Green leaves spend their whole lives
Nurturing the tree they call home
And sending vital oxygen into the world.
In the fall, when they retire,
They turn their souls to beauty –
Revealing gifts of color that had been hidden
Under the hard-working chlorophyl.
There is beauty in the bud.
There is beauty in the green.
There is beauty in the orange and yellow that follows.
I am rejoicing in each new turn of beauty,
In the leaves, in my friends, in myself.
[photo is my own]
Could it be that you whisper within me
That every breath is your breath
That every hope holds seeds of your hope
That my love echoes yours
That my eyes are shaped by your beauty
That you are in me
And I am in you
More fully than I ever knew?
Could it be that you are training my eyes to see
The life that shines between all things
As they dance together in your hands?
All things, all things (yes, even that)
Are in your hands.
I see only dimly, now.
But, oh, I long for more.
[photo by Chris Luczkow per cc 2.0]
It started with very good
Not with perfect.
I started with very good
Not perfect.
That was the plan all along.
That is the gift of life.
Very good.
Not perfect.
Perfect needs nothing,
No one.
Perfect should not change
Else it is perfect no longer.
Good can grow.
It needs soil and sun.
It is not complete in isolation.
It needs relationship.
That’s what makes it very good.
It’s born with the holes
Where the stitches can go.
A necessary part of the whole.
That is very good.
[image cropped from photo by scrappy annie per cc 2.0]
Sometimes, in reading other’s words, a phrase rings so very true that it expands my soul and feeds my journey. For me, these are among the ‘thin places’ that the Celts acknowledged – places where the space between the mundane and the holy is whisper thin.
I hope they will brush your soul with grace, and, perhaps, stir us all to action, as well.
Here’s an addition to this collection, added 1/19/20:
““I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansm
en and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love.” – MLK, quoted in The Pause newsletter 1 19 20 by OnBeing.
“Let beauty be beauty, don’t worship it. Let your family be your family, don’t expect everything from them. Let work be work, don’t let it define you. Let our nation be our nation, not something to kill for.
Let life be what it is: a beautiful gift full of trouble, days of joy and contradiction, expiring in our hands. Life isn’t everything. We shouldn’t try to wring eternity from existence.” – Matt Fitzgerald [as posted here]
“Art, like prayer, is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts,” Franz Kafka – [as quoted here by Maria Popova – photo by per cc 2.0]
Tears were not weakness when falling from her eyes, they were what courage looks like when it takes a minute to breathe.” [Hannah Bonner-photo and quote used with permission]
“One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.” – Frederick Buechner; photo by Carl Van Vechten [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons]
“Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.” – Richard Rohr – [Image cropped from photo by Festival of Faiths per cc 2.0]
[From time to time I will add to this collection, placing the new phrase at the top of the list.] [photo at the top of the post by Pearl Pirie per cc 2.0]
When we think of you,
We remember how your faith unfolds into works of love;
How you persevere in hope, even when times are tough.
Your hope gives us hope;
Your joy brings us joy
Your faith inspires faith;
Your life shines life into our lives.
No wonder we give thanks to the Holy One
Whenever we remember you.
You embody the Spirit of grace
Who makes us one within the One.
No one can say, ‘Look! I made the candle burn.’
Instead what burns in you lights up another
And it goes on and on.
[a meditation on 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3]
[photo by Gregory Gill per cc 2.0]
Sometimes
I think that the Holy One
Is way too patient:
Too willing to let the world
Find its way;
Too tolerant of the anger and vitriol
That floods the hearts of those
Who cannot find the universal love
That is right there with them, ready to embrace;
Too able to bear their destructive fury,
Yes, even to the point of death
(His and theirs and those they trample).
How can such infinite patience
Really be what is right?
How can the Holy One wait on us,
All the while enduring the evil we create?
So, I am often convinced that the Holy One
Is way too patient with everyone.
(Except with me, of course,
The patience toward me is just about right.)
It is as if the end is sure,
Despite the length and terror of the trail.
It is as if the moments of love that we return along the way:
The moments we see the beauty;
The moments we use our creativity to bring joy;
Are all a part of the culminating grace
That will bring us home, at last.
It is as if the Holy One
Has enough patience
And enough love
To bring us all
Every one
Through the fray
And into the deepest heart
Of eternal love.
It is as if
No price were too high
To bring us all
Home.
[photo by Marlon Malabanan per cc 2.0]
When times get crazy
And dreams falter
And shouts threaten to own all ears
When your heart cowers
And pulls you into your small corner
And your tight eyes fill with tears
That is when it is hardest
To see any light.
And when it is most important.
It is not the denial
Of this world’s selfish curl
Or that same curl within your clay
It is not the self-protective scurry
To keep yourself walled in
And resign all others to the fray
It is not whistling in the dark
That keeps you safe
Or points the way.
It is holding tight to hope
And offering kindness
As a vital part of all you do.
It is looking for the light
And discovering, to your surprise
That it shines through you.
You are God’s portal,
A conduit of grace.
You are the way that love gets through.
[photo by Images by John ‘K’ per cc 2.0]
There is a beauty so fierce
That it cannot be hidden.
Neither wrinkles nor scars
Can mask its magnificence.
It flashes out from eyes alive with joy
And exudes peace even as it struggles.
For there are those who are anointed
With the touch of the divine.
That touch, in turn,
Flows from their fingers
And whispers from their lips
Dusting the world around them with grace.
This is a beauty that expands with time.
Familiarity breeds … amazement,
For its kindness is ever deeper, ever true.
Its very constancy adds to its glow.
The glory of a sunrise,
Even on the highest summit
Cannot match the beauty
Of a fiercely loving friend.
There is an image,
An exchange I witnessed,
That has been percolating
In my memory for years.
You’ve probably seen it, too:
A young mother
With her infant bouncing on her lap.
They are enthralled with one another.
What flows between them,
Almost visible as their eyes connect,
Palpable in the air between them,
Is the exchange of life-giving love.
The infant is held by something
So much stronger than her hands.
The mother is upheld
With something just as strong.
Their gifts to one another
Are so tangible
So vital
So real.
Yet each is filled,
Not emptied.
Full of a love that will not be contained.
A rush of life between them.
This is love incarnate.
Love enfleshed; love fulfilled.
This is how life is passed on.
Birth is just the beginning.
Perhaps this shows me why
The Christ came to us.
To look us in the eye
And give us life.
God breathed upon the clay.
Christ looked on us with love.
The Spirit, now within us,
Empowers life’s eternal flow.
It is like breath:
Receiving in; giving out.
Each delightful exchange
Brings life anew.
[image cropped from photo by Robert Moores per cc 2.0]
What if, perhaps,
Quiet Hope 