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Posts tagged ‘light’

Beams of Love

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.”― William Blake

“You can either practice being right or practice being kind.”― Anne Lamott

Kindness. Generosity. Hope. Joy. Laughter. Enthusiasm. Grace.
May these be the path I choose.
Daily.
To dare to bear the beams of love.
To be a beam.
Cast light.

“Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

At Any Time, All the Time, Light

“I don’t believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

“At any time you can ask yourself:
At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?
Where am I about to enter?
What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold?
What gift would enable me to do it?
A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.
Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up.
At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward.
The time has come to cross.” – John O’Donohue

Varieties of presence
Close up
Far away
Big
Small
Busy, over busy, distractions
Mostly in-between, a mix and muddle
Where sweetness lies, right next to grief, beside gratitude
Cloaked in grace, awe, wonder
For the taking and receiving
If we choose
Someday is now
Ordinary days
Steps leading to thresholds
Rarely aware walking it out
Slowly then suddenly
Breathe, witness, partake
Wherever you are on this leg of the journey
Slow, pause, stop
Look up and around
Beauty, light, hope, love
On the ground you stand
This very day.

“Poetry is life distilled.”― Gwendolyn Brooks

Building Bridges

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”― Joseph Fort Newton

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”― Bill Bullard

Less assumption, judgment, fear, indifference
More questions, listening, gentleness, humanity
Multiply rather than divide
Compound human interest
Invitation, welcoming, belonging
Kindness, compassion, peace
Build bridges
Make connections
Cast light

“We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.”― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Threads to Fabric, Weave

“Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.”― Thomas Mann

“Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.”― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Art
Laughter
Solitude
Connection
Reflection
Celebration
Reverence
Color
Hue
Light
Awe
Wonder
Weave these threads throughout each day
Fabric of ordinary to extraordinary
Giving birth to beauty, joy, peace.

“Solitude gives birth to the original in us.” – Thomas Mann

Inner Pause, Trail of Light

“Leave a trail of light behind you
Everywhere you go.
Whose darkness you’ll illuminate
You may never know.”― L.R. Knost

“Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.” – L.R. Knost

Freely
In abundance
Without reserve, measure, comparison
Be kind
Door opener
Gentle breeze
Dancer of hope
Bridges not walls
Hand holding and hugs
Make this day a better place and space
Offer peace, enthusiasm, delight
Leave a trail of joy
Cast light

“Patience is an inner pause, a brief stillness, a moment we give ourselves to breathe through our initial reaction so we can move to the place where a calm, thoughtful response is born. Patience is a gift of time we give ourselves so we can give the gift of peace to others.”― L.R. Knost

Birthday Reflections and Gratitude

“Now is the time to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.
Open your eyes and see the friends,
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encouraging you to live everything here.
See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.” – John O’Donohue

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life.” – Mary Oliver

Happy Birthday to me and 9th Birthday to Abby, my birthday buddy.
Blessed with family, friends, love.
Sharing a few of my favorite things … poetry, quotes, reflections.
“What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
And to stay in the arena, striving, coming up short, with great enthusiasm, devotion daring greatly.
Awaken to the wonder of life.
To stay awake each day with inquiry and curiosity.
To keep unlearning, relearning, growing, becoming, no matter age.
Reflection and presence.
Kindness and generosity of spirit.
Hope, resilience and peace that passes understanding.
Grace, gratitude, laughter, slowing, savoring,  joy, delight.
Deepening faith and trust in God’s plan, not my own.
With reverence, wonder, awe.
Seeking wisdom rather than knowledge.
Joy on the journey wherever it leads.
To celebrate each day.
And most of all, cast light.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”― Theodore Roosevelt

Rhythm, Light, Grace

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. ”― Mary Oliver

“If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm.
If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings.
Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us.
We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.”
– John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

May you hear your own voice
Allow others too
Conversation, exchange, dance
Inquiry, quieting, listening
Allowing, inviting, welcoming
To not know everything
Creating space for unlearning, relearning, growth
Standing on this ground, blessed and blessing
Grace, light, homecoming.

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Aperture Adjustment

“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” – Theodore Roethke

“Within you is the light of a thousand suns.” — Robert Adams

The lens aperture is the adjustable opening within a camera lens that controls the amount of light reaching the image sensor.
Measured in f-stops, a smaller f-number indicates a larger aperture, allowing more light in.
Less is more.
Slow down.
Reflect.
Focus on today.
Adjust the aperture.
Let the light in.
Beauty and joy too.

“Love is not consolation. It is light.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Be a Lighthouse

“Stop trying to change reality by eliminating complexity.”― David Whyte

“Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice.
This voice distrusts the status quo.
It sounds out the falsity in things and encourages dissent from the images things tend to assume.
It underlines the secret crevices where the surface has become strained.
It advises distance and opens up a new perspective through which the concealed meaning of a situation might emerge.
The inner voice makes any complicity uneasy.
Its intention is to keep the heart clean and clear.
This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or known to others outside.
It receives little attention and is not usually highlighted among a person’s qualities.
Yet so much depends on that small voice.
The truth of its whisper marks the line between honor and egoism, kindness and chaos.
In extreme situations, which have been emptied of all shelter and tenderness, that small voice whispers from somewhere beyond and encourages the heart to hold out for dignity, respect, beauty and love.”
– John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Soft whisper
Listen
Tender heart
Gentle soul
Smiling spirit
Be kind
Invite and embrace
Assume that you don’t know
Dive below the surface
Ask and tend
Hold out for dignity, respect, beauty, love
For one and all
Change the world
One small act at a time
Cast light

“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.”― Joanna R. Macy

Bridges, Hands, Light

“Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.”― L.R. Knost

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”― L.R. Knost

Arm-chair quarterbacks.
Backseat drivers.
Critics and cynics.
The loudest voices.
The non-doers.
The easy path.
Do the hard work.
Contribute, create, add, multiply.
Bridge building.
Hand holding
Light bringing.
Peace is possible.
Always starts within.
The world awaits your generosity, kindness and light.
Heed the higher call.

“Leave a trail of light behind you
Everywhere you go.
Whose darkness you’ll illuminate
You may never know.”― L.R. Knost