I am so tired of waiting,
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
-Langston Hughes
Dr. Chuck DeGroat’s blog on Ferguson is so important! Please read it!!! Jesus always challenges us to break the chains that bind. We are never allowed to stay comfortable, but to go!
http://chuckdegroat.net/2014/11/25/ferguson-a-gospel-issue/
Dead leaves crackle and shout their praise,
shake their shakers and noisemakers,
applauding in gratitude
for all the green that has gone,
all the life, the breathing in and out,
the shade, the birds sheltered
and bugs fed, air cleansed,
the nations healed, the earth renewed.
Give thanks
for the gifts offered, the gifts surrendered,
the mistakes made, the afternoons spent.
Give thanks for the nights
when even the leaves rested.
Give thanks for ourselves, finely veined,
the chewed edges of grief, love given,
our letting go and arriving.
Kick the leaves.
It was good, it was good.
Give thanks for the welcoming earth,
receiving life and death with open arms,
making of our words and hands
a compost for others.
Give thanks that it all settles
into the dark, into the moist mystery,
already, under scumbling clouds
devoted to the green rising.
Kick up for joy the heart’s dry husk,
this blessed sackcloth, future’s bones,
the peace of doing without,
this rustling flesh, this loss.
The white oak, the red oak, the hickory,
the maple, the beech, the ash, all praise,
the grasses, the dry grasses praise.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the highest
appreciation is not to utter words,
but to live by them.
-John F. Kennedy
Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name,
make known His deeds among the people.
Glory you in His holy name;
let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.
-1 Chronicles 16:8,10
Maritta Terrell
Thoughts are also posted at:
http://thoughtsaday.blogspot.com/
Jane Hirshfield has a line of poetry which has been tweeted all over the world which reminds us –
How fragile we are between the few good moments.
I think somehow we have been sold the idea that life should be all thrill. That, if every moment isn’t exciting, we are somehow failing at life. I have learned, over the past 18 years, that the real wonder of life is not in the passing thrilling moments, but in the recognition of the simple and divine in the every day ordinary.
Andy Rooney says it like this –
For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.
The world is full of wonder! Happiness and joy are available to all who open their senses to the beauty of the unexpected sources carried in every breath we take.
Asking, seeking and knocking are all that’s required to begin!
What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?
What If This Road by Sheenagh Pugh
The moment that he begins to walk along it, the warrior of light recognises the Path.
Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.
Then, accepting the help of God and of God’s Signs, he allows his Personal Legend to guide him towards the tasks that life has reserved for him.
On some nights, he has nowhere to sleep, on others, he suffers from insomnia. ‘That’s just how it is,’ thinks the warrior. ‘I was the one who chose to walk this path.’
In these words lies all his power: he chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.
Paulo Coelho
Manual of the Warrior of Light
The sun punches through the cloud gaps
with strong fists and the wind
buffets the buildings
with boisterous good will.
Bad memories are blown away
over the capering sea. Life
pulls up without straining
the jungle tangle between us
and the future.
Easy to forget
the last leaves thicken the ground
and the last roses are dying
in their sad, cramped hospitals.
For gaiety’s funfair whirls
in the gray squares. Energy
sends volts from suburb to suburb.
And April, gay trespasser,
dances the dark streets of November,
Pied Piper leading a procession
of the coloured dreams of summer.
“April Day in November, Edinburgh” by Norman MacCaig
Isn’t there always something forgotten, something
lost, something gone? Praise this too,
for the blessings it brings. You will seek out
some recourse—reused paper, borrowed brush,
makeshift paint; some other—and make it work.
You will engage a new friend, beg or barter,
find a different, maybe better, way.
You will go where you didn’t know you could.
Left Behind by Alice D’Alessio
Autumn colors have settled
from Kandinsky to Rembrandt.
Trees cast down their crowns,
the ponds release their birds
bound southward, the sky
leaves its scarf in brown branches,
the round sun begins rolling up its things.
This scattering is also a drawing in.
Beds of leaves, mounds of leaves
the color of old books gather and rest.
The ground receives it all
and begins its dark, profound work
beyond my seeing, beneath my bones.
Even the leaves of childhood
and the sky’s drama of my long youth,
the naked, willing wood of trees,
and all the things piled around on my desk
like leaves when I return to the house,
are gathered in someone else’s hands,
bedded down, held close
for the long, bright winter.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Ripening
You Are Being Lead
“The life and death of a human being is so exquisitely calibrated as to automatically produce union with Spirit.” —Kathleen Dowling Singh
Ripening reveals much bigger or very different horizons than we realize. The refusal to ripen leads to what T.S. Eliot spoke of in “The Hollow Men,” lives that “end not with a bang but with a whimper.” I hope that you are one of those people who will move toward your own endless horizons and not waste time in whimpering. Why else would you even read this? Perhaps these meditations may help you trust that you are, in fact, being led. Life, your life, all life, is going somewhere and somewhere good.
Ripening, at its best, is a slow, patient learning, and sometimes even a happy letting-go—a seeming emptying out to create readiness for a new kind of fullness—which we are never totally sure about. If we do not allow our own ripening, and I do believe it is somewhat a natural process, an ever-increasing resistance and denial sets in, an ever-increasing circling of the wagons around an over-defended self. At our very best, we learn how to hope as we ripen, to move outside and beyond self-created circles, which is something quite different from the hope of the young. Youthful hopes have concrete goals, whereas the hope of older years is usually aimless hope, hope without goals, even naked hope—perhaps real hope. Such stretching is the agony and the joy of our later years.
Old age, as such, is almost a complete changing of gears and engines from the first half of our lives and does not happen without slow realization, inner calming, inner resistance, denial, and eventual surrender, by God’s grace, working with our ever-deepening sense of what we really desire and who we really are. This process seems to largely operate unconsciously, although we jolt into consciousness now and then, and the awareness that you have been led, usually despite yourself, is experienced as a deep gratitude that most would call happiness. Religious people might even call it mercy.
Adapted from ‘Ripening,’ Oneing, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 11-12
Gateway to Silence:
Ripen me into fullness.
Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation
adventures don’t always lead to a good nights sleep,
I’ve found comfy beds are somewhat a rarity
on the road less traveled.
there’s an occasional soft, fluffy, sweet sinking into soft sheets,
hot water,
and though they appreciate those amenities when they come,
pilgrims don’t get used to such things.
the gifts of adventure are many and varied –
the very best of these gifts is
people!
folks sharing themselves,
sharing whatever they have to give,
blessing you with love,
their food and drink,
their spare beds or sofas,
their conversation and hospitality,
their inmost parts vulnerable and open,
revealed completely
in the intimacy of how they live,
as, mostly unaware, they entertain angels.
no matter how humble, uncomfortable,
or even frightening and shocking at times,
we will find people living uniquely,
creating their own version of what works for them.
every lifestyle carries learning and vast wisdom.
receiving these amazing gifts of hospitality are one of life’s grandest joys and lessons.
I have found it true,
there are many things more important than physical comfort.
some of my most cherished memories,
the most generous gifts I have ever received,
include smelly, stinky, lumpy, hard, sleep-depriving surfaces
on which sleep was just a whimsical wish.
the blessing of adventure opens, within us, all the avenues of grace.
all we must do is be willing to
open our minds and hearts in new ways,
then continue to explore past our need to be comfortable.
💞
ACL 10/29/14
life: acoustic & amplified 