life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Encouragement”

15 May 2015

do it again….do it again

  Our Lord has written resurrection not in books alone—but in every leaf in springtime.   – Martin Luther

  “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.

For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. 

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. 

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. 

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.

It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

G K Chesterton

 

 Hope and renewal and rebirth are at the heart of things. 

The world in winter looks so much as if it’s dying—and yet, and yet …

The frozen streams heard him sigh…

“We’ll run again!” they seemed to cry.

The tall dead grasses all were rustling…

“But we’re not dead, we’re only sleeping!”

The lost flowers were singing on and on…

“But we’re only hidden, we’re not gone!”

That tiny green shoot preached to me that morning. About hope. About joy. 

And about vulnerability—which isn’t weakness, but true strength.

Everywhere we look, God is speaking to us. His creation is singing to us. The Heavens are shouting it out. It’s not what it looks like! There is hope beyond the walls of the world!

That Joy is at the heart of things.

That a Light shines beneath it all. 

That Love runs the universe.

The more childlike we become —  the more like God we are.

And really, it shouldn’t surprise us that God is “younger” than we are.

After all, it wasn’t a general, or a warrior, or a politician God sent to rescue His broken world —

It was a baby.

👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻

   – Sally Lloyd-Jones on A Holy Experience 

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/05/when-youre-desperate-for-some-hope-in-the-midst-of-a-monotonous-life/

  

 

Photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford CT

Listen to Keb’ Mo sing Closer http://youtu.be/Fdv-KafABk4 


Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Encouragement, fun, inspiration, intimacy, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, moment, Vulnerability | Leave a comment
13 May 2015

Your future depends on many things,            but mostly on you.       – Frank Tyger

  This is my commandment, 
         that you love one another as I have loved you.
                  —John 15.12

that is, 
with tender attention
and stout resilience,
that is,
despite your blame and fear,
your betrayal yet to come,
your lack of repentance,

as I have loved you
when you were determined 
not to deserve it,

that you love as I have,
withholding nothing,
excusing no one,

that you pour yourself out
for the unworthy,

as I have 
pour yourself out
of your life
into eternal love
and as I have
rise
new, 
perfected
in love.

__________________  
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 
    


   

 

What Is The First Step In Healing

What do you need to do to get better?

This morning, a 73 year old doctor in Tampa Bay, Florida shot himself. Today was his 38th wedding anniversary. He was accused of recklessly driving his speedboat and killing four teenage boys in 1989. Although he was acquitted, he never really got over it.

This morning, I met with a friend, age 64, who told me bitterly she’d stopped talking to her father. They’ve had so many arguments in the years I’ve known her! In their last scene, she said she told him, “I’m a grown up now! You can’t keep hurting me like you did when I was 12!” I don’t know for sure, but I can fill in the blanks on that one and so can you. My friend has recently lost 80 lbs and she has another 60 to go. Whatever happened back then, she never really got over it.

One of the drivers of the car in which I was passenger when both my children were killed blames himself for the accident to such an extent that his whole life has been mangled and wrought with emotional pain from that day to this. More than 20 years. He never really got over it.

What about you?

Do you have some secret pain, some traumatic memory, some inner anguish that you strive to hide from the world? Is there a monster inside you, jabbing at you and never letting you forget what happened?

Healing from serious issues can be a long, difficult process. At least, that’s how it has been for me. But unless we continue to work towards healing, toward bringing the dark into the light and letting it heal, we will end up like the people above — ending our lives too early; destroying our physical well-being; mangling our futures with self-recrimination.

The journey to wellness – not the kind you fake so other people think you’re OK now – requires a lot of courage. It’s going to be hard, but get this: it won’t be as hard as you think. And it will not require you to suffer as much as you suspect it might. I promise!

The first step in healing is deceptively simple: Decide that’s what you want to do.

Only you know the answer about whether you really want to revisit the past, dig it up and heal it so it doesn’t keep on screwing with your current life. If you don’t, you’ll end up with the life similar to the people above. I’m not suggesting you rush off to confront people who’ve hurt you. I’m not actually suggesting you rush off and DO anything. Healing the soul is as gentle and slow as healing the body. You can’t look at the cut on your finger and simply acknowledge you have a cut, then order it to heal instantly. You might have to tend to it a little. It will cause you pain (although not as much as the original injury.) You don’t have to relive and talk endlessly about your trauma to heal it. Although it would be VERY helpful to see a therapist or a clergy person, even that isn’t mandatory.

silence today and just ask this in the midst of your own stillness:

Do I want to keep living with this inside me or is it time to begin healing?

If the answer is YES, don’t delay! Start now. It gets better, I promise.

by Wendy Keller

http://positiveoutlooksblog.com/2015/05/12/what-is-the-first-step-in-healing/

   

   Listen to Ruthie Foster sing Woke Up This Morning http://youtu.be/Pd0p9AYGgIs 

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513 
   

The two most important days in your life
   are the day you are born, and 
       the day you find out why. 
Mark Twain

Happy Birthday to me!! I’m so glad to be here!! 50 ROCKS! 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Gratitude, Happiness, Happy Holiday!, Life, Love, Miracles, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
06 May 2015

I am a poet

  It has taken a while to embrace the poet.

The desire having been born much later in life,
to write poetry,
to bring to life, with words,
what I see, feel, moments of sanguinity.

I have never doubted the words I have written
because they were written in truth, my truth.
But I did doubt the title.
Poet.
What? These lines? Poetry?

There was too much significance behind the title.
A poet.
Wordsworth, Shelley, Dickinson, Frost, Walt Whitman…
Oh my. The idea left me breathless.
What was I playing at?

But then, the answer was blindingly simple.
Take away the significance.

Aren’t poems moments of grace, of revelation?

Humming to a birdsong,
delighting at the sight of valleys and mountains,
closing our eyes in ecstasy at the sweetness of a fruit
or the texture of bark under our fingertips…
Aren’t these the poetic murmurings of one’s heart?

While some of us choose to put it all on paper,
others choose to carry it all within their hearts.
Well then, underneath the cloak of conventionality,
aren’t we all poetic?
Aren’t we all poets?

👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤

I am a poet by Rama Desai

https://ramaink.wordpress.com/author/ramaink/
👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤

 

   

  Listen to Lake Street Dive sing We Love All the Same Songs http://youtu.be/9sNbyjfgccc
photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/513

Posted in awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, courage, create, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, fun, grace, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Poetry, power, Reality, Thoughts, Today, Trust, Vulnerability, words, Writing, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
10 Apr 2015

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 is—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 them—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 beginning—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

 

 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Blessing, Choice, connection, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Grieving, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, Passion, Patience, People, Relationships, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
08 Apr 2015

thread 

 

 Something is very gently,

invisibly, silently,
pulling at me—a thread
or net of threads
finer than cobweb and as
elastic. I haven’t tried
the strength of it. No barbed hook
pierced and tore me. Was it
not long ago this thread
began to draw me? Or
way back? Was I
born with its knot about my
neck, a bridle? Not fear
but a stirring
of wonder makes me
catch my breath when I feel
the tug of it when I thought
it had loosened itself and gone.


The Thread by Denise Levertov

 

 

BEGINNING well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form, beginning well involves a courageous clearing away of the confusing, the cluttered and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the necessary. 

Beginning is difficult, and our procrastination is a fine, ever-present measure of our reluctance in taking that first close-in, courageous step to reclaiming our happiness. Perhaps, because taking a new step always leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing now to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma. In effect we must sit by the death bed of our own old, now departing wishes and come to the new step, learning that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead. 

It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer to live in an almost world, why we prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities to be safely clouded by fear, why we want the horizon to remain always in the distance, the promise never fully and simply made, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.
💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢
‘BEGINNING’ From CONSOLATIONS: 
The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning 
of Everyday Words
© 2015 David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

Now Available 

http://davidwhyte.stores.yahoo.net/newbook.html

 

 

 

Listen to Frank Sinatra Love’s Been Good to Me http://youtu.be/9pLpzNPiB48

photo sources foind at www.pinterest.com/al513

  

 

 

 

Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, commitment, connection, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, healing, Leadership, Letting Go, Life, Love, mystery, Relationships, soul and spirit, touch, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
26 Mar 2015

When wilt thou come unto me, Lord? Oh come, my Lord most dear! Come near, come nearer, nearer still, I’m blest when thou art near.     – C. H. Spurgeon

 

 There is a huge difference between learning about truth and experiencing truth. Touch the source. Your mind can take in endless pearls of wisdom and your mouth can repeat them, but until you have essential experience — you only have noise. Talk and even listening are nothing without understanding. We only truly understand what we experience. When people have understanding they tend to be more quiet and seek quietness. Consider the possibility that many of the things you hear and say are utter nonsense and meaningless repetitions of noise. Cut it all out. Quit getting your information second hand. Take any concept, lesson, story, book, quote or conversation and look for a way to touch its source of origin — which is always an experience.

  
“We are uncomfortable with intimacy and connection, which are among the greatest of our unmet needs today. To be truly seen and heard, to be truly known, is a deep human need. Our hunger for it is so omnipresent, so much a part of our life experience, that we no more know what it is missing than a fish knows it is wet. We need more intimacy than nearly anyone considers normal. Always hungry for it, we seek solace and sustenance in the closest available substitutes: television, shopping, pornography, conspicuous consumption — anything to ease the hurt, to feel connected, or to project an image by which we might be seen or known, or at least see and know ourselves.” – Charles Eisenstein
 

 

photo sources found at wwwpinterest.com/al513  

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, connection, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Relationships, touch, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 Mar 2015

tell it


 

 

 

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Photo sources at www.pinterest.com/al513

Posted in action, Adventure, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, healing, inspiration, intimacy, Life, Love, Relationships, Stars and Moonlight, strength, Thoughts, touch, Trust, truth, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, words, Writing, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
27 Feb 2015

preaching to myself today…

 From the place where we are right/flowers will never grow/in the spring./The place where we are right/is hard and trampled/like a yard./But doubts and loves/dig up the world/like a mole, a plough./And a whisper will be heard in the place/where the ruined/house once stood. 

 Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai



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

…that the best argument you can make 
is no argument
at all.


Do not argue with life, or with anyone in life. Life
presents itself perfectly in every moment, and every
person believes his or her point of view to be valid
and ‘right.’
 
Arguing with any of this is pointless, and a terrific
waste of energy. Simply create what you choose next.

Love,  Your Friend …



Commentary on Community:

Conversations

Every time we gather becomes a model of the future we want to create.

Authentic conversations create a future distinct from the past.

Conversations create possibility.

Show up. Be present.

The more words you use, the less likely you are to be authentic. 

Inversions

These two matter to me at the moment:

The future creates the present. 

The listener creates the speaker.

Taking (emotional) risks creates safety

Changing the Future

The past is only a lesson about the future to be used in the present.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Restorative Justice

This thought is taking from “Community” and “Sitting in the Fire.”

Restorative justice is communal justice (as opposed to individual retribution). 

Restorative justice adds a measure of balance to the community.

 

Based on the community conversation practices of Peter Block

http://www.asmallgroup.net

Captured by Eric Hansen – Hansen Resource Development


To be truly alive

is to be fully, freely, lovingly present

in this moment,
drinking in the grace of God
and pouring myself out in love
for God and for all beings.


What do I gain

by abandoning this
to be right,
to get my way,
to be comfortable,
to manage how people think of me?


When I win the argument,

protect my beliefs, defend myself,
when I judge another 
and put them in their place,
when I separate myself from those
who suffer pain or injustice,
when I buy another trinket 
for my heart’s little room
and close the door,
what have I lost?


I am not a body or a reputation

but a soul.
God of love,
open my door.
Let life spill in
and spill out. 
Let me suffer and love,

__________________  
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Change is the end result of all true learning.

    – Leo Buscaglia 

photo source tracks found at





Posted in attitude, awareness, Choice, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, friendship, Letting Go, Life, Love, People, Respect, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 Feb 2015

giving it all

IMG_6979

there is no cage
love must be stepped into
freely.

there is no withholding
love gives it all away.

there is no have to’s
love must be given and received willingly.

there is no selfish motive
love always wants the highest and best for the other person.

there are no ‘no’s’
love always says yes.

there are no demands
love allows the other person to decide.

love takes commitment.

it is not an easy job,
both parties –
equal –
understanding the gift –
100 percent in.

you must choose what you want,
knowing the consequences of your choices.

Just know, for sure,
love will always set you free.

there is no fear in love.

ACL 2/22/15

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Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose without any insistence that they satisfy you.
– Wayne Dyer

We are not transmitting or receiving love as we were divinely intended to—we are filtering love rather than feeling it. We fell for the prevailing hysteria that said, “Protect your heart,” and we began to believe that love itself had enemies and needed protecting. When we were hurt, we felt that love was somehow diminished or damaged. But hurt has nothing to do with love, and love is unaffiliated with and unaffected by pain. Ego was hurt, not love. Love is divine; it is everywhere, ever present and abundant and free. It is a spiritual energy that is, at this very moment, flowing through the universe—through us, through our enemies, through our families, through billions of souls. It was never absent from our lives. It is not bound in our hearts or in our relationships, and thus it is not capable of being owned or lost. We have allowed our awareness of love to diminish; that is all. In doing so, we have caused our own suffering. We must mature and realize that freeing our mind of ancient hurts and opening once more to love shall give us access to divine strength. To stand emotionally open before the world and give of our hearts without fear of hurt or demand of reciprocity—this is the ultimate act of human courage. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL AMPLIFY LOVE.
Brendon Burchard
Declaration 7 from http://MotivationManifesto.com/
💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞
The light of the desert reaches down
into the crevices of the rocks,
can tell stone from shadow.

Holy One,
may I see myself with the eyes of love,
see clearly what in me is love
and what is not love.

Heal my fear,
forgive me wholly,
and hearten me
to choose well,
to step wisely.
_________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

photo source tracks found at

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, commitment, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, intimacy, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
17 Feb 2015
1 Comment

boundary lines and hard lessons

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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.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

photo source tracks found at

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, dark, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, Growth, healing, Letting Go, Life, People, Relationships, Trust, www.pinterest.com

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