This world doesn’t improve by demanding perfection. It improves when we reach through our armor and touch another with tenderness. It improves when we bust through the walls of our conditioning, and try a new way of being on for size. It improves when we work through our unresolved shadow and share what little light we can find. It is the small, positive steps that we take when we are at war with ourselves that change the world.
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– Jeff Brown
awe…
examination…
it keeps appearing
again…
I delete…
again…
I delete…
haven’t I already written my poem?
haven’t I already done that one?
What is left that I haven’t taken out…
haven’t examined properly?
There are always layers
As Shrek reminded me,
I am an onion…
layers…
illusions
shadows
truth left to excavate
healing to be hard won
motivations to uncover
mystery to be discovered
always more
God keeps getting bigger
as I examine,
reduce,
open.
help me to stay in this mode of self realization…
growth…
humble me…
my best self emerges within this process
send it again…
remind me again…
🌀
AL
Approaching Wholeness
The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it is long. It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to utter simplicity. The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
We can never engineer or guide our own transformation or conversion. If we try, our so-called conversion will be self-centered and well-controlled, with most of our preferences and addictions still fully in place but now well disguised. Any attempts at self-conversion would be like an active alcoholic trying to determine his own rules for sobriety. God has to radically change the central reference point of our lives. We do not even know where to look for another reference point because up to now it has all been about me! Too much “me” can never find “you”–or anything beyond itself.
So Step 7 says that we must “humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.” Don’t ever bother to go after your faults yourself because you will usually go after the wrong thing (the real thing remains denied in the unconscious). Or you might actually obstruct your “golden shadow” which is your gift. “If you try to pull out the weeds, you might pull out the wheat along with it,” as Jesus puts it (Matthew 13:29).
Instead you have to let God reveal your real faults to you, usually by falling many times, and by other people’s opinions of you. You must allow God to remove those faults in God’s way and in God’s time. If you go after them with an angry stick, you will soon be left with only an angry stick–and the same faults at a deeper level of disguise and denial. Thus most people at early stages in alcoholic recovery just replace one addiction with another. Now it’s nicotine, caffeine, shopping, “stinkin’ thinkin’,” or the angry stick itself, which is supposedly okay because it is a Christian angry stick.
Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). He was telling us to stay in the position of a beggar, a petitioner, a radical dependent. This is always our spiritual posture, if we are honest. To know that you don’t know, to know that you are always in need, keeps you situated in right relationship with Life itself. Life is a gift, totally given to you without cost. A daily and chosen “attitude of gratitude” will keep your hands open to allow and receive life at ever-deeper levels of satisfaction. But don’t ever think you deserve or have earned it. Humility is foundational. Those who live with such open and humble hands receive life’s gifts in abundance and throughout their years, “full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over into their lap” (Luke 6:38).
✋🏻
– Richard Rohr
Your Life begins to change when you change. Someday what seemed so difficult will not be anymore. Every step taken to find a new you brings destiny closer to your doorstep. Everything you do consistently is either bringing you closer or taking you further away from the Life you were put here to have. Castaway the demons blocking unrealized greatness stored within the chambers of your soul and never ever stop trying to reach the best version of yourself. The world that now exists will not exist tomorrow because you had the courage to change………………
I want to make a poem
that slips into the heart stream
quietly, tenderly,
with no great splash
just a graceful entry,
with minimal ripples
which plunges deeply upon entering
and allows the mud to settle gracefully around it.
I want to make a poem
which allows the heart to trust,
to open,
to flower in it’s own time
knowing, for sure,
it is dependable,
steady,
written to last
through the fiercest storms
though the world burn
and the mountains crumble
words of love
so beautiful
so eternal
they come to life
each time they are read,
or spoken
and anyone who dares to read the poem I make
cannot help but
find within themselves
clouds of peace
wrapped up in thick blankets of joy
and will forever know for sure
they are
beloved
❤️
AL
Everything real comes through the heart. When it is truly opened, everything secondary falls away- egoic glory, fame and fortune, substitute gratifications. The heart doesn’t care about such things. It doesn’t hold it against you if you don’t own your own home, achieve your goals, have a perfect body. The heart doesn’t care what you have earned or accumulated. No matter our seeming differences, we are all the same when the heart gate opens. Deep feeling levels the playing field.
walking while waiting…not holding onto the breath…finding the shallow end of the pool, gliding full body under the water…raising expectations while others wonder , slightly wandering , forgetting to remember is not an option while the day is so bright…finding fashion foolishly delightful, while taking ones shoes off …holy hours become …earth and flesh blown open , .birthing beyond time and space, then settling into the sunroom for hot peach tea and a tiny croissant…such a simple remedy while walking and waiting…
Beauty,
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT We develop grace as we learn with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should.
The idea of trusting the universe is a popular one these days, but many of us don’t know what this really means and we often have a hard time doing it. This is partly because the story of humankind is most often presented as a story about struggle, control, and survival, instead of one of trust and collaboration with the universe. Yet, in truth, we need to adhere to both ideas in this life.
On the one hand, there is much to be said about exerting control over our environment. We created shelter to protect ourselves from the elements. We hunted for animals and invented agriculture to feed ourselves. We built social infrastructures to protect ourselves and create community. This is how we survive and grow as a civilization. However, it is also clear that there are plenty of things that we cannot control, no matter how hard we try, and we often receive support from an unseen force – a universe that provides us with what we cannot provide for ourselves.
It is a good idea to take responsibility for the things in life that we can control or create. We work so we can feed, clothe, and shelter our loved ones and ourselves. We manifest our dreams and visions in physical form with hard work and forethought. But at a certain point, when have done all that we can, we must let go and allow the universe to take over. This requires trust. It requires a trust that runs deeper than just expecting things to turn out the way we want them to. Sometimes they will, and sometimes they won’t. We develop equanimity and grace as we learn to trust that, with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should. We are engaged in an ongoing relationship with a universe that responds to our thoughts and actions.
🌀
dailyom.com
by Madisyn Taylor
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Knowing it is the name the Beloved uses to call me.
😍
~Oriah House (c) 2015 My child, don’t be afraid. I am here. I know how hard it is to feel, sometimes. This moment, I know, is difficult to let yourself feel. Don’t hold back. Don’t protect yourself from feeling, your emotions this way and that. This is a gift from Me, the way your heart swings from high to low. I am the constant one. I keep you still.
There are things you will have to face now. I know you want to bury your head, and I let you do that, your head buried on my chest. But know when you lift your head, I will be there to help you to rise. And you will rise, and your feet will find firm footing, and you will square your shoulders and take one step forward, and then another, and you will find you know your way.
There is much ahead, and the path does not always seem clear. But I help you to rise. I go ahead, and I help you to rise. And when you stumble, I will help you to stand again. And when you are scared, I will firm your trembling lip and I will navigate you through the storm of emotions and I will quiet your quivering heart.
You are fierce and gentle. You are beautiful and strong. You are chosen and delighted in. You are all I’ve made you to be. I took everything from you that has kept you from rising. I have taken everything that makes you feel small and unsure and hesitant.
You can go forward, to the places I lead you. And you will know who you are. My child, the one who knows your Father, the one who knows your own name.
People don’t like love, they like that flittery flirty feeling. They don’t love love – love is sacrificial, love is ferocious, it’s not emotive. Our culture doesn’t love love, it loves the idea of love. It wants the emotion without paying anything for it.
– Matt Chandler
time wears down
as life takes its anguished toll
of strained shoulders and weary back
from the unyielding pressure of anger’s mighty weight
lash of black eyed look,
the demon,
lying in wait,
blame unleashed
words stripping tender heart skin
of the vulnerable
innocence unprepared for attack
leaving hope in shreds,
shame cocks its hat sideways
flames of passion freeze in place
ice, brittle, cutting
fills veins,
painful,
slicing to ribbons
destroying all goodness in its path
wounds with nothing to hide
nowhere to hide
Only you can change this –
you CAN change this!
I know for sure…
you can…
if you choose to…
God only knows
if you will
🔹
AL
3 spectacular wishes on this day…for every day
love
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AL 5/13/15
Real riches are the riches possessed inside.
life: acoustic & amplified 