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Posts tagged ‘Hope’

Sep 26

The Fruit of Joy

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor.” ― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Make stillness a part of your daily journey.
Witness and savor.
Slow and pause.
Allow still points through the day.
To awaken.
To be in awe.
Inquiry, attunement, flow.
The rhythm and dance that resides beneath busy, noise and chaos.
The utility and necessity of beauty, color, light.
Not luxuries but necessities.
Not in far off places.
Just beneath, above, around and within you.
Right now.
Go there and join yourself for a bit with wonder and delight.
The fruit of joy.

“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” – Saint Augustine

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 23

The First, Middle and Final Word

“The final word is love.”― Dorothy Day

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?”― Dorothy Day

May you choose love this day.
In thoughts, words, actions.
Kindness.
Generosity.
Joy.
Hope.
Enthusiasm.
Laughter.
Wonder
Awe.
Delight.
In a smile.
In a conversation.
In your “to-do” list activities.
In play.
Love is both the path and the destination.
The bridge that brings us together.
One step and then the next to create a revolution of your heart.
This is the only way the world will change.
One heart at a time.
Starting with your own.

“People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.”― Dorothy Day

Sep 22

Taking in the Good

“Beauty is that in the presence of which we feel more alive.”― Krista Tippett

“Taking in the good, whenever and wherever we find it, gives us new eyes for seeing and living.”― Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

In this day.
Wake up your senses.
See beauty.
Drink in good.
Taste delight.
Color. Fresh air. Sweet fragrance.
Laughter. Light. Joy.
All withing reach.
Let them into your bones.
Strengthen your heart.
Lift your spirit.
Take in the good.

“Hope is an orientation, an insistence on wresting wisdom and joy from the endlessly fickle fabric of space and time.”― Krista Tippett

Sep 16

Life Unfolding

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody. The good life is joyful… and challenging. Full of love, but also pain. And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It includes turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements,”― Robert Waldinger, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

May joy be yours today.
In drops, in waves, in calm waters.
Hope, grace, peace come in ordinary ways.
Seek them.
Let them find you.
Give them away with abandon.
Life unfolding a day at a time.

“We live in all we seek.”― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

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

Sep 3

Broad Places

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”― Henri Matisse

“Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.” – Psalm 118:5

In the struggles, the holes, the waiting, there is a broad place.
Where simple beauty, deep joy and hope resides.
Beneath the surface of fleeting feelings, flat assumptions and empty opinions.
Awaiting our arrival.
Inviting rest, ease, quiet.
See both flowers and weeds today.
Gaze longer at the flowers.
The current is moving.
The seeds are breaking open.
Life unfolding in each moment.
Blooming in the broad places and thin spaces of now.

“One day you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.” – Morgan Harper Nichols

Aug 31

Said the Butterfly

“Don’t be afraid. Change is such a beautiful thing”, said the Butterfly.”― Sabrina Newby

“How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?”― Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

May you find the resolve to lay down the past to pick up the present.
Moving lighter into this day.
Hearing the soft voice that calls you home to yourself and the world anew.
To anticipate the possibility rather than fear of the future.
Embracing change, trusting the process of transformation.
Especially in cocoon times.
Change is a beautiful thing as butterflies prove again and again.
Lighten up.

“Caterpillars can fly, if they just lighten up.”― Scott J. Simmerman Ph.D.

Aug 29

Ministry of Presence

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”― Rumi

“We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don’t know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don’t compare. The sensitive person understands that each person’s ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else’s. Next, they do the practical things–making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don’t try to minimize what is going on. They don’t attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don’t say that the pain is all for the best. They don’t search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don’t bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct.”― David Brooks, The Road to Character

Show up.
Be present for others.
Reach out to those struggling.
Go beyond self to connection.
Nothing to say or do.
A ministry of presence.
Acts of love.
That’s your purpose, our purpose.
To be human and spread it.
A kindness pandemic.
One we never want to recover from.
A lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder.
A generosity of spirit in action.
A lighthouse moving into the world.

“Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.”― David Brooks, The Road to Character

Aug 28

In and Through Us

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
― Louisa May Alcott

“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”― John Muir

A new week.
The last week of August.
Summer’s dance with fall.
Seasons. Transitions. Harvest.
Start. Middle. Finish.
Repeat. Grow. Change.
Enter the rhythm and flow.
Become apart of it rather than lamenting or fighting it.
The gift of joy given freely in beauty, seasons, celebration of ordinary days.

“Joy is not produced because others praise you. Joy emanates unbidden and unforced. Joy comes as a gift when you least expect it. At those fleeting moments you know why you were put here and what truth you serve. You may not feel giddy at those moments, you may not hear the orchestra’s delirious swell or see flashes of crimson and gold, but you will feel a satisfaction, a silence, a peace—a hush. Those moments are the blessings and the signs of a beautiful life.”― David Brooks, The Road to Character

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