Tag Archives: mystery

i am

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small child looking at himself in a store windowThe whisper of ‘i am’ within my soul
Is the echo of ‘I AM.’
Its breath would not be
Without the greater breath of life.

Yet, your great mystery is veiled,
Lest i be overwhelmed.
You hold back in order to give room,
In order to give time
For me to be.

I feel your tug upon my soul,
Your fingers brush my cheek,
And my hope catches its breath
In deep desire of you.

It is the first light of morning,
It is the call of a new day
That lets me take brief notice
Of eternity’s heartbeat in my own,
Calling me to be.

[photo by Lisa E per cc 2.0]

a moment without time

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a moment without time

There are moments that catch your heart between beats
That catch your breath; that catch your soul.
Such moments whisper of a wholeness that cannot be broken,
And you know, oh, you know, it is so.

 

[photo by Mike Bizzeau, from the wonderful blog, nature has no boss, used with permission. The title of this blog also comes from his caption on this photo.]

Now

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resurrection

He is risen!

Now … we can rise, as well.
To life
To love
To joyful celebration.

Why wait?
Eternal life starts now.

“The risen Christ is the standing icon of humanity in its full and final destiny. He is the pledge and guarantee of what God will do with all our crucifixions.” – Richard Rohr

[image cropped from photo by lady habib per cc 2.0]

at the edge

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old engraving of the reality beyond - the 'flammarion'Sometimes my mind seems to flicker
At the very edges of a new reality.
Ideas blink on and off,
Just out of reach.
A new fragrance hangs in the air.
An almost melody calls my heart.

The old understandings
Now fall like a chiffon drape
Ruffling in the wind
Across the window of my imagination.
What once seemed solid and sure
Is revealed as a faded fabric
Filtering the light.

Thomas Kuhn would speak of a paradigm shift:
The unmaking and remaking of foundational frameworks.
But the image I feel
Is that of walking through a series of veils,
Hanging on a line to dry.
Each reveals, even as it hides.
Each gives way to another.

Or, instead, I begin to catch the threads
As they unravel from an old tapestry.
I find that they can be rewoven into a blanket.
Beautiful and new, it covers all.
It holds fresh stories
Not painted on its surface
But cuddled in its folds.

[public domain image, drawn from wikipedia]

beyond

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universe in a water dropOf course we use metaphors.
Of course we try to understand the ineffable.
Of course we fall short.
Of course we try again.

Can you explain beauty
Or describe love?
It is all so marvelously immense.

I’m grateful – no thrilled –
To be a tiny part of a universe
That is so far beyond my grasp
And so filled with wonder
And so deeply interwoven.

I’ll never understand.
Isn’t that grand?

[photo by Andrew Kuznetsov per cc 2.0]

I wonder …

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sunriseI wonder …
and when I do, judgment falls to the wayside.

All the fingers of my mind,
That try to grasp and hold – and fix – reality,
Release their grip.

Gentle wonder
Wakes to beauty
Rests in grace.

I am held in the open palm
Of God’s dear hand

In the twinkling of an insight,
I am changed.
My soul is released into the mystery.

I find that I am held
Even as I am freed.

Ahhh
Amen

[Thanks to Maria Popova in her post on gentle wonder as a corrective …]
[photo is my own]

 

fractals of the heart

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fractals

I write because I think, perhaps,
That my heart is a fractal –
A small reflection of a larger pattern.

And I think, perhaps,
That larger pattern dances
When I do.

[image by Nick Spratt per cc 2.0]

Things that wake my soul

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asymmetrical beauty

The things that wake my soul:

  • Beauty – particularly the movement inherent in asymmetrical beauty
  • Deep honesty toward myself – which opens the door to connection
  • Improbable hope lived out with grace
  • Kindness – especially unbidden and (almost) unseen
  • Friendship’s glance – and its extended cousin, a loving gaze
  • Laughter – the kind that draws you in
  • Whispers beneath the stars

And that inexplicable, unpredictable touch of the universe, when it says, ‘YES!’

[photo by Attila Siha per cc 2.0]

touching life

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rolling pinThere is life in the chimes outside my window
As they ring their solemn joy into the dawn.

There is life in my grandmother’s rolling pin,
As it makes the pies that have fed the family celebrations across the years.
I hold that life in my hands as I shape the dough.

There is life in the rocks that we gathered to build our fireplace.
They hold whispers of that gathering
As we gather, again, around their warmth.

If chimes and rolling pins and rocks can come to life – can I?

[photo is my own)

Yoda’s mentor

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Yoda

When I read these words of St John of the Cross I figured I’d met Yoda’s mentor.

To come to the pleasure you have not,
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not,
you must go by the way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not,
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not,
you must go by a way in which you are not.

As Yoda would say, “Understand or understand not – there is no try.”

[image cropped from photo by Michael Li per cc 2.0]