Once you say ‘I want to find Truth’, all your life will be deeply affected by it. All your mental and physical habits, feelings and emotions, desires and fears, plans and decisions will undergo a most radical transformation. – Nisargadatta
What’s your approach?
I walked a mile to school today
In the snow
Uphill both ways
Not my favorite type of snow,
But still beautiful and exciting.
Wind gusts blew me around
Making me fight to keep my ground
Snow spitting in my face
Felt like salt or sand
I pulled my hat down and squinted
As I walked I sang the old hymn
The prayer of my heart
Open my eyes
That I may see
Glimpses of truth you have for me
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free
Silently now I wait for Thee
Ready my God
Thy will to see
Open my eyes
Illumine me
Savior divine
When I reached my school,
Branford River,
I grew silent and allowed my soul
To open to the beauty
the wonder
it continued as I walked my return path
returning
I felt again the birds flying above me yesterday
Free falling
Catching the wind
So graceful
and sure
and I realized my fear
the fear I had learned
Fear of falling
All my life
Taught I was clumsy
that I would crash if I tried
That I couldn’t fly
Couldn’t dance
my problem identified as
Not very graceful
What if that was not true?
What if?
I picture myself jumping from an airplane
Soaring like those birds
I float and fly
smoothly and gracefully in my head
then I dance
Gliding across the floor
with the man I love
and am surprised
I enjoy this feeling
of my grace
my freedom
School has been amazing today
You just never know
What you will learn in
God’s life class
3/7/13
I understand consuming grace
New newsletter at www.songsfromthevalley.com
Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.
– Elizabeth Gilbert
In the space between breaths.
The silence between two notes.
It can be gone –
A month’s worth of words
erased with a fingertip.
Gone for
forever.
A 12, 30 even 63 year marriage over
With 4 simple words spoken:
I want a divorce.
A home with all its possessions
destroyed in a matter of minutes
in the fury of nature –
Fire,
storm,
or selfishness
Life!
so fragile,
with no guarantees
of longevity
or comfort,
begs to be lived
now.
In the middle of it all,
the song must be sung
or forever silenced.
Living a lifetime a day
is the only way
to count
for the sake of goodness.
This moment
is the only moment that counts.
The thing eternal
are these moments
that don’t wait.
Take a deep, deep breath
of the spirit that is giving it all.
Breathe your thank you’s
in and out.
Slowly.
Wholly.
Holy.
Allow this new air change the world,
to light up the inner rooms of darkness,
for the only gift that matters,
the only thing that remains.
All else can be destroyed.
When nothing else remains,
what is this eternal gift?
Love, and love alone
is why we exist.
AL 12/22/12
life: acoustic & amplified 