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Posts tagged ‘Hope’

Apr 21

Uprising to Light

“Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.”― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry

“The new dawn blooms as we free it,
For there is always light,
If only we’re brave enough to see it,
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
― Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb

Spring calls us to join in
To green up, bud
To shed the old, make room for new
To take hold of fresh bloom
Join in the uprising
Let some string out
Take flight
See it
Be it
Cast light.

“The first bud of spring sings the other seeds into joining her uprising.”― Amanda Gorman

Apr 17

Spring Pregame

“…small bits of our day are profoundly meaningful
because they are the site of our worship. The crucible of our formation is in the monotony of our daily routines.”
― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“Seek out each day as many as possible of the small joys, and thriftily save up the larger, more demanding pleasures for holidays and appropriate hours. It is the small joys first of all that are granted us for recreation, for daily relief and disburdenment, not the great ones.” – Hermann Hesse

Soak in spring pregame.
Starting line.
Lilacs shedding the old, budding the new.
Pregame for the Super Bowl of bloom.
Blue skies.
Soft breeze.
Warm sun.
Greening and colors ready to burst on the scene.
Ordinary love, crucible, liturgy of ordinary transforming.
Gather small bits, crevices, cracks, slivers of joy.
Cast them back out.

“Ordinary love, anonymous and unnoticed as it is, is the substance of peace on earth, the currency of God’s grace in our daily life.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

Apr 16

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Little Joys, Big Life Woven

“I would simply like to reclaim an old and, alas, quite unfashionable private formula: Moderate enjoyment is double enjoyment. And: Do not overlook the little joys!” – Hermann Hesse

“In a world pocked by cynicism and pummeled by devastating news, to find joy for oneself and spark it in others, to find hope for oneself and spark it in others, is nothing less than a countercultural act of courage and resistance. This is not a matter of denying reality — it is a matter of discovering a parallel reality where joy and hope are equally valid ways of being. To live there is to live enchanted with the underlying wonder of reality, beneath the frightful stories we tell ourselves and are told about it.” – Maria Popova

Whisper of a breeze
Warmth of sun
Delight of flowers
Play of children
River flow
Trees in praise
Blue sky brilliance
Movement of song, dance
Embrace of presence spilling into amazement
In the knitting of small joys, big life woven
For the sense and senses to partake.

“[There are] many other small joys, perhaps the especially delightful one of smelling a flower or a piece of fruit, of listening to one’s own or others’ voices, of hearkening to the prattle of children. And a tune being hummed or whistled in the distance, and a thousand other tiny things from which one can weave a bright necklace of little pleasures for one’s life.” – Hermann Hesse

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 6

A Little More String

“You will find truth more quickly through delight than gravity. Let out a little more string on your kite.” – Alan Cohen

“Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!” – Song lyrics by David Tomlinson and Dick Van Dyke, Mary Poppins

Like Christmas, Easter is a season not a day, a mere occurrence
A way to live, love, be
A daily choice
To begin again
To hope, imagine, delight
Still tethered and held
And soaring with fresh joy.
Let out a little more string.

“The great gift of Easter is hope.” — Basil C. Hume

Apr 5

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Gardener of Souls, Lilies Spring to New Life

And the Glory by Ann Weems
“The silence breaks into morning.
That One Star lights the world.
The lily springs to life and
not even Solomon …
Let it begin with singing
and never end!
Oh, angels, quit your lamenting!
Oh, pilgrims,
upon your knees in tearful prayer,
rise up
and take your hearts
and run!
We who were no people
are named anew
God’s eople,
for he who was no more
is forevermore.”

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”― G.K. Chesterton

Desert to garden.
Good Friday Cross to Sunday empty tomb.
The Gardener meets Mary, a woman, who walked all the way through.
Saved by love.
To this very day.
To receive and give.
With grace and joy.
To pass it on.
As it was given.
Unconditionally and overflowing.
Again and again.
Love prevails, carries through, on, forward.
Happy Easter.
Cast light.

“This is an invitation,
a choice,
a threshold, a gate.

This is your life
calling to you
from a place
you could never
have dreamed,
but now that you
have glimpsed its edge,
you cannot imagine
choosing any other way.

So let the tears come
as anointing,
as consecration,
and then
let them go.

Let this blessing
gather itself around you.

Let it give you
what you will need
for this journey.

You will not remember
the words—
they do not matter.

All you need to remember
is how it sounded
when you stood
in the place of death
and heard the living
call your name.”
—Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Apr 4

Grace. Love. Light

“As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, may your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills. When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance, may your imagination continue to evoke horizons.” – John O’Donohue

“Grace doesn’t add up
it sits with betrayers,
washes the feet of backstabbers,
breaks bread with the disloyal,
and shares a cup with double-dealers.

Blessed are you when guarantees slip,
as love shows becomes costly,
asking for everything and promising nothing.

May you see beauty in this sacrifice,
love that begs us to keep loving,
even as hearts are broken.

Blessed are you, remembering,
when forgetting feels easier,
that in this undoing,
the world is being remade.” – Kate Bowler

Hope. Grace. Love.
Horizons. Tomorrow. Light.
Redemption. Resurrection. Easter.

“In vain we search the heavens high above, The God of love is kneeling at our feet. Though we betray him, though it is the night, He meets us here and loves us into light.”― Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons

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 31

Sweet Defiant Hope

“how shall there be redemption and resurrection unless there has been a great sorrow? And isn’t struggle and rising the real work of our lives? Maybe in ten more years I will have another idea. Meanwhile I know this: evil is one part of our beautiful world. And though my writing pays it small attention, I am not blinkered; I, too, have been forced to stand close to it, and have felt the almost muscular agony of impotence before it, unable to interfere or assuage or do anything effective. Though I do—oh yes I do—believe the soul is improvable. Oh sweet and defiant hope!”― Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems

“Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Sweet defiant hope.
Gritty tough joy.
Struggle and rising.
Scaffolding and anchors.
Good bones.
Redemption and resurrection.
Light breaking through, again and again.
Love, the question and the answer, the journey and the destination.
Our daily work…
To make this place beautiful.

“Stop calling your heart broken; your heart works just fine. If you are feeling–love, anger, gratitude, grief–it is because your heart is doing its work. Let it.”― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

Mar 30

Desert Bloom, Spring Hope

“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime.” – Martin Luther

“May we anchor ourselves to the now.
Not allowing our minds skip to what-ifs
or what-will-happen-whens.
Blessed are you trying to put aside
the “everything is possible” mentality.
You who know that sheer effort
will not put these pieces back together.
You who have lost perfection,
and found rest in “good enough” instead.
One small step,
one deep breath,
at a time.” – Kate Bowler

Amidst dried leaves and pine needles, softening ground
First buds push to light
Bloom breaks through, small but mighty
Spring, newness, resurrection
Winter to spring
One step, one breath at a time
Desert bloom.

“For no miracle disturbed them so much as that of Lazarus.” – St. John Chrysostom

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