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Posts tagged ‘joy’

Apr 28

Tender Grace and Gratitude

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” – Henry Ward Beecher

“Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Longer hugs
Glance to deep gaze
Hearty laughter
Rapt attention
Overwhelming gratitude
Imperfectly beautiful and messy ordinary days
Phone call, text, check in for no reason
Connection and communion
Daily abiding, tending, holding
Slowing down to see the details
Kneeling in praise, awe, reverence
Sweet memories past and under under construction today, double blessing
Dark nights of the soul, the middle, the other side
Going through, getting through, striving to thriving
Faith, grace, trust, kindness, generosity, more laughter, yielding, listening
God woven through all of it, especially the small
Corners and crevices
Creator, companion, comedian, gardener, light bearer, weight carrier, friend
Notice your life today, each day anew
The stupid, frustrating, distractions, delays, delights, joys, gifts, pains in the ass, funny, poignant
It’s the road, not a detour
Love all of it while in it

10 years ago today, my Dad – best friend, leader of the pack, good man, really good, died unexpectedly
Yet, none of it should be unexpected
You never know how or when
Anticipatory grief steals time and joy
Do not miss this day and the people in it with you
Those gone ahead
Still ever present in different ways, shapes, forms
That’s what love does
Transcends time and space
Anchors and unbinds
Roots and flies
Transforms and travels
Twists and turns
Holds, carries and remains
Look behind and forward, but do not live there
Love well today – thoughts, words, deeds
Cast light.

“You see, love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not—and cannot—exist without the other. They are the yin and yang of our lives… Grief is predicated on our capacity to give and receive love. Some people choose not to love and so never grieve. If we allow ourselves the grace that comes with love, however, we must allow ourselves the grace that is required to mourn.” – Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph. D.

Apr 27

Spring’s Paintbrush

“Daffodils, blossom and tulips jostle to the front of the stage in April. I love these early perennials: they may be more modest but they nearly all have that one special quality that a plant needs to transform your affections from admiration to affection – charm.” – Monty Don

“There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.” – William Cullen Bryant

Join the rhythm, unfolding of the earth awakening
Greening and rooting
Colors pushing through, seeking the light
Renewal, refreshment, rejoicing
Put down winter
Pick up spring
Tiptoe through the tulips.

“April is a promise that May is bound to keep.” – Hal Borland

Apr 26

Sudden Lift

“Shall we do without hope? Some days
there will be none. But now
to the dry and dead woods floor
they come again, the first
flowers of the year, the assembly
of the faithful, the beautiful,
wholly given to being.”
― Wendell Berry, Leavings

“Bless the moment that catches you off guard—
a laugh, a moment of levity,
a sudden lift.

Bless the laughter that feels almost wrong,
and the delight that doesn’t match the circumstances.

May you notice all that is unnecessary and beautiful—
the ridiculous, the fleeting, the most-alive.

And when joy feels impossible,
may it find you (or you find it) anyway.” – Kate Bowler

Softly and tenderly
Brisk and bold
Light and easy
Solo to choir of flowers bursting in color and harmony
Ferocious love, feisty hope, sudden lifts of delight.
To find and be found.

“May we be…the ones who hold our opinions loosely and yet love ferociously.”― Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

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 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

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

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