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Posts tagged ‘Hope’

Sep 3

Holding Flowers

“In English we say ‘I’m tired.’ But in poetry we say I’ve been holding up entire skies with hands that were only ever meant to hold flowers.” – Sophia Bray

“Rest:
as beautiful and necessary a task as any.
How else can we remember to breathe?
to think?
to shut out the world?
to not think?
to regain the strength
to take on the world?
to take in the world
with all our senses?
to dream?”― Shellen Lubin

Endings and beginnings.
Holding hands.
Walking each other home.
Until one takes the lead.
As the other fades, falls behind, rests from work well done.
Sure to come again.
In due time and timing.
Entering familiar spaces with fresh eyes, new hope.
Holding flowers in all seasons.
Skies meant for gazing, not holding.

“Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Aug 28

Stubborn Gladness

“We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.”― Meister Eckhart

“We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.”― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven

Intuition, intention, trust
Seed, bud, bloom
Corners and crevices of delight
Ordinary and sameness transformed by presence and attention
To partake in the richness of this day
Free from analysis, measurement, comparison.
Living simply with gladness, grace, gratitude
Creation and re-creation.

“We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.”― Jack Gilbert, The Great Fires

Aug 25

Skybounding

“The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.”― Rumi

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Pull over.
Put down.
Look up.
Delight in this place and space.
Nowhere to be but here.

“Don’t keep searching for the truth; Just let go of your opinions.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Jul 28

Best Portion, Daily Tending

“the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”― Robert Louis Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books

Participate in this day
Tending, steeping, rooting
See the brilliance, abundance, delight
Woven in moments
Through simple acts
Attention
Kindness
Laughter
Noticing and embracing
What is already here
Tender and gentle
In the unfolding and becoming
Bloom under construction
Seed, bud, burst
One petal at a time.

“simply help people sit still long enough to see what is already there.”― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

Jul 22

All-Surrounding Grace

“You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.”― Denise Levertov

“The Avowal

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them;
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.”― Denise Levertov

To the shoreline
Of grace
Peace
Awe and wonder
A few yards away
Awaiting your arrival
To sit and be held
Made new
Witnessing presence.

“Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.”― Denise Levertov

Jul 15

Take the Long Cut

“Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you. – Anne Lamott

“When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.” – A Anne Lamott

Inches and hours
Anticipation and invitation
Attention and reverence
Take the long cut
Go off trail too.

“Nothing can be done but by inches. I write out my life hour by hour, word by word . . . imagining the existence of something uncreated this poem our lives.”― Adrienne Rich, Diving Into the Wreck

Jul 4

We the People…

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” – Preamble to the Constitution

“In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” – full Declaration of Independence

July 2, 2026
250 years young today.
Still learning, relearning, tripping, becoming, transforming.
Principles, history, future.
Work in progress.
Hope, grit, resilience.
Bigger than one person, one party.
United States of America.
We the people…
Happy Birthday!

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.” – Abigail Adams

Jun 28

1 Comment

Creation Speaks, Listen

“Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?”― Rumi

“These small moments of gentleness offer mercy and grace that we can touch, taste, and feel. And they recall the great hope underneath each moment of our lives: the hope that beauty will indeed save the world, that God, by his grace, will finally reestablish us and all things. Creation speaks its comfortable words over us.”— Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

Slightly gentler.
Oneness spilling into peace.
Layers and nuance.
Of beauty, grace, hope.
Abase and abound.
Duty of delight.

“We have many responsibilities in this life, but among them we must recall that we also have the blessed responsibility to take up those things that make life ever so slightly gentler.”— Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience

Jun 18

Bold, Bright, Heart

“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

“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

Revolution of the heart.
Bold, bright, beautiful.
Laying one brick at a time.
Growing in grace.
Hope abundant.
Work to do.
Thoughts, deeds, words.
Let them be rooted in love.
Cast light.

“The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them.”― Dorothy Day, All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day

Jun 8

Yield to Presence

“hope inspires the good to reveal itself.” – Emly Dickinson

“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.”― Emily Dickinson

Yield to presence
Merge with wonder
Submit to joy
Succumb to beauty
Relent in ease
Seed to bloom
Wait with patience
Flow like honey
Comingle with delight
Waltz with peace
Yield to presence

“Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured.”― Emily Dickinson

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