life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Blessing”
It’s A Wonderful World! part 2
The Sun Walks by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
The sun walk
s through the autumn woods
slowly on her long yellow legs,
notices things, points them out,
reaches down between the grasses
and draws out their color,
touches leaves here and there
and makes them brilliant,
plucks a leaf and drops it,
plucks a leaf and drops it.
All through the woods her light
flutters down, swings down, dances down.
It is not winter that takes these leaves,
not frost that steals them in the night.
She gives them. It’s how she finds her way
down into the black soil,
how she gives her light
to the darkness working beneath.
It is not death
that takes us from this world,
but life that gives us, ripe and golden,
into the next.
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Used with Permission
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
It’s A Wonderful World! part 1
790 by Emily Dickinson
Nature — the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child —
The feeblest — or the waywardest —
Her Admonition mild —
In Forest — and the Hill —
By Traveller — be heard —
Restraining Rampant Squirrel —
Or too impetuous Bird —
How fair Her Conversation —
A Summer Afternoon —
Her Household — Her Assembly —
And when the Sun go down —
Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket —
The most unworthy Flower —
When all the Children sleep —
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light Her lamps —
Then bending from the Sky —
With infinite Affection —
And infiniter Care —
Her Golden finger on Her lip —
Wills Silence — Everywhere —
“790” by Emily Dickinson. Public domain
Been thinking about tenderness…
It is an era of toughness. We all have to fight for every inch of ground we get, right? We put up shields and take up swords to fight our battles – in the world and in our relationships. People are edgy, short-wired, always on the edge of a fight. Life is hard, trust is very hard to find and we continue to harden against it all. We seem to have forgetten about tenderness.
I don’t know about you, but I need tenderness. I need to give it and I need to feel it – especially from the ones I love the most. Tenderness is not an easy thing to acheive, it takes openess and trust between people to be able to create it. It is special.
So, I am throwing the question to the universe. Any ideas on how we can begin to bring tenderness back into our lives?
It all starts with a choice, right?
A Way of Living
Zig Ziglar, has a way with words. He said, “When I speak, people will occasionally say…’Zig, I loved your talk, but for me, motivation doesn’t last!’ I always tell them…bathing doesn’t either. That’s why I recommend it daily.”
I recently read a book called, ‘One Thousand Gifts’ by Ann Voskamp http://onethousandgifts.com/, which is about living a life of thanksgiving – no matter what your circumstances.
It is an amazingly beautiful book which is now on my short list of all time favs, along with The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho http://harpercollins.com/books/The-Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/?isbn=9780061122415 and The Shack by William P. Young http://theshackbook.com/.
There is a thought which makes perfect sense, even though in today’s world, it does not seem to be very popular – in order to get something different, you must DO something different. Along with this thought, the truth of Zig Ziglar’s statement resounds through the air, it must become a way of living. Much more important than bathing, if we are going to create happiness, we must always be in awareness of our choices.
Each of our lives are valuable and important. Our living demands and deserves our attention. We are responsible for our choices and for our own happiness. We must stay aware of what we want in our lives. If you are not happy and you want to be happy, then you must do something differently than you are doing now if you want happiness in your life. This is not about easy – anything of value is never about easy, but it is possible! Our lives have so much more value than most of us even consider.
When I set out, many years ago now, I was a mess. I still am – but now I know the truth, I am a beautiful mess with God as my helper. I have nothing to brag of on my own, but I am the apple of God’s eye. I was broken into millions of pieces by abuse, control, manipulation, loss mistakes, grief and disillusion. With God’s help, I was determined to do it differently than I had seen, and done, all my life. With the words of Jesus in Matthew chapters 5, 6 & 7 to help me with my choices, and by taking Psalm 37 to heart and not trusting to my own selfish way of thinking, I decided I would not fight for ‘fairness’ from others, but instead I would try only to work on my own heart and life. I was determined to refuse bitterness, anger or victimhood in my life. I knew I had a very small and limited view of life and so my faith was in something bigger than myself.
In order to do this I had to stay in a place of constant awareness. I had to choose to face my truth. Choose to battle the darkness within my heart. Choose forgiveness for myself and those around me. Choose to look for the good. Choose to look for the miracles everyday, and everyday I found something good to smile about. Miracles abounded! Many of my wounds have healed, my scars remain. I have learned to love them – as they are the reminders of what God has done for me. They keep me on this path of learning and sharing with others what I have I lived.
Life continues to challenge and every day I must ‘bathe’ in inspiration, I must continue to choose to make the choices towards happiness. This is my life and what I do yesterday is not really very important – it is what I do today that always matters! Every moment matters. Over and over I have made the choice towards love and forgiveness. Every time I make the choice it leads me further into joy, peace and the unconditional, unlimited love of God. I am determined, with God’s amazing grace, to continue.
It is very good!
Have a great Football Day!
If Life Were Like Touch Football
by Julie Cadwallader-Staub
Driving north on Route 2A
from Vermont to Maine
listening to the news:
—the New England Patriots coach was caught
trying to videotape the handsignals of the New York
Giants—
I remember how we six sisters
would recruit a few boys from the neighborhood
for a pick-up game of touch football in the street,
how we’d break into teams,
huddle around whomever was chosen to be qb,
how the qb would extend her left palm, flat,
into the middle of the huddle,
plant the index finger of her right hand in the center of her
palm, and then
with finger motions and whispers,
she would diagram who was to go where and when,
in order to so confuse and fool the other team
that one of us could break free
and go long.
Oh that feeling
of running as fast as I could
extending my arms, my hands, my fingers
as far as I could
watching that spiraling bullet of a football,
reminding myself:
if you can touch it,
you can catch it.
If you can touch it,
you can catch it.
“If Life Were Like Touch Football” by Julie Cadwallader-Staub (www.juliecspoetry.com) from Face to Face; A Poetry Collection, Cascadia Publishing House, 2010, used by permission, all rights reserved.
Why Do You Write?
It’s funny how time lengthens when you don’t like what you’re doing.
It’s funny how time goes by so quickly when you’re living your dream.
Monday, I worked a year at a restaurant.
Tuesday, I got a job for a few years at a law firm. Twenty dollars an hour to make copies and coffee.
On Wednesday, I did accounting. A dozen years stacking numbers and dollar signs into neat piles.
Thursday was twenty years making widgets at the factory. It was the longest day of my life.
What am I doing here? When will this week end?
On Friday, someone gave me a typewriter. I typed my dreams in black and pasted them to the walls until they were spackled with ink.
Friday turned to May. I typed. May turned and my hair grew grey.
I was born, I found, to type.
When the end came, I gave the typewriter away.
So someone else could live, as I did, their life in a day.
http://thewritepractice.com/new-video-why-do-you-write/
The Write Practice – Joe Bunting and Liz Bureman
life: acoustic & amplified 