life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Encouragement”

just knock

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In Matthew 7:7 Jesus told us to ask, seek and Knock and the door will open. It’s written as a guarantee.

Our only responsibility is to want the door to open.

25 years ago I came to that door. I raised my hand and I knocked.

I began an adventure, which is healing my life and has lead me right here. I have found that the secret to curing both my insecurity and my arrogance is to seek who God is – and I have come to be humbly aware that even my seeking is because He sought me first and the ability to want Him, somehow comes from His wanting me.

My relationship with Love (because God = Love) has steadily changed and grown, as has my awareness of the mystery, magnitude and wonder of who He is.

Along the pathway I have been granted the tiniest of mind-blowing glimpses, which are almost more than I can comprehend. They always take my breath away and I stagger when fiery glory becomes visible, as only God can reveal, because only a moment before it looked to me like another ordinary bush. These glimpses always reveal the ridiculousness of my own desire for self-importance, and free me to release any need for performance or perfection.

As I have discovered grace, I see just how little this great God needs me, or you – but, oh, how much He wants me and you! It is the desire of God to know and be known by us and He was willing to become helpless and give His very life to enter into that intimacy we call relationship. We are each His most beloved and as I began the journey of accepting myself, warts and all, as truly loved and worthy of belonging, I find I can also love you, with your warts, as I do myself.

These things blow my mind, This great love pours over me and gives me courage and passion. It allows me to share myself, my life and songs with you. I believe it is the only thing that could possibly allow someone like me to fall so deeply in love that I lay aside my personal desires, to become transparent and vulnerable, willing to endure the shame of the cross of Christ. I surrender to a plan I really can’t even understand, much less have any control over, yet know for certain is so much more valuable than I could ever even imagine!

Every day, I am surprised to find myself here. I am the most unlikely pilgrim ever, and I gratefully think about these strange things and say, along with every other person who has ever experienced this amazing love,

WHO AM I, that You would love someone like me? I am not much, but I am yours, please help me be all You have created me to be, take me, use me. Your will be done on earth as in heaven. Yes, here am I, send me.
ACL 1/14/15

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God does not change, but He uses change—to change us. He sends us on journeys that bring us to the end of ourselves. We often feel out of control, yet if we embrace His leading, we may find ourselves on the ride of our lives.
– Jen Hatmaker

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the right thing

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We are here essentially to risk ourselves in the world; we are a form of
invitation to others and to otherness, we are meant to hazard ourselves for the
right thing, for the right woman or the right man, for a son or a daughter, for
the right work or for a gift given against all the odds, and to allow ourselves to
be happy may be the greatest, most courageous act of all.
– David Whyte
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As I approach,
it comes to me quickly –
all four seasons have converged,
are visible residents
of this mornings beach.
Here are bands of snow from this spell
we call Winter.
Here, layers of leaf-surf to shuffle through the memories,
we called Fall.
Which, seems to me,
was just yesterday?
The sands dna carries the Summer sun,
still warm,
within its restless, shifting soul.
It whispers promises of returning warmth and sunshine as I stand, here and now, in cold, driving rain,
working through markers of time,
arriving at my favorite season,
Spring!
Grief, death and hope are front and center,
as Vinnie’s beautiful, driftwood cross
still stands as a memorial to his mother’s recent passing,
as well as, the hope of springs sure arrival!
Easter carries the sharp winds of death,
alive with the eternal mystery of resurrection.
I realize there are many symbols of spring,
on this mixed media stretch of grainy life.
The all-weather gulls floating, trusting,
eternally free.
The rhythm of the waves forever dancing with,
continually kissing,
the shore.
Then there’s me,
aware and alive,
with possibilities
of love,
music,
even that slippery word,
happiness,
surrounding my steps!
It doesn’t matter
that I haven’t even heard your voice yet.
Knowing I am worthy of this is enough.
As hopes awaken,
rising strong on mended wings,
trusting the healing path taken,
the work continues.
Allowing the
shy, twinkling lights
to glow and illuminate
the most fearful, secret corners
of the darkest rooms
of my heart.
I smile and silently shout, Yes!
I promise to love and be loved!
Can you hear me, wherever you are?
Is your heart shouting out as well?
I can’t stop smiling.
Courage,
that fearless lion,
who will lead us all home
right where we belong.

ACL 1/12/15

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be light

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You will come at a turning of the trail
to a wall of flame
After the hard climb & the exhausted dreaming
you will come to a place where he
with whom you have walked this far
will stop will stand
beside you on the treacherous steep path
& stare as you shiver at the moving wall, the flame
that blocks your vision of what comes after.
And that one
who you thought would accompany you always,
who held your face
tenderly a little while in his hands—
who pressed the palms of his hands into drenched grass
& washed from your cheeks, the tear-tracks—
he is telling you now
that all that stands between you
& everything you have known since the beginning
is this: this wall. Between yourself
& the beloved, between yourself & your joy,
the riverbank swaying with wildflowers, the shaft
of sunlight on the rock, the song.
Will you pass through it now, will you let it consume
whatever solidness this is
you call your life, & send
you out, a tremor of heat,
a radiance, a changed
flickering thing?

Questo Muro by Anita Barrows

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Happy 3 Year Anniversary!!

I know you’re tired but come, this is the way. – Rumi

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When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness

to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

Sweet Darkness by David Whyte

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the hardest simple truth

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gratitude

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miracles. everyday,
floods of riches,
handfuls of Jewels ,
purest gold and silver,
pour through my hands
all around me
I ask. I receive.
I seek. I am given.
I knock. and gain entrance to the magical kingdom.
invisible. appears. visible.
I begin to write on blank sheets of paper. Poems appear.
I take a step. The hidden way opens and I find a path prepared.
I open my heart and mouth. Ripe music, melodies erupt in time and space.
I breathe in perfume of fresh air and flowers fill my being.
I breathe out and trees greet me with waving branches of thanks.
My way is effortless. Life flows easily with all this vast abundance.
These miracles go on and on. Every minute. Every day.
I am in awe. I smile.
I am here. I am full.

ACL 1/2/15

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holding hands

I said to the man who stood at the gate of year:
“Give me a light that I may tread
safely into the unknown.”

And he replied, “Go into the darkness, and
put your hand into the hand of God:
That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way!”
– Minnie Louise Haskins

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As this year ends and gives way to a new one
think of it as a gift you have received.
In the joys and struggles, delights and losses,
grace has made its way into you.
Give thanks even if you don’t know what for.

Whatever regrets you have for the year just passed,
hand them over now. Without judgment,
place them in the hands of the Forgiving One
and let it all simply become part of your story.

Whatever hopes you have for the year to come,
trust it as another gift.
Be prepared to welcome the moment
each moment, with wonder and love.

Whatever resolutions you make for the new year,
know that a deeper current than what you want
or what you resolve is what God is doing in you.
Attend, and follow.

The new year will bring you grace.
May you receive it deeply.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

loving it all

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It’s easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain.
Leave the mountains alone for now.
Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.
People are lined up to admire them.
Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.
Be grateful even for the boredom
That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.
Think of the frost
That will crack our bones eventually.

Love for Other Things by Tom Hennen

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ready?

When will he come
and how will he come
and will there be warnings
and will there be thunders
and rumbling of armies
coming before him
and banners and trumpets
When will he come
and how will he come
and will we be ready

Madeleine L’engle

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O Come, Beloved,
in this night of our travail
in which we cannot see;
breathe with us, in us,
and be the saving arm around us.

O Life-making Word,
speak your light in our heartbreaking darkness,
and call this world into being anew.

O Borning God,
in the well of this deep night
wrap all our expectations in your mystery,
shroud in darkness all our knowing
of how you are among us,
bundle tightly our wisdom
in your smallest box,
and come to us otherwise.

O Intimate Dawning,
bear us through the night
and birth us into a new day,
changed,
infant,
breathing.
_________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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renewal

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Photos without words by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT

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Cross and picture by Vinnie @ Branford Point. Vinnie’s cross and deer (picture above) made as a memorial to his mother, Alice, who passed over Dec 5, 2014
How quietly I
begin again

from this moment
looking at the
clock, I start over

so much time has
passed, and is equaled
by whatever
split-second is present

from this
moment this moment
is the first

Be Still in Haste by Wendell Berry

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