life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “courage”

we are allΒ 

 We are challenged to love the unloveable
Do good to those who hate us
there is only one way to get this done –
To see myself as I am. 
It is what it is. 
I am the other. 
I am the unlovable. 
Only I know how much this is true,
full of lies and ego. 
I want to fight my way to the top,
crush those beneath. 
I want to do things my way. 
The earth to revolve around my desires. 
Under my self-pleasing ways,
I am afraid, 
because I know the truth. 
Yes, I am the unlovable
yet I am loved
I have experienced this love
and it has changed me,
at least parts of me,

I should say, 
It is changing me…
daily
I have been overwhelmed by grace,
drowned in the goodness of love,
resurrected in loves fire. 
It has allowed me to see my imperfections,
accept them,
even laugh at them 
and challenged me to
admit the truth,
to change,
to open,
to die,
to become vulnerable,
to love myself and
to love others,
who are the unlovable as well

Only love can mend a heart
only love can break it in two –
or into a million pieces,
then turn it to gold
in order to allow this love to flow through the broken and scarred,
to heal the world,

wounded healers all,
by sharing this same great love
this loves which loves us all
Yes, we are all the unlovable
yet we are loved,
just as we are. 
πŸ˜ˆπŸ˜‡πŸ‘ΏπŸ˜‡πŸ˜ˆπŸ˜‡πŸ‘ΏπŸ˜‡
ACL 8/28/13
 
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

 

What haunts us are not the dead, but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others.Β Β  Β – Maria Torok & Nicholas AbrahamΒ 

 

sometimes. 
I don’t know what to say. 
sometimes. 
The very words catch behind
safe guards of emotion. 
sometimes. 
Speech refuses to commence. 
sometimes. 
Words pool behind the locked door. Waiting. 
sometimes. 
I lay and pray the words you don’t want to hear will dissolve inside me. 
sometimes.  
Silence fills the outside air. 
sometimes. 
Inside air is thick and muggy,
like the rain forest 
or Savannah in August. 
sometimes. 
I go to sleep with heavy lungs,
weight of the unspoken hanging like the world between us. 
sometimes. 

ACL 6/19/13

      

Listen to Sara Bareilles sing Brave http://youtu.be/QUQsqBqxoR4 

πŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ™ŠπŸ™‰πŸ™ˆπŸ΅

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

settling in to happiness

  What happens when your soul

Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?  

First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears

And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep. 

But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint. 

What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world

To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?

O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companionsβ€”

Like Hafiz.
πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘πŸ’‘
What Happens by Hafiz
 
 Today I want to greet joy

Without a trace of protection 
I want to open my eyes to the light
Without a blink of dread
I want to look at my past
Without a whisper of shame
I want to look at my future 
Without a hint of fear 
Today I want to dance
Without pausing to think
I want to belly laugh
Without caring who hears
I want to open my arms
and twirl in the sun
Until I fall breathless
free to be myself
full of the joy
that I open to allow
completely letting go
Without even a smudge of suspicion 
or an instant of hesitation

ACL 3/4/13

 
Listen to Stevie Wonder sing For Once In My Life http://youtu.be/3oZClso_yUQ
Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

organic 🌎 

We begin in the dark. Within. 
Life. 
Love. 
Joy. 
Invisible. Visible. 
Grief. 
Pain. Suffering. Healing. 
Faith. Trust. Peace. 
We grow and learn organically. 
Evolution. Beginning. Ending. 
Revolution. Courage. Strength. 
Resolution. Passion. Alive. 
All things come in their perfect time. 
Longing. Loving. Belonging. 
All things come.  
Herky-jerky. Flowing. 
Our choice. 
Freedom. 
Creativity. 
Beauty. Kindness. Truth. Hope. 
Are those gifts with wings
living in our hair. 
Hovering around our shoulders. 
Kissing our cheeks. 
Wiping away our tears. 
Birthing our songs as we rise from the ash. Flying. 
As we live the dash. 
In between. 
Birth. Death. Visible. Invisible. 

Connection. Miracles. Mystery. 

Nature. Seasons. Harvest. Compost. 

It’s who we are. 

Dirt. Dust. Clay. Organic. 

Earth. 

ACL 11/19/13

  

https://m.facebook.com/WatercolorFlowers

 

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.  Genesis 1:31

love heals the wound it makes….

 

Turning

Love is a mystery…

Wait! You already have it wrong

So do I!

And that’s the meaning of the song!

 

I gave it away for once,

The meaning;

What I’m saying…

Is the question still gone?

 

I’m going to twist these rhymes

And hold them till the end,

For I am the waiting comma;

And the semicolon you won’t send…

 

The ellipsis at the turn…

And the truth around the bend

The silent, waiting answer,

The wound that will not mend?

πŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’žπŸ’ž

by Matthew Mele
  
Listen to Eva Cassidy Time is a Healer http://youtu.be/ttl-W-hVDpQ 
 
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

 

Can Broken Wings Fly?

 


Broken wings can fly?

Who will mend them/who will rend them?

Who will tend them/who will send them?

 

I have been on the road less traveled

And seen life and death unraveled

Torn and broken down;

And voices filled with gravel!

 

I have been in nothing more

And seen rapacious roar

And heard the unknown sound

Speaking loudly,

From the ground!

 

And through my eyes, through the hue

Ebbing ever from greed to blue

Sometimes blinded by the light

Rarely knowing what is right

I travel through the maze

And broken through the haze

 

But my heart has never broken!

It beats with never ending light

And I know not where it leads me,

But I know it leads to you!

In sky or in the sea,

Always spoken if not seen

Or seen if not spoken;

 

The vision never broken!

πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»

by Matthew Mele

 

 

 

 

 

listen to Paul McCartney sing Blackbird http://youtu.be/8ehhZ53zysQ

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 

 

 

  

what’s meant to be will be

 

 Longing for what I don’t have,

aware of the great space between us,

not driven to fill it,
yet there is a loneliness, a waiting,
not sadness, not pathetic at all,
but a homesickness,
remembering what I long for,
what I long to know,
patient with my unknowing, 
and the dull, burning ache of my knowing,
trusting there is always more of love
than I can sense,
a great, wide solitude
I won’t clutter with less or other.

Such spaciousness leaves room
for these deep sighs
and profound joys
and mostly these calm, roomy smiles 

I find sprinkled generously 
throughout any given day. 

ACL 4/11/15

(edited from Unfolding Light Waiting Thomas by Steve Garnaas-Holmes)

 

  

  

 

  

Listen to Desperado Linda Ronstadt http://youtu.be/uVhRqH7euHI

Photo sources at www.pinterest.com/al513

the power of broken hearts

 

  

The beginning is such a good place to be. There is much in store. But there is acknowledgment of what came before the beginning to mark this moment as a beginning. And in that place I was there, too. But let’s start where beginning isβ€”the union of Me and you, the awakening of your heart, bit by bit, to Me.

 

I awaken you further, now.

 

These first starts are for you to appreciate the moments that came before themβ€”to see where I was, what I was doing, before you recognized my presence. Let me take you back to where I was when you couldn’t see Me there. Perhaps the definitions of beginning will need to be rewritten.

 

I always begin again in you. 

 

I am the discovery of the beginningβ€”all hope and life in you. I will give you a fresh start this day. I give you new breath, new eyes, new adventures to set out on with Me. But I want to start this beginning by going back to where I’ve always been with you.

 

I have always been with you, even when you couldn’t see it. I want to show you now.

🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠

Loop @ Gather Ministries 

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=278b78041b94c30f445911b53&id=ae645e9e7d&e=b9eb1d83ef

 

 

 

photo sources found @ www.pinterest.com/al513

 

 

 

every little things gonna be alright…

 

Spring Blessing

One day you wake up
able to name the weight 
you’ve been carrying.
Realizing it’s not part of your body or your being,
not essential in any way to journeying or joy,
you set it down gently, without fanfare
in the long soft grass at the side of the road
and walk on
surprised to find yourself
smiling in the warm sun
for no particular reason.

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer Β© 2015

  

Listen to Dinah Washington What A Difference A Day Makes http://youtu.be/OmBxVfQTuvI 

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈❀️

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 

and the sad things begin to be upended… Β  Β  Β – Ann Voskamp

 

 When the cross hits your life, a loneliness, a blindness and a darkness come all around you. Darkness and lostness are the worst parts of suffering. The wonder of the Resurrection is that this darkness was opened out and at the heart of the darkness a secret light was discovered. Each one of us who has come here hasn’t come to this place out of curiosity but we have come because we know the need that is in our lives and we know the frailty that is in our hearts and minds. We are strangers in the world. In our journey through life anything can befall us. It seems to be very difficult for us as humans to learn how to love, to learn how the let the fear and the resentment and the blindness fall away from us and to come into the special joy and peace and freedom of love. No matter how assured or competent we may feel, there is none of us who has not large territories of fear in our hearts, fear of sharing ourselves, of opening ourselves, of entering life. That is why we come to an ancient holy place like this, before the dawn, to let the new tender light of the resurrection touch our helpless fear and transfigure it and open it into courage. 


~ John O’Donohue from his Easter Homily at Corcomroe Abbey 1992

 

Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed!

Crucified and risen Christ,
flood my heart with your light
and my soul with your living presence,
that I may trust the victory of God,
the victory of love over violence,
of life over death.
By your rising give me courage
to know that evil and oppression,
though they seem to reign,
have already been defeated.
You who bear me in your heart,
you have raised me up with you,
and set me free from my fear,
free from shame and despair,
free from all that would imprison me,
from all that would keep me 
from loving perfectly. 

Loving Christ, 
I have died in you and risen in you.
May I walk with courage
into this new life.
Amen.

__________________  
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light

www.unfoldinglight.net

 

 Listen to Sandi Patty sing Was It a Morning Like This? 

http://youtu.be/eb1ayV5sTtM

πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†

                                           Shake out your qualms. 
                                                Shake up your dreams. 
                                                Deepen your roots. 
                                                Extend your branches. 
                                                Trust deep water 
                                                and head for the open, 
                                                even if your vision 
                                                shipwrecks you. 
                                                Quit your addiction 
                                                to sneer and complain. 
                                                Open a lookout. 
                                                Dance on a brink. 
                                                Run with your wildfire. 
                                                You are closer to glory 
                                                leaping an abyss 
                                                than upholstering a rut. 
                                                Not dawdling. 
                                                Not doubting. 
                                                Intrepid all the way 
                                                Walk toward clarity. 
                                                At every crossroad 
                                                Be prepared 
                                                to bump into wonder. 
                                                Only love prevails. 
                                                En route to disaster 
                                                insist on canticles. 
                                                Lift your ineffable 
                                                out of the mundane. 
                                                Nothing perishes; 
                                                nothing survives; 
                                                everything transforms! 
                                                Honeymoon with Big Joy! 

Easter Exultet by James Broughton

πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†πŸ”†

photo sources found at

www.pinterest.com/al513

 

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