you find what you’re seeking wherever you roam.” – Irish Blessing
See this day while you are in it.
Double blessing.
Awake in presence.
Relived in memory.
Use your words and silence well.
Life goes slow, then fast.
Drags and then flips on its head.
Beauty, love, joy woven through.
“May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.” – Irish Blessing
“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”― G.K. Chesterton
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” – Henri Nouwen
This past week, I’ve been running on sheer adrenaline. Last night, I felt the weight of the week fully and was both exhausted and so grateful. Gratitude and grief co-exist. We don’t get one or the other. There’s a menu of emotions we carry and walk with everyday in this life. There is not one simple answer or right way to do life other than to walk it out and do the very best you can with what you have in the moment.
A few reflections on the past few days of Mom’s wake and funeral.
We are loved, so was/is Mom.
Family and friends, old and new, came to witness and walk Mom home with us.
I will miss Mom and am grateful for the long life she shared with all of us.
She loved every single one of us. No one more but certainly all differently. She loved with specificity, not a broad brush. Never saying a bad word about anyone. We are all different and we have different relationships with each other. That’s good. It’s not a contest. It’s just love. Mom did that without measure or counting.
Let stuff go, quickly, don’t let it get a foothold.
Forgive and forget, learn the lesson, forget the experience.
Go to funerals and wakes.
Be present to witness, hold, laugh, cry.
Each one of us can be ministers to souls by simply showing up.
No words necessary, simple presence.
A long embrace.
Thank you deeply to all who did that for us this week.
Be optimistic, hopeful and light.
Love without condition or counting.
Anything less is not love.
A few things I wanted to say about Mom but didn’t when rushed and flustered by a different format than I expected at the wake:
Mom grew up on the east side of St. Paul with her brothers Don and Stan, mom Laura and Dad Jim. My Mom was 10 years old when her Mom died. She carried that cross every single day of her life. Through the years, Mom spoke often of going to Aunt Helen’s farm on Sundays. I imagine the first time that Aunt Helen told her to pick a chicken, Mom probably thought she was befriending an animal. Little did she know that “Henry” would soon be chicken and dumplings after Aunt Helen, who weighed 80 pounds wet, took an ax and outran the chicken. One night, her Aunt Rose heard a noise in the chicken coop. Rose picked up a rifle and headed into the dark to check it out.
Strong tough farm women. Raising Mom because her Mom was gone way too early. Tender steel. Mom carried those characteristics forward along with Aunt Helen’s Chicken and Dumplings recipe minus the chicken chase and ax, taking the shortcut picking up the chicken at Country Club or Red Owl.
So many times at funerals, we say, “I didn’t know that about (insert dead person).” So the final reflection that I will carry forward as I/we carry on without Mom at the table – listen, learn, get to know the people around you. Don’t assume the worst or judge. Love well and reach out. We are on this journey together. You never know what someone else is going through and the way you can find out is to ask, listen with your heart and merely love. Mom did that so very well. I will try my best to do that to carry her forward into my days ahead. Tender steel indeed.
“It is the narrowness of the riverbanks after all, that gives strength to the river.” – Rob Des Cotes
“Slow me down, God. Place your hand upon me and steady the racing of my heart. Take this weight from my shoulders, and pry these to-dos from my fingers. Deepen my breath and still my mind so that I can remember whose hands really do keep the stars hung in space.” — Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days
Right through the middle.
The only way through.
River bends, rapids, waves, calm waters.
No detours or shortcuts.
Gratitude and grief, roommates.
May I be present Lord in these next few days as we honor and celebrate Mom.
Make me like Mary ever present and not like Martha too busy to see what’s in front of her.
Amen.
“Blessed am I, beginning to recognize that my edges as well as my gifts can shape the natural contours of what is mine to hold, and mine to do. God will take care of all that you can’t, dear one. And you, too.”— Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days
“The servant who had received the two talents also came and said, ‘Master, you entrusted me with two talents. See, I have gained two more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master!”- Matthew 25:23
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
“No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
An adjustment.
A slight shift.
A new angle.
To get your imagination out of atrophy, revived and pumping.
To see the same in a different way.
Merging of the sacred and secular.
Finding the red X beneath our feet.
Standing in awe, wonder and gratitude.
May you experience even an ounce of this today.
And be changed.
“What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”— Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”― Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky’s Red River Gorge
“A LISTENING: Going through Lent is a listening. When we listen to the word, we hear where we are so blatantly unliving. If we listen to the word, and hallow it into our lives, we hear how we can so abundantly live again.” – Ann Weems, Kneeling in Jerusalem
Listening and hearing.
Watching and seeing.
Witnessing and awe.
A journey rather than race.
Being over doing.
Sabbath. Lent. Dailyness. Sacred.
Baffled to employment of the mind.
To wonder, wander, seek, ponder.
An essay not a math problem to be solved.
A question to be lived, often unanswered, the seeking continues.
Abundantly living each day, again and again.
One inch at a time.
What will this day reveal to you?
Listen.
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”― Wendell Berry
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott
