“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
In the economy of the day
Of a life which is made up of the accumulation of days
In what we choose to do and not to do
In plans, in detours, delays, and in what just happens
May each of us have a keen awareness of the details in the present as well as the 10,000 foot view to see the expanse
To be grateful, joyful, even in the struggles, especially then
Senses sharpened, awareness sharp, grace overflowing.
“God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting” — Meister Eckhart
“Agape is total love. It is the love that consumes the person who experiences it. Whoever knows and experiences agape learns that nothing else in the world is important – just love.― Paolo Coelho, The Pilgrimage
“To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else’s hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that “I’m only human” does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
Stop scrolling.
Start connecting.
Use the phone to call or text at least one person in your circle each day.
A check in to reconnect.
A text that leads to a regular call to an in person real conversation.
There’s a loneliness epidemic.
We are each other’s cure.
Love each day through action, simple as a text and phone call.
A smile to the human who is working three jobs to make ends meet who hands you overpriced coffee for underpriced work.
Family and friends closest to you who may be struggling.
Do not pass by without stopping to look, listen, inquire, listen some more.
Let’s regain our humanity.
In simple acts done lovingly.
Discover the joy in giving, thinking of yourself less, and making someone’s day.
Be fully human, beautiFULLY human today.
Be the garden where others can bloom.
Cast light.
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
“The connections we make in the course of a life–maybe that’s what heaven is.”― Fred Rogers
“There are three ways to ultimate success:
The first way is to be kind.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind.”― Fred Rogers
May kindness be the path you walk today.
With enthusiasm, with anticipation, with appreciation.
Saying “hi” to a neighbor.
Stopping to share a moment or two of connection.
The holy, sacred ground of love.
Give and receive, like breathing.
In and out.
Ebb and flow.
Yin and yang.
And all of it inbetween.
“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing–that when we look for what’s best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something sacred.”― Fred Rogers
“A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend.” — Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
“A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.” — Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale
For Moms
For women who love unconditionally, who may not be Moms for whatever reason
Those with us and those who have gone on ahead to wait for us, who remain in our hearts
Tough, resilient, soft, tender, unselfish, fierce, bold
Models of unconditional love, grace and light
To all of the women in our life who walk beside us on our journey
To all mothers who nurture, hold, seek peace but will fight when necessary, anchored in love and protection
Who teach us “Yes!” to life and love
Honored and revered today and each day
Happy Mother’s Day!
“It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.” – Maya Angelou
“But those who are able to distinguish between a range of various emotions “do much, much better at managing the ups and downs of ordinary existence than those who see everything in black and white.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
“You’ll lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold—but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott
This quote from Anne Lamott came in a weekly email from Grief Compass, a wonderful resource that has been helpful and free from platitudes, shoulds, processes/rules, black and white and move on already. Loss not only comes with death of a family member or friend. It comes from a change/loss of a job, a divorce, retirement, the kids leaving home, a 3 year pandemic, shifting relationships, disappointments woven through life.
All walk paths of grief. Each differently. Some avoiding, looking for the bypass. Some going through, right up the middle. Most a mix of it all. No one skipped or bypassed. This is where empathy, compassion and self-care come in to sit with us. And also, how we learn to dance again with a limp. Ever changed, different, broken open and moving back into the current of life, then back on the shore and then back in the river yet again.
If you are on the front-end of this journey, you are not alone. Sit with it, nothing to solve or fix. Reach out, find someone who will listen and sit with you. Grief is the cost of love. I would rather pay the price than to not love deeply and imperfectly. Love well today and dance, especially with a limp.
“This is one reason we need to dispel the myth that empathy is “walking in someone else’s shoes.” Rather than walking in your shoes, I need to learn how to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes and believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
“Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux
“You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Expectancy
Hope
Wonder
Love
Thoughts
Words
Actions
May love be a verb each day
In giving
In receiving
Moving mountains.
“It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.”― Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant
“the secret that our poets and philosophers have been trying to tell us for centuries, is that our longing is the great gateway to belonging.”― Susan Cain, Bittersweet
“In a world where perfectionism, pleasing, and proving are used as armor to protect our egos and our feelings, it takes a lot of courage to show up and be all in when we can’t control the outcome. It also takes discipline and self-awareness to understand what to share and with whom. Vulnerability is not oversharing, it’s sharing with people who have earned the right to hear our stories and our experiences. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
Show up.
Imperfect and authentic.
Salt and light.
Brilliant color, soft hue.
With energy and enthusiasm.
No permission or approval required.
Be yourself always.
As certain and welcome as the sunrise.
Keep showing up.
“when I’m prioritizing being liked over being free, I was much sweeter but less authentic. Now I’m kinder and less judgmental. But also firmer and more solid. Occasionally salty.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” – Martin Luther
“Here is the amazing thing about Easter; the Resurrection Sunday for Christians is this, that Christ in the dying moments on the cross gives us the greatest illustration of forgiveness possible.” – T. D. Jakes
The Lenten journey is complete.
Culminating in Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday.
Completed on Easter Sunday.
The third day.
On the fourth day, Monday, we are called to be Easter people.
And to continue on Tuesday, Wednesday…and each day before us.
As Father Malone advised at Sunday Easter mass, “leave the bandages.”
Jesus resurrected, left the burial dressing, the bandages behind in the empty tomb.
Calling us each to leave our bandages behind to become Easter people.
Our bandages of hurt, pain, offenses-both given and received, anger, unforgiveness, wounds, remorse, resentment, the past.
Put it all down.
Carry Easter forward.
Resurrection requires us to leave the old to become fully new.
May you accept the daily invitation to a peace that passes understanding, a hope unending, and love without limits.
“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.” – Pope Francis
“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”― Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła)
Easter morning.
New life.
About love beyond comprehension.
No boundaries, walls, only windows open wide.
A love without condition, denial, unforgiveness, resentment, demands, boasting, anger, fear.
Redemption.
Forgiveness.
Spring.
Resurrection.
Unfamiliar, unbelievable, incomprehensible.
Yet offered to each and all, no exceptions, exclusions, no small print rules and regulations.
Say “Yes!” to this offer of love.
Be renewed and freed from chains of the past and fear of the future.
Today, the tomb is empty.
Love, pure love is risen.
Happy, happy Easter.
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Saint Augustine
“When the world caves in Still my hope will cling To Your promise Where my courage ends Let my heart find strength In Your presence”― Hillsong
“On this Palm Sunday, time is marked as one small donkey plods toward Jerusalem. One with a face set like flint, feet almost grazing the ground, walks forward toward the eastering of all sorrow—not in the power of horses and swift victory, but in small, steady steps toward the mystery that through suffering, healing comes, that through shame, dignity is restored, that through the cross, powers are disarmed, and death done away with forever. Blessed are all those walking forward into the great, small work they do: in hospitals, homes, grocery stores, classrooms, churches, and cubicles. And blessed are we joining the crowds waving palm branches to shout ourselves hoarse: ‘Hosanna! Save us! Save our world!”— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days
A story of sticking, staying, love.
A love beyond comprehension, fathoming, understanding.
Requiring trust, imagination, faith, grace, expansion, mercy, peace.
To die for a good person is big, massive.
To die, suffer excruciatingly, be humiliated, denied, deserted and hated, carrying others sins not your own.
Unbelievable, and true.
That’s love to fall down for, to pause, to kneel, to revere for at least one week.
Can we do that?
That’s what Holy Week invites us to partake in, to participate in, to stop our busy lives for.
To wait in the garden and not fall asleep.
To not accept 30 silver coins to give up a friend.
To not deny your best friend three times, run away, and still become the cornerstone of the church.
Stay awake, accept no bribe, deny nothing.
From Ashes to Palms.
8 days to Easter.
Sacred holy ground.
Walk with reverence.
Watch with rapt attention.
Hope is in reaching distance and demands a lot this week.
Take up a cross to witness The Cross.
Transforming souls still to this day.
Get in line.
No religion. No rules. No regulations.
An invitation to everyone, not just some, self-righteous, rich, church-goers.
All are welcome.
“Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present.”― N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott
