Tag Archives: beauty

off to the mountains

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I’m off to the mountains.
My soul longs to absorb the colors of the wild;
To sit in the presence of the mountain
And let it sink its roots into my heart.

The touch of that deep quiet has faded
And needs to be renewed
So that I, too, might be renewed.
The attention of my soul is too easily distracted
By the flash and dazzle of the market
And the vitriol and terror of the news.

So, I will sink my feet into the numbing cold of a stream
And let my soul sigh before a columbine.
I will relish the quiet conversation of friends
Whose voices carry the whisper of the divine.
I will remember the solid grace of solitude
And the gift of mutual interdependence.

I am grateful to be able to make such a pilgrimage,
In the company of others whose hearts are open to its peace.
There are no guarantees on the mountain,
Except that it is there – deeply, powerfully there,
And its gifts of beauty and grandeur and challenge and grace
Play upon the wind and call me to its depths.

I’m off to the mountains to store up images of hope
To feed my soul and smooth the edges of my anger
And give me a bit of grace to share.
I go in hope and confidence that it still has gifts to share;
That my heart will still be open;
That its terrible beauty will do its work in me, again.

I’m off to the mountains.

[so … no posts for a bit.]

The blessing of punctuation

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sunsetIt can help to mark the endings.
Otherwise, things run together
And meaning gets lost in the tangle
Of next, next, next.

We can lose sight of the full circle.
We can fail to recognize when something is finished;
Completed;
Done.

There is a quiet beauty in the sunset.
In the sigh at the end of the day.
It is a whispered permission
To let go what you cannot hold, anyway.

It is good to give it your best
And it is good to let that be enough.
That is when that period at the end of the day
Is, indeed, a blessing.

[photo by Sunny per cc 2.0]

creation

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tool of the creative

There is a joy in making something.

In watching something come together,
Even with a flaw or two
There can be a beauty that sneaks into the process.

There is a beauty in the motion, in the doing;
A beauty in entering the flow of an eternally creative God
And finding yourself part of creation –
Both noun and verb.

Nouns are easier to see …
But verbs! Ahhh.
That is where the action is.

[photo by Paralog per cc 2.0]

[my thanks to Richard Rohr for encouraging me to see the Trinity as loving action.]

my reflection

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reflection

They say I am made in the image of God.
It is true that I do have some beautiful feathers.
There is an iridescence in some of what I bring to the world.

Of course, there is also a strange awkwardness.
The image I present contains only the smallest hint of that Holy Three.
And when I study my own image, even that becomes blurred.

But none of that changes the gift of the creator
Which rests upon my being
And pours itself into the world.

Would that I could celebrate that gift and simply let it flow
Then, perhaps, I could turn my eyes from a static reflection,
Reflecting, instead, on the greater dance of love.

More than my own image is reflected in this pool.
Even looking down, I can see the trees, the sky.
If I look closely, I can see your smile.

[photo used with permission from Mike Bizeau’s beautiful blog – nature has no boss]

a tiny thread

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by a thread

Oh Holy One,
I am lost in the wilderness.
I cannot see your hand or sense your presence.
My faith is hanging by a thread.

Yet, I desperately want to believe.
Where is my anchor if you are not there?
Where is my hope?
How can I take even one more step?

I take the next step because of beauty –
How it calls to me when it lines up into a resonant whole;
How the pieces answer one another in harmony,
How its fractal presence unites the big and small.

I take the next step because of love –
Because my heart calls to you and is not satisfied until you answer
Because there is a hole that can be filled with nothing else
And so, I must believe, or else I die.

I take the next step because of hope –
And somehow I know that hope is born of you.
It is your continued call, your whisper of promise,
That urges my soul forward.

And, though I stumble,
Somehow, I fall into your arms.
You came to the wilderness before me
And wait to catch me, even here.

[photo by rouge per cc 2.0]

wonder’s dust

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sunset in Marathon

Praise to God, to God, to God
Praise to God, my soul!

I can wiggle my toes into the edges of the ocean,
but never plumb its depths.

I can tickle the skirt of the sky,
and let it wrap me round
and let it enter in at every breath,
but even imagination cannot examine its bounds.

I can lean me back in your love,
and wake my soul to ever-new delights,
but it is more, is more, is more
than I can grasp.

Instead, it grasps me
and holds me
and stirs me to praise.

The edges of wonder dust my days.

I praise
and in the praising, stretch my soul
to gather wonder’s dust in sheer delight of you.

9 29 11

[photo is my own]

Friendship’s grace

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tiny flowersI am in the mountains, in a high meadow, where the trail is clearly worn along one side. It leads my feet without much difficulty, few roots or rocks and no question of direction. That gives me the chance to catch the full beauty of the meadow, the tender plants that grow on marshy stems, where the moisture is gathered, green, into a living form; the vast expanse of plant after plant, dotted with small white flowers, ruffled by the fingers of the breeze.

Beauty opens my heart like a flower to the sun. Friendship shared in the presence of beauty is water at the roots. In that moment, the flower, itself, can acknowledge its own beauty as one indivisible part of the whole. And that wholeness is the heartbeat of beauty, itself.

I don’t know that I need some profound insight today. I need the presence of a friend to hold my hopes with me a while, to help me face my fears, my doubts, my failures and know that there is still a ‘me’ that makes them smile. They are not waiting for me to be perfect, and neither are you.  They delight in friendship’s dear embrace, where the beauty of each soul, reflected in the other’s eyes, is deeply known, confirmed, and grown.

[photo by Jessica Lucia per cc 2.0]

Pausing for Joy

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joy
This
This is the way forward:
For just a moment to release my fears
And to turn in grateful joy to notice the kindness around me
And to smile and give thanks for its presence
To point it out to others
And to laugh together in the sheer delight of such beauty.

Help me salt my days with the recognition of these simple gifts:
A sip of cool water or warm coffee,
Someone opening the door for me,
A kind word,
A silly joke,
A true hug.

You are still here among us.
You have not given up.
Nor will I.

Amen.

[photo by Riccardo Francesconi per cc 2.0]

leaning in

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interfaith momentThe intent of my soul toward my god.
The intent of your soul toward yours,
Finds us leaning deeply upon each other.
It makes me smile.

Neither of us have a handle on the almighty,
Neither can hold the Whole within our minds or hearts,
But when the spirits’s fruits grow up between us,
I count it as a confirmation.

[photo by United States Mission Geneva per cc 2.0]