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Posts tagged ‘Spring’

Mar 5

Lent Invitation, No One Excluded

“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.

“Joy and sorrow. Love and loss. Big wins and even bigger failures. We cling tightly to the beautiful moments, but then the phone rings, a diagnosis drops, or some creeping ache reminds us that everything—everything—is so much more fragile than we’d like to admit. Life can be too much. And Lent is the season where we sit in that heaviness. For 40 days, we stop pretending things will suddenly get better and face the truth: life is fragile, and so are we.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, when we hear the words no one really wants to say out loud: you are dust, and to dust you shall return. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you’d embroider on a pillow, but it’s a truth we need. Lent invites us to stop pretending we can hold it all together and instead sit with the weight of what we carry—the grief, the regrets, the messes we can’t untangle, no matter how much we try.” – Kate Bowler

Lent is my favorite season
Winter to spring
Desert to oasis
No glitter, fluff, the real stuff of life
Honest, fueled with meaning and purpose in the waiting
Overflowing with hope on the journey, twists and turns too
Resurrection at the end of the journey, always
No shortcuts, so worth the trip
No one “owns” Lent so dare to take the journey
God has been diminished, defined, limited, and boxed by many
God is here for each one of us and loves us like there’s only one of us
So much bigger than our small minds can comprehend and imagine
Kate Bowler has a wonderful devotional guide on Lent –https://katebowler.com/seasonal_devotional/the-hardest-part/

Stone rolling and resurrection air ahead.

“This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.” – Jan Richardson

Feb 27

Ordinary, Fresh Wonder

“We’re invited to pay attention to the enchanted world around us in a new way, to be open to the possibility of an encounter with God at every moment.”― Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder

“Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.”― Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Open the windows
Hair in the wind
Clear the clutter
Create space
Slow, yield, pause
For joy, wonder, enchantment, awe
In small, ordinary, daily moments
Rhythms, signposts, practices
Spring woven in winter
Open the windows
Ordinary, fresh wonder

“To experience the richness of life in God’s kingdom, we must reorder our lives. We need to see through the shallow promises of our culture, and we need rhythms, signposts, and practices that reorient us to another world.”― Mike Cosper, Recapturing the Wonder

Feb 18

All Things Counter

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” – Emily Levine

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.”

Winter to spring
Bloom bootcamp
Certain, brilliant, true
In the waiting
Colors plan
Fragrance plots
Hope roots deep
Inscape into order and purpose
Winter to spring.

“All the world is full of inscape and chance left free to act falls into an order as well as purpose.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

Feb 17

Dayspring Eastering

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

“ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

Flowers amongst the weeds
Sun behind the clouds
Love beneath the fear
Forefront and backdrop
Choosing beauty to feed and sustain
Transforming ordinary into extraordinary
With a tilt of the head
Opening of the heart
Arms outstretched
Charged with grandeur
Elected silence
Dayspring eastering.

“Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

Feb 4

Plentitude of Color

“Now shall I walk or shall I ride?
‘Ride,’ Pleasure said;
‘Walk,’ Joy replied.”
― W.H. Davies

“Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring.
The gray perished landscape is shorn of color.
Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged.
Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up.
Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return.
Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bud opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

Notes forming, taking shape to melody, spilling into symphony
Quiet to distant echoes of birds chorus
Bulbs shifting, preparing to bud
Chrysalis to butterfly
Beauty on every path
Walk softly, slowly with joyful intent
Colors asleep with imagination of brilliance to come
Winter well
Spring awaits our rested and renewed attention and awe
Symphony of renewal no longer reversible when seasons kiss.

“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”― George Eliot, Middlemarch

Dec 21

Inflection Point

“I need rituals that encourage me to embrace what is repetitive, ancient, and quiet. But what I crave is novelty and stimulation.”― Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life

“The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.” – Gary Zukav

Longest day of darkness.
Tipping point.
The start of light returning slowly.
Wintering to prepare for spring.
Do not bypass, resist, reject the gift of winter.
To pause, to slow, to rest.
Depth of time.
Gravity of presence.
Seasons, cycles, circles.
Cocoon to butterfly.
Seed to bloom.
Sun rise, sun set.
Inflection point.
The word solstice comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).
Stand still, new life unfolding.

“Both the Winter and the Summer Solstices are expressions of love. They show us the opposition of light and dark, expansion and contraction, that characterize our experiences in the Earth school so that we can recognize our options as we move through our lives.” – Gary Zukav

Dec 14

Repeated Refrains

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”― Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

“The way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.” – John O’Donohue, Benedictus

Nothing before
Nothing after
Today alone
To be here
Fully
Awake and aware
Walking lightly and softly
Fresh eyes, open arms, beating heart
Into knowing and unknowing
Discovery and delight
To witness, participate, observe
Driver and passenger
Journey of the ordinary
Transformation in the making

“Whimsy doesn’t care if you are the driver or the passenger; all that matters is that you are on your way.”― Bob Goff, Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World

Nov 23

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Spring Under Construction

“Snow creates that quality of awe in the face of a power greater than ours. It epitomises the aesthetic notion of the sublime, in which greatness and beauty couple to overcome you—a small, frail human—entirely.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bug opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.

The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.”― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

To enter winter.
Without resistance.
A welcoming.
Curiosity.
Quieting and preparation.
Softening and slowing.
The place, space, foothold of transformation.
Time and timing.
Spring under construction.

“Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

May 22

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Greening

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu

“Happiness? The color of it must be spring green” – Frances Mayes

Winter rest, spring rain, early summer sun.
The earth is greening.
Bursting, shouting, flourishing.
Made new, lush, alive.
Witness, partake, participate.
Abide here.
Bask in the glory of the blooming of this day.
Root, green, grow.

“The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.” – Henry Ward Beecher

May 2

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May in May

“The present is the closest that you will ever get to the future.”― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

MAY by Donna Ashworth

“May your days be filled with laughter.
May your chores complete themselves.
May your mind have time to wander.
To a sandy beach of shells.

May your morning stretch be graceful.
May your lunch be full of taste.
May your inspiration find you.
May no moment go to waste.

May your lonely days be lacking.
May your friendships linger strong.
May your thoughts be full of wonder.
May your worries all be gone.

May your money flow like water.
May your problems float away.
May your needs be met and more so.
May you wake to sunny days.

May you find the strength inside you.
May you learn to look within.
May you see yourself more kindly.
May that journey now begin.”

May you be open to invite the mays, the blessings, the gifts of May.
The month where spring takes center stage and bursts with color, vibrancy, life.
An cue, prompt, call to participate, partake, begin anew.
The threshold to summer ease.
May spring spring in you.
Reawaken, rebirth, transformation.
May you allow in amidst the dailyness of tasks, imperfection, challenges, grief, gratitude.
All held in love, kindness and grace.

“Perhaps some detours aren’t detours at all. Perhaps they are actually the path.”― Katherine Wolf, Hope Heals: A True Story of Overwhelming Loss and an Overcoming Love

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