They Feel Your Love
Artist Shawna Erback
❤️
Curiosity, creativity, discovery and wonder; they aren’t traits of youth, they’re traits of learning. If you want to feel younger and you want to replicate the conditions of youth, do that.
– Unknown
Listen to Bellamy Brothers sing Let Your Love Flow
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art found at http://www.pinterest.com
Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love even more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant.
#HenriNouwen THE INNER VOICE OF LOVE
http://wp.henrinouwen.org/rgroup_blog/
HEARTBREAK is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight. Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go but cannot, in other words, it colors and inhabits and magnifies each and every day; heartbreak is not a visitation, but a path that human beings follow through even the most average life. Heartbreak is our indication of sincerity: in a love relationship, in a work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is just as much an essence and emblem of care as the spiritual athlete’s quick but abstract ability to let go. Heartbreak has its own way of inhabiting time and its own beautiful and trying patience in coming and going.
Heartbreak is inescapable; yet we use the word as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will also keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way…
David Whyte
Live today. Remove all blame from your vocabulary. Catch yourself when you find yourself using your past history as a reason for your failure to act today, and instead say, “I am free now to detach myself from what used to be”. – Dr Wayne Dyer
what is being responsible, truly?
what horrors do we shackle ourselves to in the name of responsibility?
how do we break the chains of control
of manipulation
of tradition
of condition
of religion?
and follow the the truth of our hearts
of being in control
of only our own lives
of our own destinies
of our souls true callings?
this is not about shirking our responsibility
or being selfish
or leaving people in the lurch
this is about coming from a place within
of being
of awareness
of beloved
of freedom
of disciplined action
seeing below the lying distractions so ready to keep us deluded
then allowing all things to flow from us
to the ones we love
it’s the only way to truly live responsibly
in fact, it’s the only way to truly live
🔹
AL
photos found on facebook
I very keenly realise the dangers of hanging on too long for what might not come in the end.
– C. S. Lewis
Put Your Records On by Corrine Bailey Rae
Three little birds sat on my window.
And they told me I don’t need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon
So sweet,
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.
Maybe sometimes we’ve got it wrong, but it’s alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don’t you hesitate.
Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
Blue as the sky, sunburnt and lonely,
Sipping tea in a bar by the roadside,
(just relax, just relax)
Don’t you let those other ones fool you,
Got to love that afro hair do.
Maybe sometimes we feel afraid, but it’s alright
The more you stay the same, the more things seem to change.
Don’t you think it’s strange?
Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
‘Twas more than I could take, pity for pity’s sake
Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realise, that you don’t even have to try any longer?
Do what you want to.
Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Go put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Oh, you’re gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow
Photos found at www.pinterest.com
Listen to Amos Lee sing Keep it Loose, Keep it Tight
A man asked him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments…” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the realm of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the realm of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
—Mark 10.17-27
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We continually have to resist the belief that there’s something we have to do to “be saved.” We think there are “good” people (the man thought Jesus was one) and others who are less so. We believe our salvation is up to us. Clearly the disciples think so. Were that true, of course it would be impossible. But it’s up to God. And God has already “saved” us.
Take note that Jesus looks at the man and loves him. The man does not need to do anything for Jesus to love him; he already does. He responds to the man not with requirements but with love. Because that’s his point. There is no requirement. God already loves us. We are already saved. There is no salvation beyond God’s love; God’s love is not insufficient for our eternal joy. All we need to be “saved” from is our own distrust. The man seems to have great possessions but “lacks one thing.” Jesus looks on him in his poverty and sets him free: let go of what you can measure and what you can lose—either riches or goodness—and grasp only what is infinite, what is already yours.
Meditate on this infinite love of God. It is yours, now. It surrounds you, fills you, gives you every breath. You can’t deserve it more or less. It is simply here. Even as you ask and wonder, maybe even doubt, God looks at you with love. God’s delight is not up to you. Let this light break in, and become you.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
~ Rumi
Photos found at www.pinterest.com
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
listen to Jack Johnson sing Upside Down http://youtu.be/dqUdI4AIDF0
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If you stand at the edge of the forest
and stare into it
every tree at the edge will blow a little extra
oxygen toward you
It has been proven
Leaves have admitted it
The pines I have known
have been especially candid
One said
that all breath in this world
is roped together
that breathing is
the most ancient language
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Ancient Language by Hannah Stephenson
A bright gold canary diamond
In the middle of a row of emeralds
Light sparkles on brilliant color
Natures jewels glimmering in sunlight
Trees can’t help but be happy with who they are.
Beloved
Comfortable
Extravagantly, audaciously beautiful
Spectacularly themselves
Totally at home where they’re planted
Reaching for the sky
Content to be rooted and grounded
Letting their leaves come and go
As they see fit
watching all the dancing
as seasons come and go.
Knowing there will always be abundance
Giving us life giving oxygen with,
not even a whisper,
of quid pro quo
jealousy,
or manipulation.
Trees are magnificent.
I can’t help but admire
their character and integrity
Their deep wisdom and acceptance of life.
Their mystery and playfulness.
Their understanding and gracious giving hearts.
Even driving down the busiest of highways during rush hour
becomes a beautiful experience
when you spend the moments of the stop-n-go
looking out your car window
at the show being put on
right next to the roadway
🔹
AL
other photos found @ www.pinterest.com
Only when you are madly in love
can your heart rest,
only asking the scariest questions
are you at peace.
Only when you have lain in your grave
are you truly alive,
only broken open
are you truly whole.
Only on the invisible hand
can you stand safely,
only on the unpredictable grace of God
can you surely rely.
It is only in the raging sea
you are safe,
only in the deep end
you cannot be drowned.
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
photos at www.pinterest.com
How will you know your real friends? Pain is as dear to them as life. A friend is like gold. Trouble is like fire. Pure gold delights in the fire. ~ Rumi
And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know
pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily
miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons
that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen,
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
– Kahlil Gibran: On Pain
JOY
is a form of deep intentionality and self forgetting, the bodily alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formally seemed outside, but is now neither, but become a living frontier, a voice speaking between us and the world: dance, laughter, affection, skin touching skin, song, music in the kitchen: the sheer beauty of the world inhabited as an edge between what we previously thought was us and what we thought was other than us.
Joy can be a practiced achievement not just the unlooked for passing act of grace arriving out of nowhere, joy is a measure of our relationship to death and our living with death, joy is the act of giving ourselves away, joy is practiced generosity. If joy is a deep form of love, it is also the raw engagement with the passing seasonality of existence, the fleeting presence of those we love going in and out of our lives, faces, voices, memory, aromas of the first spring day or a wood fire in winter, the last breath of a dying parent as they create that rare, raw, beautiful frontier between loving presence and a new and blossoming absence.
To feel a full untrammeled joy is to walk through the doorway of fear, the dropping away of the anxious worried self felt itself like a death itself, a disappearance, a giving away, seen in the laughter of friendship, the vulnerability of happiness felt suddenly as a strength, a solace and a source, the claiming of our place in the living conversation, the sheer privilege of being in the presence of a mountain, a sky or a familiar face – I am here and you are here and together we make a world.
– Joy by David Whyte
Listen to Andrew Gold sing Thank You for being a Friend http://youtu.be/Jzrq52qaXZI
photos found atwww.pinterest.com
truth pursues me
through the cracks in the sidewalk
refusing to die
or lie
or be denied
like a lazy
hazy
crazy
day
truth
sometimes
dances with the breeze
tickling my face with feathers
at other times
hurricane winds blow me down
sucker punching me in the gut
like an invisible boxer
intent on one thing
opening my eyes
expanding my humanity
never leaving me to my own devices
stretching my souls edges
challenging my comfort zones
while making me ever-more-comfortable in my own skin
allowing me to step, by baby step,
another inch or two into the mystery of grace
one day I know I’ll fit
into the sparkly shoes
I’m here to fill…
don’t worry…
you will too
🔹
AL
Photos found at www.pinterest.com
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
– Leo F. Buscaglia
Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.”
But he said to her, “You speak as any fool would speak.
Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” —Job 2.9-10
By the grace of God
Christ tastes death for everyone’s sake. —Hebrews 2.9
The question is not why there is suffering: why shouldn’t there be? Should there be no germs or earthquakes?
Should life be free of risk, or pain, or tears, free of choices or freedom, but only directed by God?
Is pleasure always good, pain always bad?
Isn’t suffering necessary for love? What would “deserving” be?
Would we want a God continually judging us, the Dispenser Of Suffering And Reward?
Can God actually control suffering or pleasure?
Why is speaking in public, or being alone, heaven for one and hell for another?
A blind person I know rebuffs our sympathy: what we call suffering she does not.
What if one experienced sickness not as suffering but a time to accept mortality, to draw near to God, a Sabbath?
Who “allows” evil or injustice, war or poverty? Who “allows” suffering when we eat meat? If a person suffered for their evil, could God not comfort them, relieve their sorrow or pain?
Or isn’t that the one thing God promises: not to make our lives exactly as pleasurable as we deserve but to be with us in it all?
There is evil because we are imperfectly loved; sometimes we can’t bear our hurt, but project it onto others.
How does God deal with evil?
By being with us in our pain, to heal it so we may stop spreading it. God suffers with us, “tastes death for everyone’s sake.”
There is no “reason,” nor need there be. There is no need for labels of “good” and “bad.” There is only gracious presence for all, and the love that is willing to suffer for others, the saving grace of the cross.
Rather than question suffering, receive it as part of life, enter into people’s pain and the suffering of the world, and absorb it, so it may stop spreading —
and you will find God there.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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I want you to remember
I will always love you
Love does not forget
The sun will shine tomorrow
Don’t look back and regret
Please won’t you remember
rainy skies and grey days
Some times you will get
there’s always sun to follow
Then rainbows I predict
I hope that you’ll remember
Love is really true
Sing and please don’t fret
The sun it shines, although
you may not see it yet
🔹
AL
Listen to Little Anthony sing Tears on my Pillow http://youtu.be/uxjQ3M_v7xc
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photos found at www.pinterest.com
THE ANCIENT DREAM
She has come to sense the inner world goes deep, indeed deeper than the wounds and breakages that others inflict. The contemplative has broken through to that sanctuary in the soul where love dwells. Crucial to this contemplative journey is the trust and imagination to realize that regardless of how you have been damaged, there is within you a sanctuary of deep love, trust and belonging. This is the ancient dream, the masterpiece of divine creativity: the creation of the human heart. Before time – back in the winter of nothingness and then all through the infinite springtime of evolution – the dream was the birth of an intimate well of kindness, care and love in the world, dwelling in the tabernacle of the human heart.
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John O’Donohue
Excerpt from BEAUTY
dear lord in this time of darkness
help us see the darkness
dear lord help us to not pretend
no more pretending
dear lord may our gaze be defenseless
and unshardable
teach us the piety of the open eye
dear lord in this time of darkness
may we be unafraid to mourn and together and hugely
may dignity lose its scaffolding
faces crumble like bricks
dear lord let grief come to grief
and then o lord help us to see the bees yet in the lavender
the spokes of sunlight down through the oaks
and the sleep-opened face of the beloved
and the afternoon all around her
and her small freckled hands
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Prayer by Teddy Macker
Hearts out searching for a home
that one place where we belong
it’s a cold dark night here lately
but I have seen the light
home is your arms
holding me tight
deeper and deeper into the beautiful
waking my heart to sing this song
fly with me as flames grow higher
passion flaming deep desire
touching us on this dark night
There are times when life goes hazy
that place we all fall down
life can be so hard my baby
will you hold the line tonight?
open up your heart and fight
we can do it together
love’s the place where dreams come true
we can make it together
I believe we can make it
through
there is hope in this moment
there is hope in the sky
when days go dark and lonely baby
as long as stars are burning bright
there is hope
there is hope, ’cause
they burn for you
oh baby
we can make it through
🔹
AL
Listen to Time of the Season by The Zombies http://youtu.be/wG5R7vyu-mA
photos found at www.pinterest.com
life: acoustic & amplified 