Tag Archives: beauty

Like a Child

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blowing a bubble

To enter the kingdom of heaven, turn and become like a child. (see Matthew 18: 2-4)

This morning, I am a child.

I see the world with child’s eyes.
I hear the rumble of thunder
And remember being snuggled in my mother’s lap
Looking out the big windows of my childhood home
Counting the seconds between flash and sound.

When the skies clear a bit,
I run outside to play in the mud
Fascinated that a little moisture can turn dirt
Into something to be molded and shaped
Making ant highways with a twig.

And when one of those ants stings my finger
I run back in to find my comfort in a hug.
A kiss and a smile are deep medicine for my soul.
This anchoring process – going out and coming back
Stitches my days with love and adventure.

She blows the hair back from my face
And gives me bubble-soap and a wand.
I run out again to fill my world
With tiny orbs of dancing, translucent color,
My breath within them carried high.

This is, indeed, the kingdom of heaven.
Held in comfort, sent in wonder,
Coming and going, both anchored in love.
Feeling God’s breath upon my face
Breathing it back into the world.

I am grateful this morning
For a moment of childlike grace.
For the whisper of your consolation
For your gifts of beauty
For the burst of life within my soul.

[photo by Stuart per cc 2.0]

Are there two Christianities?

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twoYeah, I know there are lots of denominations … and non-denominations. I know that everyone of us holds life with different hands. But it seems to me, of late, that there are two main branches. One is worried about the sorry state of our souls and the world at large. One sees beauty and the imprint of grace in each encounter. One sees the foundational story of the world as ‘the fall.’ One looks a bit earlier to ‘God saw that it was good.’

My soul has gravitated … or perhaps fled … to the hope of beauty. It has fled to the assurance of God’s creative love, to a redemption that does not deny that things can get ugly – but knows that everything, everything can be turned to good – that ‘all things’ can be turned to work in that direction. In fact, that all things are in the hands of one who can do – is doing – that turning. That ‘all manner of things will be well.’

Is it my own state of privilege that allows me the luxury of that view? Is it that I have not suffered the abuse that makes the ugly so evident? Is it that I have not borne the scars of hate upon my soul?

The thing that mitigates against the conclusion that this hope is a privileged mirage – is the cross. There is no travesty that can keep God’s love at bay. God loves the world that murdered the son. The son promised immediate paradise to the one who hung beside him – and prayed forgiveness to those who drove the nails.

There are some basics, here – faith, hope and love – these three.

The basics do not include guilt or fear. In fact, the trio, above, works to mitigate the fears that would hold me captive. Perfect love, you know, casts out fear. Faith is counted as righteousness.  Hope does not disappoint.

The starting point of my faith is not ‘all have sinned,’ as true as that may be. Instead my faith is born in ‘nothing can separate us.’

[photo by Rev Stan per cc 2.0]

Resurrection of hope

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sunrise

These words, whispered in my ear this morning:

Do you see, my little one,
The ribbon of red along the horizon?
Do you feel the rush of mystery,
Touched by the fingers of the sun as it rises?

Do you not know, deep in your soul, that my love for you
Is too deep for hope to be forever lost?
Take heart. Take my heart.
My hope for you will not stay in the tomb.
My hope for this world cannot be contained.
There is no crucible from which it cannot rise.

The depth of pain,
The nails of hate,
Even the denial of friends
Cannot hold the folds of darkness so firmly
That they refuse the new day,
Which is rising, even now.

And so, here is my blessing for you, this Easter morning:

May you rise from the many deaths you have encountered, strong and full and free
For this is the path I have opened for you.
My you hold my light of hope for the world to see.
May your fingers join the sun in searching out the mystery.
May you grasp hope as your talisman, as the abiding assurance of my love
That each day, each day, reaches out to you from the far horizon.

It is time for a resurrection.

Take it into your heart,
That I might live in you
That you might live in this world
And live it into resurrection, too.

[edited from photo by Sean MacEntee per cc 2.0]
[see also DONE! and Done]

magnificent heart

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spring flowers

 

We are silly little creatures.
Why would you concern yourself with us?
Why turn your magnificent heart toward such tiny trinkets?

 

It’s not the pull of the trinkets.
It’s the nature of your magnificent heart
To touch the soul of each little thing
And bring it to
Its full and glorious self.

Life calls to life.
Love calls to love.
Beauty calls to beauty.
You call to me.

[photo by Mike Bizeau from his wonderful photo blog, Nature has no Boss, used with permission]

The prayer of touch

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a touch of green“Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.”             – St. Francis of Assisi

You might try it today.
Touch with intention.
Draw in the wonder around you.

Let your fingers experience
The flow of life
The beauty of being.

Connect your soul.
Through touch
And rejoice.

It is.
You are.
I Am.

Amen.

[quotation of St. Francis of Assisi, p. 40, in Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinski]
[photo by Jens Dahlia per cc 2.0]

A generous understanding

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eyes filled with wonderPhysics is right.
The way you look at things makes all the difference.
The looking, itself, changes reality.

When I look with generous eyes,
Willing to see wonder,
Searching for hope,
Watching for moments of grace,
My edges of my days are softened.

When others look at me with generous hearts,
Looking for reasons to love and affirm,
Rather than pointing to my warts and worries,
I am made whole.

What a gift to have friends
Who intentionally see the good in me,
Who hug me into my better self.

Perhaps that is the definition of a friend:
Someone who holds the mirror for your better self,
And calls it forth to play.

I am grateful, today, for friends like these.
They fill my life with grace.
They help to make me who I want to be.

After all, it’s not so much what you look at.
It’s what you see. It’s what we see, together.
Thank God.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philippians 4:8

[photo by Khalid Al-Haqqan per cc 2.0]

rainy day

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light rain on grassThe rain today is a slow drizzle
The kind that sinks gently into your soul
Filling the deep cracks that have yearned for its coming
Drawing the broken pieces whole

As I go about my day
Doing the dailyness; tidying and futzing with the debris of my week
The rain is there, in the background
Filling my holes.

What persistent grace you give
Working its way when I notice, and when I do not
Seeping down between each grain of sand
To firm it up, to allow it to hold its shape

You are the rain of my soul
The filler of my holes
The holder of my tiny fragments of self
The moisture that feeds the dry with hope

The tiny wildflowers that sprout across the pasture in delight of drizzle
Give testament to that persistent grace
And to the seeds of gifts within my frame
That you call forth within the quiet patter of an afternoon.

[photo by jenny downing per cc 2.0]

Another good morning

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crimson cloudsGood morning, Holy One.

Thank you.
For the morning.
For the quiet.
For the hope of a new day.
For the beating of your heart deep within mine.
For your call, like the pull of the ocean current, unseen, irresistible.
For life – full of fragile beauty.
Thank you. Continue reading →