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Posts tagged ‘joy’

Apr 25

A Lamp, A Lifeboat, A Ladder

“Meaning springs from belonging.”― David Steindl-Rast

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

Get out of your head and into the world.
We can do something to change things for the better.
Our shared calling, purpose.
Simple acts.
Kindness, laughter, joy, generosity, enthusiasm, a smile, a call, a text.
Love in action daily, with intention and abandon.
That is the only way we change the world and ourselves in the process.
Love multiples, animates, expands, deepens, invites, welcomes, embraces, accompanies, listens, carries, holds, amplifies.
Go out and love others today.
A lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder.

“God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.”― Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

Apr 23

The Spring of Things

“Seeds emerge as small plants when they break through their shell and reach for the sun, growing past the soil that has nurtured them. When flowers are ready they open to the light. In nature, growth is normal and natural. The same is true for us. We’re intended to stretch past who we perceive ourselves to be to grow into the glory of who we truly are.” – Rev Jane Beach

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches–
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead–
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging–

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted–

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.”

Revel in the spring of things.
Flowers making their grand entrance to center stage.
The sun rise earlier, lingering later too.
The earth waking up each day calling all to anchor feet, raise arms.
A celebration of flourishing.
Winter to spring.
Hope fulfilled.
Vibrancy, color, beauty.
Without and within.
The dance of the spring of all things.
Dance.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”― Maya Angelou

Apr 22

Clear Joy

“For we live in the kingdom of joy.
Do not give your heart to anything else
But to the love of those who are clear joy,
Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.” – Rumi

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”― Rumi

In the crack and crevices.
Thin spaces.
Wide places.
At your feet.
In between.
Beginnings, ends.
Fits and starts.
Amidst the ordinary.
Slivers and whole.
Beauty, light, color, brilliance.
Pause to anchor, root, prepare for flight.
Clear joy.

“Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”― Rumi

Apr 20

In Action

“The measure of love is to love without measure.”― Francis de Sales

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”― Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

You are loved.
Give it away.
Multiply, amplify, animate.
Pass it forward, backward, sideways, inward, outward.
Words, embraces, thoughts, kindness, laughter, generosity, joy, awe and wonder.
Put love in action today.
Game changer.

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.”― Saint Francis De Sales

Apr 18

Belonging and Beloved

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”― Brene Brown

You belong.
That doesn’t require fitting in everywhere and with everyone.
Nor perfection or completeness.
Being you is the only requirement.
Wherever you are at on whatever path behind or ahead, you are loved.
Keep blooming into the flower that you are becoming each day.
Rooting deep in your own uniqueness, hue, nuance and color.
Be kind, love and find joy right where you are planted.
Infinite light.
You are loved.
You belong.

“Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness

Apr 17

Path Making

The Path by Lynn Ungar

“Life, the saying goes, is a journey,
and who could argue with that?
We’ve all experienced the surprising turns,
the nearly-impassible swamp, the meadow
of flowers that turned out not to be quite
so blissful and benign as we first thought,
the crest of the hill where the road
smoothed out and sloped toward home.

Our job, we say, is to remain faithful
to the path before us. Which is an assumption
as common as it is absurd.
Really? Look ahead. What do you see?
If there is a path marked out in front of you
it was almost certainly laid down for someone else.
The path only unfolds behind us,
our steps themselves laying down the road.
You can look back and see the sign posts—
the ones you followed and the ones you missed—
but there are no markers for what lies ahead.

You can tell the story of how
you forded the stream or got lost
on the short cut that wasn’t,
how you trekked your way to courage or a heart,
but all of that comes after the fact.

There is no road ahead.
There is only the walking,
the tales we weave of our adventures,
and the songs we sing
to call our companions on.”

Look back.
Progress, overcoming, grief, gratitude, clarity, weaving, connecting, growth.
Paths we didn’t choose yet took and arrived to this day.
Keep paving, laying the bricks down going forward.
Glance behind but forge ahead.
You are in the road construction business.
New paths to cut, smooth, travel.
Create your path, expect detours, delays, rerouting.
And keep going.
Bricks in the steps.

Apr 12

1 Comment

Undone

The Sun by Mary Oliver
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Efficiency
Progress
Checklists
Speed
Grind
More, more, more
Never enough
Multi-tasking
Getting ahead
Hacks
Shortcuts
Formulas
3 easy steps
The race

To where?
Why?
Are we having fun?

Things need to get done.
Many things do not need to get done.
Choosing where to put energy, effort, attention is where our power lies.
Relationships, generosity, kindness, asking, listening, empathy, meaning, purpose, joy, delight, laughter, frolic, presence, fully aware, awake and in awe.
May you choose to undo as often as do.
Putting down, creating space, stillness, rest, reflection, fun, wandering, lost in time for a bit.
Depth more than width.
Gratitude over gripping.
Turtle pace to see the view.
Joy, beauty, slowness, engagement, enthusiasm, energy and light.
May all of these be yours in both the doing and undoing.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.”― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Apr 7

On What Matters

“There are two ways to do anything. We can do it in order to make life better for me, or we can do it in order to make life better for someone else, as well as for me. The first way gets the thing done; the second way gets the thing done and makes life a sacrament.” – Joan Chittister

“My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.”

May I go further than merely getting things done.
Creating never-ending lists of to dos.
Plans, steps, short-cuts, hacks, tips and tricks.
Making my days transactional.
Progress, efficiency, speed, one-dimensional, flat, no flavor, skimming the surface.
Deep into being, becoming, wonder, enough and overflowing, grateful even in the chaos and incompleteness, joy, relationships, connection, presence, laughter, inquiry, emergence, clarity, guidance, awe, reverence.
Daily living as a sacrament, altar, liturgy, offering, holy ground.
The rigorous fulfilling work of loving the world.

“Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.”― Elizabeth Lesser, The Seeker’s Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure

Apr 2

1 Comment

Yeah, It was Fun!

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” – Dr. Seuss

“As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off.
Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance.
Having a sense of humor saves you.”― Joseph Campbell

Off leash.
Open field.
Two deer in the distance.
Chase ensues.
Deer escape.
Pursuit the point.
Fun had, a face full.
In all of the doing.
The checklists and chores.
Obligations and adulting.
Stop.
Go off trail.
Have fun.
Weave frolic, laughter and joy into each day without fail.
May humor, adventure and awe be the mud you roll in today.

 The Sweetness of Dogs by Mary Oliver

“What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. It’s full tonight.
So we go

and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit, myself

thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up into
my face. As though I were just as wonderful
as the perfect moon.”

Apr 1

1 Comment

The Case for Hope

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”― Nicolas Chamfort

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

When cynicism, criticism and incivility grow loud and try to rule.
Do not partake.
Do not succumb.
We fight the good fight for those who come after.
Planting trees we’ll never see.
Five energetic, bright-eyed happy boys, overflowing with joy and laughter.
The case for hope.
Children on Easter Sunday morning.
The reason to keep planting.
Fight the good fight of optimism, joy, hope, peace, laughter, light and love.
Bountiful and beautiful harvest.

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”― Emily Dickinson

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