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Posts tagged ‘Peace’

Jul 25

Absorb the Wonder

“Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-satiated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord’s amazing grace.”― Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

“I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.”― Etty Hillesum

Unplug
Shut down
Reboot
Sit in and with silence
Breathe in beauty
Soak up calm
Steep for flavor
Salt and light.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”― Anne Lamott

Jul 24

Slowly Born, Tending Peace

“To live is to be slowly born.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”― Etty Hillesum

Slowly born.
Each new day.
Intentions. Action. Inaction.
Observation and participation.
Deep breath.
Resting in pause.
Tending peace.

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.”― Etty Hillesum

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 21

Simple Shifts, New Roads

“Simple shifts in points of view can open doors to expansions of consciousness as easily as rigid dispositions can close hearts and minds to such elevated awareness. It generally depends on whether you allow fear and violence to rule your actions or whether you give wisdom, courage, and compassion the authority to do so.”― Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium

“So few people are really aware of their thoughts. Their minds run all over the place without their permission, and they go along for the ride unknowingly and without making a choice.”― Thomas M. Sterner, The Practicing Mind

A new path
A pause to observe, to inquire, to allow
Gentle welcome
Tender response
Agency, authority, capacity
To shift thoughts, direct energy, elevate awareness
Replenish and restore
Release and renew
Kindness and grace
Give and receive.

“No one can do more good for you than your well-directed mind.” – Buddha

Jul 20

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Open as the Sky

“Peace comes when our hearts are
open like the sky,
vast as the ocean.”
― Jack Kornfield

“With an undefended heart, we can fall in love with life over and over every day. We can become children of wonder, grateful to be walking on earth, grateful to belong with each other and to all of creation. We can find our true refuge in every moment, in every breath.” – Tara Brach

In the pause
In ordinary moments
In the hustle and hurry
Deep breath, open heart, light spirit
Wonder, gratitude, delight
May you find peace
May peace find you
The dance.

“The art of living is neither careless drifting on the one hand or fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consist in being completely sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.” – Allan Watts

Jul 18

Gracefully Flowing

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Many different strands of your past experience begin to weave together until gradually the new direction announces itself. Its voice is sure with the inevitability of the truth. When your life-decisions emerge in this way from the matrix of your experience, they warrant your trust and commitment. When you can choose in this way, you move gracefully within the deeper rhythm of your soul. The geography of your destiny is always clearer to the eye of your soul than to the intentions and needs of your surface mind.” – John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes

Deep waters.
Flowing with ease.
No forcing.
Nor turning back.
Rhythm of your soul.
Enter the waters.
Already in.

“Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.”― Richard Rohr

 

Jul 16

Follow the Arrows

 

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”― Rumi

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!”― Rumi

Steep and slow
Look up and around
Pause and listen
Perpetual blooming
Unfurling beauty
Signs and signals
Follow the arrows
Compass within.

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”― Rumi

Jul 12

Begin, Repeat, Delight

“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began” – Mary Oliver

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”― Mary Oliver

Good morning sunshine
Begin
And keep beginning
Again and again
New paths
Travel lightly
Grounded on grace
Sunrise to sunset
Abundance and awe.

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

Jul 10

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Flower Dust Sprinkles

“The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet… From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.”― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Mystery is the essence of divinity”― Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

Flower dust and divinity.
Color and delight.
Laughter spilling into joy.
Put on a new dress.
Breath in the morning air.
Peace, beauty, grace.
Journey of loving and living.
On the path of this day.

“There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.”― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Jul 9

Sonnet of this Day

“Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. – Mrs. Whatsit”― Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Made new each morning.
Minute, hour for the taking.
With a shift in thought.
A tilt of the head.
Listening, abiding, reverence.
Write your sonnet.
Of today.

“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.”― Madeleine L’Engle, Swiftly Tilting Planet

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