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Posts tagged ‘Gratitude’

Apr 13

Joy Seeking and Finding

“Today, seek out one small moment of joy. Just one. Maybe it’s a raindrop on your window, a flower blooming against all odds, an unexpected smile, a hot mug warming your hands.” – Diane Shiffer

“Play is the complete absorption in something that doesn’t matter to the external world, but which matters completely to you. It’s an immersion in your own interests that becomes a feeling in itself, a potent emotion. Play is a disappearance into a space of our choosing, invisible to those outside the game. It is the pursuit of pure flow, a sandbox mind in which we can test new thoughts, new selves. It’s a form of symbolic living, a way to transpose one reality onto another and mine it for meaning. Play is a form of enchantment.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

One small moment of joy
Perhaps two too
Play, laughter, exploration
Full presence in this day
In the details
A tea bag steeping, full flavor
Mining for meaning
In slivers and slices
Windows open
Fresh air, soft breeze
Enchantment, grace, light
Paint the blank canvas of this day
One slow stroke at a time.

“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

Mar 27

Gathering Counterweights

“When we take ourselves too seriously, we are at the risk of taking other things, including God, too lightly,”― James J. Martin, Between Heaven and Mirth

“This is not a ‘silver lining’ situation, where pain and injustice are minimized for the sake of flimsy optimism or playing nice. It’s not even about hoarding our favorite things. We are not guaranteed to have those things within our reach. The practice of gathering counterweights is about creating moments of sustenance from the raw materials of what we’re given. It is about holding everything in honest tension. Both/and. Our counterweights help us move forward and breathe through the heaviness.” – Shannan Martin

Goodness
Kindness
Generosity
Delight
Laughter
Flowers
A smile
Asking
Listening
Art
Music
Movement
Joy
Frolic
Counterweights
To gather and hold
A sense of imperfect yet palpable balance, ease
Atune, awake, off autopilot
Run the race, marathon not sprint
To fight the good fight
Of love, gratitude, peace
Precisely and on purpose
In the middle of the mess, chaos, noise, uncertainty
Long game, resilience, grit, grace
Make the world a little softer today for yourself and others
Cast light.

“What on earth can we do to make this sad and beautiful world a little softer for everyone?”― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You

Mar 26

Benediction of Spring

“After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction.” ― Dan Simmons, Drood

“And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes and humming and scents and scents.”― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden

Cusp of spring.
Slivers and beams of things to come.
Of things already here.
Transition into transformation.
Close but not yet.
Bloom under construction.
Time and timing.
Confetti of color.
Souls of beautiful things.

“Surely the flowers of a hundred spring are simply the souls of beautiful things!”― L.M. Montgomery, The Watchman and Other Poems

Mar 23

Bringing to Life

“The natural world is built upon common motifs and patterns. Recognizing patterns in nature creates a map for locating yourself in change, and anticipation what is yet to come.”― Sharon Weil, ChangeAbility

“Tenderness is the art of personifying, of sharing feelings, and thus endlessly discovering similarities. Creating stories means constantly bringing things to life, giving an existence to all the tiny pieces of the world that are represented by human experiences, the situations people have endured and their memories. Tenderness personalizes everything to which it relates, making it possible to give it a voice, to give it the space and the time to come into existence, and to be expressed.” – Olga Tokarczuk

Easy to harden in this world.
To check out.
Autopilot.
Surface and skim.
Do not succumb.
Till the dry soil.
Let fresh air in.
Wander with wonder.
Anticipation, hope, joy, delight, tenderness, laughter, gentleness, enthusiasm.
Let beauty, light, grace in to awaken, abide, transform.
Easy threads weaving together the tapestry of this day.

“A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.”― George Herbert

Mar 22

Wide Awake Presence

“At other times I wake up from the half sleep I’d fallen into, and hazy images with poetical and unpredictable colours play out their silent show to my inattention.”― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“May today’s moments move you
to where love can reach you.
May a deep truth remind you
with each step.
May you grow where you are,
sending down roots into trusted truths,
to where love lives,
and beauty is wide awake.
Let your heart seek the one good step.
And then the next.
Movement.
That is the way.” – Kate Bowler

Pay attention.
Be tender.
Offer kindness.
Walk lightly.
Love well.
Small noticing, slivers of light, bold color.
Love well.

“We are light, sound, color, and form living a physical reality. Add the element of love and you have everything.”― Deborah Bravandt

Mar 18

2 Comments

Walking on Air

“Walk on air against your better judgement.”― Seamus Heaney

“Blessed are the noticers.
The ones who see the full story.
Blessed are the attenders.
The witness-bearers.
The story-holders.
The ones who tiptoe to the edge with us,
knowing that it will break their heart, too.
Choosing us anyway.
Blessed are those who are amazed
by a life lived in its fragility,
in its brevity, in its beauty.” – Kate Bowler

Daily noticing.
Tending.
Attention.
Abiding.
Rooting, weeding, uprooting.
Gratitude, grief, grace.
All, most, some.
In ordinary days.
In waiting, wading, weighting.
Timorous or bold, in between
More bold, walking on air.

“The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.”― Seamus Heaney

Mar 16

Bright Spark of Resurrection

“Nothing is yet in its true form.”― C.S. Lewis

Let There Always Be Light (Searching for Dark Matter)
by Rebecca Elson

“For this we go out dark nights, searching
For the dimmest stars,
For signs of unseen things:

To weigh us down.
To stop the universe
From rushing on and on
Into its own beyond
Till it exhausts itself and lies down cold,
Its last star going out.

Whatever they turn out to be,
Let there be swarms of them,
Enough for immortality,
Always a star where we can warm ourselves.

Let there be enough to bring it back
From its own edges,
To bring us all so close we ignite
The bright spark of resurrection.”

Sun in all seasons.
To warm, melt, guide.
Lighthouse to shore.
Gentle anchoring.
Wonder, awe, delight in unseen things.
Pay attention.
Ignite.
Seek light.
Cast light.

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe a moment that never was before and never will be again”― Pablo Casals

Mar 11

Try on Joy, You Look Good in that Color

“Blessed are we who are learning to hope.
And how to let go.
When to act.
And when to stop.
Holding together two irreconcilable truths:
that our lives are so valuable
precisely because we have much to fear
with much to love.” – Kate Bowler

“Blessed are we needing help waking up
to the music, the movement,
and the color of living,
who need help trying on joy instead.
The wonder of the daffodil,
the power of the tiniest seed,
cracked open and sprouting new life,
reaching, at its own pace, toward light.
Blooming.
Blessed are we who long to awake.
May we find the places where
beauty and love can reach us.
We’re ready for something new.” – Kate Bowler

Double blessings.
Grateful in real time and in memory.
To be exactly where we are and present on this day.
Whether mess or bliss.
Usually, a blender of both and mostly in between.
To let go of the illusion of someday when.
Entering now with vigor, delight, anticipation.
From muted, black and white to the brilliant color of living.
A day at a time.
Planting seeds, sprouting new life, spring in bloom.
Try on joy.
You look good in that color.

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”― Eric Hoffer

Mar 9

Anchor to the Sky

“Everything in life has a pattern and a coincidence is simply the moment when the pattern becomes briefly visible.”― Anthony Horowitz, Moonflower Murders

“Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.” – Kate DiCamillo

Comma, Period.
Hard stop.
Look up.
Steep in beauty.
Pause in wonder.
Anchor to the sky.
Root in awe.
Peace. Light. Love.

“the birds … own nothing–the reason they can fly”― Mary Oliver, Felicity

Mar 7

2 Comments

Grace, Grief, Gratitude

“…
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

“I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.
​
A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.
​
I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.
​
I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.
​
I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious
abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.
​
I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.” – Julia Fehrenbacher

Grace, grief, gratitude.
All at once.
In memories, in this moment
To be present.
To yield to joy.
To be at home.
On the ground of this day.
Abby and Sasha sitting by Mom’s chair.
Three years gone, yet everpresent in each day.
Grace, grief, gratitude.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

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