life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “courage”

be the manger

 

 My Word is made flesh.
This is how I live.

I am born not once long ago, 

but each moment, always.
Will you be my flesh?

Having none of my own,

can I put you on and wear you 

into the world? 

Will you be born for me?
Walk in the woods for me, will you?

Touch what you can touch for me,

touch with gentle fingers.

Listen for me. Hear so that I may hear.

Smell pine and sage, babies and cities.

Smell for me.
Look with my eyes.

See what I long to see,

one thing at a time.
Be with the lonely for me, will you?

Stay close to the suffering,

dance with the joyful, dance

as only a body can dance.

Let your heart be broken,

as only a beating one can. 

Reach out to the despised,

notice the beauty.

Dare to be a child in a rough world.

This is how I come.
You are my flesh now, dear one.

Bear me into this world

and I will always be in you

and in all you meet.

Have an eye for those who don’t know this;

see it in them even when they can’t.
Let me discover

what it is to come to myself

in my own Creation. 

Look— even now

I am coming close,

seeking the manger.

Even now I enter.
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 On the streets of anywhere lives a man.

The same man.
Homeless and alone in the world.
The tears that fill his eyes go by silent, and unnoticed.
Tears that cry out for a simple glimpse of the certainty that he’s a brother to us all.
That he belongs.
But you and I dare not look. Lest we catch such a glimpse.
A glimpse that might show us the frailty of our own humanity.
A glimpse that might admit that we are, and always have been, more than brothers.

   – Nic Askew

  

prep work

 

    
  

   

   

   

   

Ready. Set. Go.  

gift

 

 Longest night.

Darkness falls like snow,

falls and falls, 

deepening.

Older than the universe,

here before it,

and will be after.

Wraps an arm around us

as if we’re old friends.

We are.

Darkness lives in us,

radiates from us.

We speak it.

Darkness is the velvet cloth

where you cherish the gem

of your presence among us,

darkness the womb,

darkness the manger

that cradles your light,

this holy being

that becomes us,

births us.

In the darkness

you do not come to us,

we come from you.

Because you are with and not apart,

even the darkness

is you.

Because you shine in it

the dark is our dark,

none of it unchanged.

Your being our light,

your hereness our life,

shining in the longest night.

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 To go into the darkness with a light 
is to know the light. 

To know the dark, go dark. 

Go without light and find that the dark too, blooms and sings 

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. 

– Wendell Berry 

  
Black. out. black. 

Black. on. black. 

Dark. on dark. on dark. 

I was simply looking for home. 

Not knowing the current alley would lead 

to where the sidewalk ended 

I stepped off the edge 

out of the world of light 

waking into morning night 

a banished sun 

no stars 

or moon 

or streetlights 

or fireflies 

or lighters 

in pitch darkness 

I lay, unable to move, 

senses adjusting 

to what is my new reality 

hearing the life 

that lives here 

wondering if I’ll make friends 

while I’m here 

learning this new space. 

🌌

AL

 

 Gift suggestions: 
To your enemy –  forgiveness. 

 To an opponent – tolerance. 

   To a friend – your heart. 

     To a customer – service. 

       To every child – a good example. 

          To all – love. 

💞

           – Oren Arnold

  

following 

 

 On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know… 

…that there is a solution. There is. But you must keep

going to find it. You cannot stop, you cannot give up. 
This is about more than just patience. This is about 

more than just persistence. This is about absolute 

knowing that God is on your side. 

  

When you know this, you never give up…and the 

sense of struggle goes away. You simply keep moving 

forward knowing that, in the end, all will work out. 

And that along the way there will be great insights 

and wonderful remembering. 

🎇

   – Neale Donald Walsh

   
God Path with Robin OK 12/17/15

🌌

 I won’t wish this pain away 

I’ll just trust You and obey

won’t search for treasure on this ground 

Cause in You my wealth is found 

I know this is right where I should be 

I will wait for Your light to shine in me 

I will praise You every day 

I am Yours 

Beloved for eternity 
Whatever will bring You glory 

Whatever will magnify Your name 

Whatever will bring You glory 

Whatever, my life is not the same 
Whatever will show you’re holy 

Whatever I do is for Your praise 

Whatever to tell my story 

Whatever, my heart will sing Your grace

🌅

AL

🌋

Written on 11/22/13 at French Park in Cincinnati (first pic) Day before following God’s call to go to Louisville. $40 and no place to stay. I lived in my car for several weeks. ❤️ Miracles and adventures abounded….

loving you loving me 

 

 I have loved in life and I have been loved. 
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar, 

and have been raised above life’s joy and sorrow. 

My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it. 

My heart has been rent and joined again; 

My heart has been broken and again made whole; 

My heart has been wounded and healed again; 

A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet. 

I went through hell and saw there love’s raging fire, 

and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love. 

I wept in love and made all weep with me; 

I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men; 

And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes. 

The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear; 

With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved, 

I shook the throne of God in heaven.

I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love, 

“Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret.” 

She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear, 

“My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover, 

and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.

🤗

Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Dance of the Soul

 

   

Photos found at http://www.pinterest.com 

  
 

simply still

 

   


   

     
 

   

   
   
 In the sixth month already

of the impossible

Gabriel, 

so usually unseeable—

startling, 

though you thought him so foreign,

how nearer than you

to the seed of your life—

fills the room with his wings,

wraps with his words

this world 

beside God’s so small,

sets it in the greater one

among stars 

and you 

lit by the same light,

and calls forth your trust in heaven’s actual, 
—

for with God nothing is impossible—

the divine within, 

inviting your invitation

from even deeper in,

a Word, 

a world entrusted to you,

your being 

that by gift and labor blesses,

brought with singing

through the portal of this blood of birth

and that crucial other,

calling to life

in your drab littleness

the body of your holiness,

the flesh that God without you cannot have.

Even God waits 

to see the miracle,

the birth that only you can birth.

 

There is no test for paradise,

only paradise.

Say yes.

 

😇

_________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

  

http://www.designlovefest.com/2012/12/holiday-centerpiece/

 

 

Wo)Men with courage do not always slay dragons, sometimes they ride them…

 

 Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we would had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
   – Joseph Campbell
 

 Security is a funny thing. We long for it, but it is all too often an illusion, one that covers over our authentic path, one we pay the ultimate price for. Security is a sick-cure for what ails us on the deepest levels. What we really long for is a life that is infused with purpose and connection. I know many people who promised themselves that they would live their ‘real-life’ after retiring from the quest for security. When they arrived ‘there’, they were either entirely exhausted from decades of falsity, or they had forgotten the ‘real-life’ that called them. This is what happens when we bury our precious life below mountains of obligation and distraction. We can’t get out from under them. We are only here for the blink of an eye. Better to substitute the illusion of sick-cure-ity for something authentic and alive. Better to find safety in the heart of a life deeply lived. Better to live true. 
      – Jeff Brown

 

 On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know… 

…that safety is not the thing you should look for in the

future. Joy is what you should look for.
Security and joy may not come in the same package.

They can…but they also cannot.

There is no guarantee.

 

If your primary concern is a guarantee of security,

you may never experience the truest joys of life.

This is not a suggestion that you become reckless,

but it is an invitation to at least become daring.

 

  – Neale Donald Walsh

  
TRUST THE PROMISE
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

 And out you stepped onto new ground,

 Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

 A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear

 You can trust the promise of this opening;

 Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

 That is at one with your life’s desire. 
Awaken your spirit to adventure;

 Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

 Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

 For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

   – John O’Donohue 

  

when will it get better? 

 

 The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action: and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad.

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream.

   All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

   To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

🔥

 – Sonnet CXXIX, William Shakespeare 

 

 I believe it is no ones intention to live as a perpetual victim. 
No one ever said they wanted that as a career,

wanted to spend their valuable life having no personal power –

yet how many are there

trapped by the belief that life, 

God, 

some ‘other’ 

has taken something from them

which they should have?

they deserve(d) it

they didn’t want to lose what’s gone

      (I understand that)

but now it’s gone

and they’ve been wronged

they spin in the agony of not controlling 

someone,

deity,

something, anything

else. 
They can’t see what they’re doing,

they can’t hear what they’re saying,

they can’t see how they’re living,

because they are sure

sure they are right,

sure they deserve to be this grand victim,

sure the very best of life,

their very happiest,

is behind them now. 

They may say ‘they are not special’,

but in reality they believe they are SO special

life should only, always, give them what they want…

no matter what. 
I used to try to convince them otherwise,

spend massive energy,

years invested in living with people determined not to see,

not to let go,

not to find happiness and peace. 

People refusing to do the work to gain truth and freedom. 

now I take it case by case,

I trust God enough to allow them to come,

allow them to go. 

I do my own hard work 

of letting go

of letting go

of letting go…

of loving with no expectations of return…

of finding out new insights about my own heart…

of standing in my own healing,

sight,

strength,

without being distracted by the manipulation 

of people living as victims. 

I remind myself (over and over) everyone has a right to live as they choose, 

truth is never an argument to be won. 

Then I give thanks that I chose something new for myself. 

I pray for each person in the world to live with peace and joy…

I grieve my own, very personal losses, 

and, eventually,

life goes on…

🌀

AL

  
 Amidst ten thousand losses and swirling joys. 

At this very instant on the sacred Earth I wait. 

Come to us Beauty, Wisdom, Goodness, Peace, Solace, Grace, Counsel, Love. 

See the open archway this cold night 

Air, rich as gold flows.

Fine snow, glistens our faces. Each flake, 

every exquisite crystal blossom is the covenant of your love 

told a thousand, thousand times. 

   – Patricia Van Ness

 

  

 Listen to Serenity Fisher sing So Far From Oh Well

timing be everything…just wait and see  

 

 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,

Donna Knutson

   
    
    
  

  
 

get quiet  

  
You see it. Everywhere you look people are staring at their flat things. We’re terrified of being bored. No one drifts or wonders. If Robert Frost had lived today he would have written, “Whose woods are these? I think I’ll Google it.”

– Paula Poundstone

 

  

Today I found myself empty

Empty of words

Empty of color

Empty of strength

Empty of empathy

Empty of ability

Empty of thoughts even. 

I’ve been here many times 

I understand it better now. 

I rested a lot 

Did minimal work,

Other than cleaning up and fixing meals,

I mainly stayed in bed,

listened to music,

and the silence. 

I stayed in open, wordless, prayer –

Allowing the emptiness to be. 

I have been giving my life force

to others,

 to grief, 

to walking in the dark,

the draining energy of great faith. 

I have earned this emptiness.  

I must allow myself to recharge. 

I have nothing more to give. 

The filling up of the emptiness

must be done carefully, 

in prayer,

in silence. 

Tomorrow is another day. 

Baby steps. No worries. 

The sun will shine again. Love awaits,

patient and kind. 

💞

AL 

  
   

  
💞

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