life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the month “November, 2014”

love alone is worth the fight

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Tradition claims the Prince of Love
is ruler of the universe,
that forgiveness is above every power,
that grace overwhelms every dominion.

Skeptics demur. But what else sustains,
what else is worth it?
What but love bore Christ along,
and fueled his touch, his speech,
his dying breath? And what but grace
could make and use his rising?
If you’ve a better god, choose boldly.
Make sure it’s big enough for your whole life,
worth ruling you like your death.

In this world of seas and stars,
of music and the intricacies of your flesh,
of sundogs and tree frogs and memory,
of tragedy and the way its children survive,
even chaos is a feeble, flimsy thing,
and selfishness a bridge to nowhere.

I’ve seen sixty-one years
of a crazy world and all its wonders,
my dying and rebirth, forgiveness,
and what holds me in the wind.
The little candle in the darkness was love,
the strength that bore me was love,
my only failures a failure to love.
It’s the warp my life is woofed upon,
the only sense that everything makes,
the only reason that everything is.

You can have your randomness;
the old mosaics have it right:
even in the storm of chaos, the roar of evil,
love is the Lord of heaven and earth,
its teacher my sovereign, my truth.
It’s the little swaying bridge I’ll take
over the foaming, thundering chasm.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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The only way to find your voice is to use it. – Austin Kleon

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I walk in the whipping wind to reach my spot
At times I wonder why???
cause, Oh Baby, it’s cold outside…
Then I step on the beach,
and understanding breaks through,
here I am –
touching the Divine.
It’s crazy.
How could it be that someone like me,
someone simply ordinary,
with so many and varied,
flaws and imperfections,
can see and touch and breathe divinity?
Very God.
I stand,
humbled and grateful,
full of hope for this wonder-filled world.
The cold wind is directly in my face,
waves crash against rocks.
I am small and fragile,
here on the edge of the seagull flock
(I wonder, is that what a bunch of seagulls are called? a flock? a gaggle? a herd?)
I remember being here
almost two years ago now.
Remember how the seagulls taught me great lessons
about God’s care and love.
How different I was then.
The same sun shone,
but back then all was dark and frozen-still inside me.
Today I feel the sunshine in my very soul.
I stand and cry,
very cold, wet tears of overwhelming gratitude
as ‘To Make You Feel My Love’
plays in my pocket.
So much brokenness.
I have not forgotten.
I will never forget.
Yet here I am,
somehow on the other side of the great gulf of grief.
Somehow standing in the center of the light.
Somehow understanding things that I can’t humanly comprehend.
Somehow knowing without knowing.
Somehow beginning with each new morning,
a new joy,
a new journey,
a new birth,
a new song,
a new view,
a new life,
a new story,
a new adventure.
I bow in gratitude.
I know I must sing
because I carry songs which are ready to be sung,
to be birthed in the world.
Just as the birds on the wires above me, I sing
because I cannot NOT sing.
I sing because it is who I was created to be.
I sing because I’m happy.
I sing because I’m free.
His eye is on the sparrow –
and I am worth many sparrows!
I am beloved!
and
SO ARE YOU!

ACL q11/18/14

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If there was just one thing I could tell you about living the life of your dreams, knowing that it would be enough if you understood it, I would ask you to realize that you already are.

In the presence of greatness,
The Universe

find your place

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In the Breach

Wander wonder restless
Amidst the novels
Autobiographies
Travel and Mystery

Search seek anxious
Through aisles of Philosophy
Religion, Science Fiction

Table nooks filled with laptop fingertips typing
Comfy chairs hold readers’ captivated eyes

Where do I belong?
(Do I belong?)

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A solitary empty table, alone, waiting
Waiting for my laptop fingertips and captivated eyes,
Waiting for my restless anxiety
Waiting for dress-up dreams
And therapy themes

The only open space here-
-here with Maya, Rumi, Berry and Bertoldt Brecht, Love Poems.
Poetry, of course,
For (I’ve been told) I am a poet.

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I settle scatter my stuff
(Stuff stuff, soul stuff)
Upon this table
Organically absorb the whimsy, truth, courage
Filling all these crisp closed silent
pages, pages, pages….
in book after book after book….
shelf, shelf, shelf… self

Shhh…they whisper nudge, silent
while, in the breach,
Jackson Browne sings.

~ro, 11/18/14

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The present is the only point where time touches eternity. – C. S. Lewis

Jane Hirshfield has a line of poetry which has been tweeted all over the world which reminds us –
How fragile we are between the few good moments.

I think somehow we have been sold the idea that life should be all thrill. That, if every moment isn’t exciting, we are somehow failing at life. I have learned, over the past 18 years, that the real wonder of life is not in the passing thrilling moments, but in the recognition of the simple and divine in the every day ordinary.

Andy Rooney says it like this –

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

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The world is full of wonder! Happiness and joy are available to all who open their senses to the beauty of the unexpected sources carried in every breath we take.
Asking, seeking and knocking are all that’s required to begin!

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aging gracefully

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Young souls lean on science.

Mature souls lean on faith.

And old souls prefer long walks and short talks; whistling to hip-hop, country, or rock; and on occasion, tree spotting.

There! On the horizon! Oak!
————————————————
The Universe
http://www.tut.com

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Love unites all, whether created or uncreated. The heart of God, the heart of all creation, and our own hearts become one in love. That’s what all the great mystics have been trying to tell us through the ages. Benedict, Francis, Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Brabant, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Dag Hammarskjöld, Thomas Merton, and many others, all in their own ways and their own languages, have witnessed to the unifying power of the divine love. All of them, however, spoke with a knowledge that came to them not through intellectual arguments but through contemplative prayer. The Spirit of Jesus allowed them to see the heart of God, the heart of the universe, and their own hearts as one. It is in the heart of God that we can come to the full realisation of the unity of all that is, created and uncreated.
– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org

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happy day

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beautiful perspective

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Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. –Albert Schweitzer

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Photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

Change starts with you but it doesn’t start until you do. – Tom Ziglar

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What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?

What If This Road by Sheenagh Pugh

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warrior

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The moment that he begins to walk along it, the warrior of light recognises the Path.

Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.

Then, accepting the help of God and of God’s Signs, he allows his Personal Legend to guide him towards the tasks that life has reserved for him.

On some nights, he has nowhere to sleep, on others, he suffers from insomnia. ‘That’s just how it is,’ thinks the warrior. ‘I was the one who chose to walk this path.’

In these words lies all his power: he chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.

Paulo Coelho
Manual of the Warrior of Light

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The sun punches through the cloud gaps
with strong fists and the wind
buffets the buildings
with boisterous good will.

Bad memories are blown away
over the capering sea. Life
pulls up without straining
the jungle tangle between us
and the future.

Easy to forget
the last leaves thicken the ground
and the last roses are dying
in their sad, cramped hospitals.
For gaiety’s funfair whirls
in the gray squares. Energy
sends volts from suburb to suburb.

And April, gay trespasser,
dances the dark streets of November,
Pied Piper leading a procession
of the coloured dreams of summer.

“April Day in November, Edinburgh” by Norman MacCaig

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the voice of calm still whispers

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Times may turn dark;
they always have.
Our calling remains unchanged.
The voice of hope is undiminished.

The world may turn
toward ravage and greed;
the acid of fear stain our faces,
the voracious appetite of power
consume the earth and its silent ones,
but the Holy One’s tender mercy
does not waver or abate.
The voice of calm still whispers.

Your path may take you
through ulcered valleys of shadow.
The Gentle One is still with you.

Our path is not to save the world;
only One may do that.
Our path is to learn to love
even in the darkness.

Our calling is still to be woven in,
to cry out for the hurting,
to take mercy to the streets,
to be gentle among the violent
and strong amidst the fearful,
to mend the fabric even as it is torn,
to heal and bless even in our defeat.

Life may turn dark; it often does.
Crucifixion reoccurs.
But the world in its suffering
will be made pure light.
Even in the evening of our power,
even in the dusk of the world,
the light of the Merciful One shines on,
and we are given this: to share the light,
to share the light
until we ourselves are pure light.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.org

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