Can I believe being thankful in all circumstances is important because it acknowledges that during the dark times of change, God is still covering me with His hand?
When we descend all the way down to the bottom of loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self – the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.
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 hasnโt 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
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!
๏ปฟSลetsu Yanagi, founder of Japan’s modern craft movement, defines beauty as that which gives unlimited scope to the imagination; beauty is a source of imagination, he says, that never dries up. A thing so attractive and absorbing may not be pretty or pleasant. It could be ugly, in fact, and yet seize the soul as beautiful in a special sense…luring the heart into profound and endless imagination.
I sit with the ghost of ashes
on my forehead,
still raw and sore,
feeling the sting and exhaustion
that comes from vulnerability
in the face of possible rejection.
I feel unworthy,
even as I know I don’t need to.
I felt under dressed –
one of my hardest, most shame-filled, pettiest horrors in life.
I felt judged as less than,
even though I do not know for sure I was.
I feel broken,
crushed,
I sit in the ash heap of my past
reflected in the story I have to tell.
my truth –
it’s so ugly,
so jagged,
how can it ever be redeemed?
how can I possibly be arrogant enough to think that God will use me,
restore my life,
even bless me?
Because He already has.
Because the truth is, he is making beauty right in these ashes,
even this very moment.
If I have ever believed that for sure –
then this is the time to truly believe it.
No matter the judgement of anyone.
No matter the temptation which these feelings bring – yes, this is the wicked temptation –
to tempt me to feel
unworthy,
less than,
like I don’t belong,
like I can’t make new choices,
like my clothes matter more than my soul,
so I turn away and give up.
So I do not risk this feeling
by just not sharing my story.
So I forget, or ignore, the multitudes of miracles.
So I just take my life in my own hands and make something happen for myself, without God.
As I am tempted to do each moment.
I want to heap the ashes on my head,
sit in them,
rip my already hole-y sweat pants even more.
I want to wail –
instead of this civilized way of crying with tissues catching my overactive sinus production.
I want to run far away and have someone tell me I’m pretty,
I’m a victim,
Life’s unfair.
Yes, I am tasting ashes for lent.
Today, I am very aware of my inefficiencies.
I bow with humility.
I bow in gratitude.
I have nothing
Yet!
(there is hope!!!)
I am beloved!
thank God,
Easter is coming!!
AL 3/6/14
20 things you might consider giving up this Lent. And these are things to give up not just for Lent, but for the rest of your life.
โข Guilt โ I am loved by Jesus and he has forgiven my sins. Today is a new day and the past is behind.
โข Fear โ God is on my side. In him I am more than a conqueror. (see Romans 8)
โข The need to please everyone โ I canโt please everyone anyways. There is only one I need to strive to please.
โข Envy โ I am blessed. My value is not found in my possessions, but in my relationship with my Heavenly Father.
โข Impatience โ Godโs timing is the perfect timing.
โข Sense of entitlement โ The world does not owe me anything. God does not owe me anything. I live in humility and grace.
โข Bitterness and Resentment โ The only person I am hurting by holding on to these is myself.
โข Blame โ I am not going to pass the buck. I will take responsibility for my actions.
โข Gossip and Negativity โ I will put the best construction on everything when it comes to other people. I will also minimize my contact with people who are negative and toxic bringing other people down.
โข Comparison โ I have my own unique contribution to make and there is no one else like me.
โข Fear of failure โ You donโt succeed without experiencing failure. Just make sure you fail forward.
โข A spirit of poverty โ Believe with God that there is always more than enough and never a lack
โข Feelings of unworthiness โ You are fearfully and wonderfully made by your creator. (see Psalm 139)
โข Doubt โ Believe God has a plan for you that is beyond anything you could imagine. The future is brighter than you could ever realize.
โข Self-pity โ God comforts us in our sorrow so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
โข Retirement โ As long as you are still breathing, you are here for a reason. You have a purpose to influence others for Christ. That does not come to an end until the day we die.
โข Excuses โ A wise man once said, if you need an excuse, any excuse will do.
โข Lack of counsel โ Wise decisions are rarely made in a vacuum.
โข Pride โ Blessed are the humble.
โข Worry โ God is in control and worrying will not help.
God has so much more in store for you. But so many of these things above are holding you back from walking in the full destiny he has laid out for you. Today is a new day.
So there you have it. What else might you add to the list?
Shrive: to hear a confession;
to impose penance; to grant absolution.
Shrove Tuesday, our fifth snowstorm
in as many weeks.
In three feet of snow,
plowed shoulder deep beside the roads,
along the driveways,
we confess that we are human,
that we are weary,
the streets lined with quadriplegic cars,
that we are small, dependent, fragile.
The knife wind comes down on us
where we are tender.
We confess our bondage
to the narrow paths we’ve dug,
and keep digging.
Winter swallows our voices, erases speech;
our chanting shovels confess
we are not masters.
The silver sun hears us,
assures us straightening between shovelfuls
that we are not evil,
merely afraid,
and notes how much of our snow
is now in our neighbor’s driveway.
The strangeness so oddly transforming our streets,
the need, the hardship
tempt us inward, swirling winds,
but beckon us to reconcile, to accept,
to bond, to help.
We shovel toward each other.
The crow and the fox
who also shiver bear our absolution:
we too belong, and carry out penance
for being human
in labor and toil.
Shriven under mounds of baptismal white,
we are not judged.
This is not punishment,
just life,
that we must shovel.
on the edge of flying
the verge of breaking through
standing in the pouring rain
hoping to find you
somewhere in the darkness
of this dark and stormy night
questions with no answers
crash upon my soul
the fires of hell rage on
bloody battles all around
as I stand within this pain
hoping to find faith in something
in this dark and stormy night
at the end of living
not knowing what to do
lightning strikes, the fire burns,
tears, that match the weather,
flooding from my soul
releasing from this moment –
there’s work for me to do –
now I fly
ACL 2/2/15
Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
– Joan D. Chittister
On the day I died
water ran through pipes,
footsteps identified people in the house and
the dogs nails clicked quickly on the wood floors above my head,
insisting it was time to go out for relief.
I still needed coffee,
light with cream,
2 sugars.
The sun was bright
and I remember the sky was that deep blue,
romantically named, azurite.
There was cockscomb,
half alive in pots near the wooden footbridge I walked over.
I used to love them when I was alive.
I touched their red, velvety, blooms seeking to feel something.
I mistook fluttering angel wings for birds,
battles fought,
just beyond where I lay
on the words of Wendell Berry –
the only thread
keeping me tethered to this world.
I sat on benches beside ghosts
of those gone before me.
I could still only feel them beside me,
I was in the world between worlds.
There was darkness, a fire swamp, screaming, clashes of swords,
I could not save myself.
God was everywhere.
I found myself in a boat,
where I stayed for 2 years, until,
in recent weeks,
the call came to step out,
to start walking on water.
Late in the day,
I stood in the bathroom,
accepting the most insulting job offer I have ever received,
then sat on a stool,
trying to act as if I was alive,
pretending to look for puzzle pieces,
slightly aware of the colors and shapes,
singing echoes of songs I used to love,
with my beautiful Robin,
who seemed very much alive.
ACL 1/21/15
I
In his little boat the fisherman
floats out on a deep
mystery that provides.
His net woven of many strands
is a gathering, for gathering.
He casts it into dark waters
and hauls in light.
Not for himself
but those hungry in the village,
from the unseen he offers
sustenance.
II
The fly fisher admires the river,
runs her eyes along its surface
like her hands on fine furniture.
She sees beneath into the depths
and sees unseen the beauty flashing,
knows without knowing
the life given there.
Not with will to overpower
but adoration of the holy
she casts, she works the fly
and waits
for the communicating tug,
the splendor rising.
With this focus,
not to catch but to evoke,
not to control but to connect,
she loves people,
and seeks out the grace
flashing beneath their eyes,
the love
rising in them.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light http://www.unfoldinglight.net
life: acoustic & amplified 