life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Adventure”
spring assignment
I will step out of my comfort zone
I will step into ugly waterproof overshoes
I will put on no make or do my hair
I will hurt
and be bruised
and drop tired
and push my body well beyond my known limits
I will plant 504 begonias in one day and beam with happy
I will try to follow along and be strong
I will learn as much as I can each and every day
I will devour chili-cheese dogs for lunch without shame
I will pray and praise the brilliance of this emerald striped circus world
with the ever-shifting, magical, blue and white sky big top above
I will get up early and lay down the same
I will soak long and often in hot tubs of Epsom Salts
I will find my peace and do my best
and then I will let go
over and over
I will share myself and my faith at every opportunity
I will love my way forward to my next assignment
in full satisfaction of this good work my body has done
and what my mind has overcome.
4/30/14
aware
Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
walk mindfully, well-loved one,
walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.
“Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge” by Ursula Le Guin, from Always Coming Home. © University of California Press, 1985.
an open letter to characters, pilgrims and missionaries
We walk in a storybook called life
As we undergo our epic journey
Wind turns the pages of sunshine and rain
Stars gently pull our hair towards intimacy with our souls
Moonlight,
that pool of tender reminder
that the best is yet to come
The novel ever winding
reaching to climax
The chapters building to grand finale
Line by line
Story within story
Stories and events
intersecting
winding in, out, beside, through
Characters come and go
We are each so many things,
All are pilgrims or missionaries here
Weaving the rich tapestry
of the three things that change us
Forever:
Dreams
Suffering
and
Love
Sometimes we may feel alone
We are never alone
The very air we breathe
connects us
makes us one with each other
We name our world as God instructed
ever naming is our instinctual work
As in all great love stories
there is never an ending
only that wondrous thought:
to be continued….
AL 4/25/14
Being Sent Into the World
Each of us has a mission in life. Jesus prays to his Father for his followers, saying: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).
We seldom realise fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we have to choose how, where, and with whom to live. We act as if we were simply plopped down in creation and have to decide how to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.
– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org
transformation
I cast my suffering away and bind it onto you—
or so I think.
But pain is a thick cord, a sticky strand,
a thread spun deep within that does not break.
The web, once woven, only joins.
Every act of cruelty or blame, every thought
that someone deserves some pain,
every permission given for one to suffer
for another, secretes another thread,
a stronger cord, and weaves a thicker web.
I cast the lines, and they wholly bind me.
Anger winds me in its sheets.
I am matted together in one mass
with all whom I have rejected or hurt.
I am covered in my own life-sucking cocoon,
unable to move, to breathe, to imagine,
doomed never to change from life into life —
until, because we are wrapped together,
I see my victim, my neighbor as myself,
and in the burning anguish of my seeing
dissolve the binding ropes, and then
come out, so fragile and small,
and willing to be wounded,
finally free.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
the opening of eyes
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.
“The Opening of Eyes” by David Whyte, from Songs for Coming Home. © Many Rivers Press, 1984.
oh the places you’ll go (the challenge to write my way out of a paper bag)
I googled it
what was the history?
the meaning?
my ability to write,
along with me,
had just been put into this container – a paper bag
that I couldn’t write my way out of???
It felt like a throw down challenge.
how difficult is this challenge?
and, by golly,
how did I get into the this giant paper bag?
armed only with pen,
quite obviously
a silly decision.
Why didn’t I think to bring scissors?
or
chocolate?
If I had chocolate
I wouldn’t really mind being in this paper bag
I should have seen this coming
been prepared…
just in case I can’t figure out
how to write myself out.
Of course,
I didn’t really intend to get stuck here
in a paper bag –
it just somehow happened.
I got caught in a cross-fire
of two people
with razor-sharp writing skills.
(are they better than mine –
or do we all just have our own voice?
hmmmm)
maybe I’ll just stay in this bag
and take a nap.
it’s pretty comfy here.
Oh nice, I have an orange in my pocket.
I can write myself out later
I’ve never found myself in a paper bag before –
think I’ll just enjoy the novelty of the adventure
before I go home for dinner.
AL 1/6/13
Desperado
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow
Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get
Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
You’re losin’ all your highs and lows
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late
life: acoustic & amplified 