November | 2018 | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the month “November, 2018”

29 Nov 2018

narrow ways

I know this house,

and this horizon,

and this world I have made.

I know this silence

and the particular treasures

and terrors

of this belonging

but I cannot know the world

to which I am going.

I have only this breath

and this presence

for my wings

and they carry me

in my body

whatever I do

from one hushed moment

to another.

I know my innocence

and I know my unknowing

but for all my successes

I go through life

like a blind child

who cannot see,

arms outstretched

trying to put together

a world.

And the world

works on my behalf

catching me in its arms

when I go too far.

I don’t know what

I could have done

to have earned such faith.

Watching the geese

go south I find

that

even in silence

and even in stillness

and

even in my home

alone

without a thought

or a movement

I am part

of a great migration

that will take me to another place.

And though all the things I love

may pass away and

the great family of things and people

I have made around me

will see me go,

I feel them living in me

like a great gathering

ready to reach a greater home.

When one thing dies all things

die together, and must live again

in a different way,

when one thing

is missing everything is missing,

and must be found again

in a new whole

and everything wants to be complete,

everything wants to go home

and the geese traveling south

are like the shadow of my breath

flying into the darkness

on great heart-beats

to an unknown land where I belong.

This morning they have

found me,

full of faith,

like a blind child,

nestled in their feathers,

following a great coast

to the home I cannot see.

…

From ‘WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF’

In THE HOUSE OF BELONGING

Narrow daylight

Filled with delight

Slim golden shapes pared

with towering candlelight

Savory days

spiced with laughter

Sprinkled liberally with joy

Enlarging hearts

open for personal business

winging south in early morning light

Snow globe world

Shaken and stirred together

with Love and light

Life grows long and lovely

as a colorful sunset

on the Hudson in November

feeling the richness of true intimacy

only afforded by honest communication

a hand reaches me in the dark

luxurious cashmere touch awakening

love surrounding me

I feel the wind blowing

every little caress

taking me home

❤️

Amy Lloyd

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19 Nov 2018

1 Comment

Be ready any moment to surrender who you are to who you will become

Sometimes I just get so scared

I’ll be gone and you’ll forget me

Life is hard, sometimes not so fair

Rain keeps pouring down on me

One more day of stormy weather

One more tear rollin’ down my cheek

There’s my fear, a fist in leather

my broken heart just skips a beat

Once or twice felt myself not knowing

Felt some doubts a time or two

But each time I see your sweet face glowing

know somehow I will make it through

I’ll be there should you ever need me

I’ll be there anytime you fall

I’m the one who loves you freely

I’m the one you can always call

There’s a little bit of sun shinin’

Peeking thru those clouds at you

There’s a little bit of rainbow shinin’

Smilin’ down as the sky turns to blue

🌈

Amy Lloyd

From Jeff Brown:

The primary cause of our unhappiness is not our thoughts. The monkey mind is not the source of our anxiety. It’s a symptom of it. Forget the monkey mind. The mind is not the problem—unhealed pain is. Men have been blaming the mind for their neuroses for centuries, while deftly avoiding that which sources its maladies: somatic constrictions, and unprocessed emotions stored in the body itself. It’s like losing your keys somewhere in the house, and looking for them in the car. Useless, useless, useless. Until we stop blaming the mind—and recognize that its anxieties stem from the unresolved emotional body— there will be no liberation. Shifting out of unhappiness is not a cerebral process—that’s just another ineffective band-aid. It is a visceral full-body experience. It’s the “monkey heart” that’s the issue—the state of inner turbulence and agitation that emanates from an unclear heart. The more repressed your emotional body, the more repetitive your thoughts. Flooded with unhealed emotions and unexpressed truths, the monkey heart jumps from tree-top to tree-top, emoting without grounding, dancing in its confusion. Often misinterpreted as a monkey mind, the monkey heart is reflected in repetitive thinking, perpetual anxiety and negative imaginings. To calm and clarify your mind, you have to heal your heart.

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17 Nov 2018

rEVOLution

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars,
do not be alarmed….
The good news must first be proclaimed to all nations….
You will stand before governors and kings because of me,

as a testimony to them.

The Holy Spirit will speak through you…..

—from Mark 13.7-13

The lectionary for Sunday quits before the hard part.

Jesus describes the birth pangs:

a new world is being born out of this one.

But then he goes on to say:

You are the midwife of the world being born.

You are the mother giving birth.

You are the new birth.

In this world of hate and greed and fear

you are the Resistance.

You are a revolutionary,

not by heroic acts of destruction or rebellion

but by acts of grace and mercy.

It is love that subverts the world.

Every moment of beauty or generosity

undermines the foundation of this world

of consumption and conflict.

Every act of gentleness and forgiveness

tears down the walls of the Empire,

not one stone left on another.

The Spirit overthrows the world

through you.

Resist the empire of violence

with acts of love.

Even the smallest ones are powerful.

Not merely lovely, the widow’s mite

is dynamite.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

this is not your momma’s beatnik

this is not your dad’s beret

this is not your sisters pothead

not your brothers crazy wife

this is not the inquisition

this is not the third degree

this is not just sit and listen

this is not another way

this is not your bad boy rocker

this is not green eggs and ham

this is not your high school locker

not a cry to ‘give a damn’

this is life in all its glory

this is life to have to hold

this is life step up and claim it

this is life speak up be bold

this is time to tell your story

this is how it’s said and done

this is time to stand and tell it

this is how your battle’s won

👨🏻‍🎨

Amy Lloyd

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15 Nov 2018

yes, really

mainly on days like today,

like yesterday,

and a week before that

I seem to follow cars to cemeteries and stand there, honored to witness what happens when life is between the realms.

I watch people doing their God work

spilling stories,

labeling the generations;

seeing love slip in and between poetry and the protection that the 23rd Psalm gives.

Feeling the presence of the Spirit of the Living God.

Knowing the gap is narrow,

the work is great,

that the kindness of others matters greatly

that forgiveness needs to happen often

that the gone are not gone

only until we meet again;

people cry from loneliness

or perhaps their forgotten holiness,

angels holding hands in parking lots

and revelation comes when you can lean in on a friend

and know that God just touched your shoulder.

If not for vows,

For creation,

For ordination,

then whose eyes were watching?

if not for freedom

then who shook the death off my wings?

who willed the child to bend?

taught the hips to dance and the hands to heal?

Who taught that death would never win

and every day would be the first day of my life?

That Christ, would speak volumes through all of eternity.

Beauty,

Rev. Donna Knutson

And to someone on the verge of a total breakthrough, during the latter days of human evolution, one might explain God by asking them to turn up the music, take off their shoes, walk in the grass, unleash the dogs, free the canary, catch a breeze, ride a wave, dance every day, get up early, take a nap, stay out late, eat chocolate, feel the love, give stuff away, earn it back, give some more, and laugh…. Really.