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poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Gospel”

07 Jan 2016

don’t try too hard

 

 God just likes making things.  
He doesn’t try too hard. Comfortable. 

No particular message in mind –

Bugs, 

Flowers,

Birds, 

Stones,

Trees,

those beauties with leaves and sap.  

Shells of all sorts, 

revealing the sound of the ocean – 

even in the middle of the desert. 

He never runs out of fresh ideas,

new angles, 

dazzling variations of old themes.  

He makes masterpieces, 

out of scavenged and wasted things.  

Beauty within ashes and scars. 

Gardens and vegetables from rotted orange rinds and other scraps.  

Jewels from lumps of coal. 

Our creativity, at least in part, 

comes from resting in,

spending time with,

opening from within. 

Prayer as emptiness. 

Prayer as silence.  

Prayer as stillness.  

Prayer as rest. 

Prayer as opening. 

Prayer without wanting or asking. 

Prayer as presence. 

Then,

sometimes, 

God, 

the muse,

shows up,

hangs out on the sofa,

and our hearts begin to sing,

and we simply just can’t help making things ourselves…

💞

AL

(based on the book: the holy wild by Mark Buchanan) 

 

  

 After the glut of sparkle and sentiment,
all that heavy gold and glory,

it’s kind of a relief to return 

to an orderly house, a clean mantle,

a blue and white shirt, the regular dishes.
The world is plain, snow is crusted, 

trees more bare than in November.

The marsh like the underside of a carpet,

the cattails bland and spent.

The asphalt road has nothing to say,

the gray sky shrugs and says, “Ditto.”
God stands there, 

hands in the pockets of a drab jacket,

gazing at the brook’s blank of ice,

says, “Yeah, I like to hang out here.

It’s relaxing. Clears my head.”
I come home to a quiet house,

refrigerator humming. This too is holy.

I sit on the couch, gaze out at the yard.

“Huh,” I say. “What do you know?

Pockets.” 
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

 

   

 

Posted in Adventure, art, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, create, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, healing, inspiration, Letting Go, Love, receiving | Leave a comment
05 Jan 2016

be with me  

 
God has no doctrine, do you know that?

Only delight.
The Desired One comes to you, 

waits outside your house in the morning cold,

seeks you even in the worst neighborhood,

for no fancier reason than this:

the Beloved likes you,

and wants to be with you,

and hopes you will fall in love.
It is only the lost

for whom that is not enough.
Our Lover comes to us

even in our greed and terror

with no more complicated plot in mind

than to spend the awful hours and years

with us

and make them paradise. 
__________________ 

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

  

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, courage, Glory, Gospel, grace, Life, Love, Relationships | Leave a comment
26 Dec 2015

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

  

Posted in action, attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, commitment, community, compassion, connection, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, friendship, Glory, Gospel, Gratitude, Hope, Imagine, Letting Go, People, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
22 Dec 2015

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

  

Posted in action, Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, Death, determination, Dreams, find art at pinterest, fragile, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, healing, home, Letting Go, Love, Miracles, mystery, nature, power, Prayer, quiet, Reflection | Leave a comment
16 Dec 2015

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/

 

 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Choice, courage, dark, Faith, Glory, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Happy Holiday!, Joy, light, Love, Miracles, mystery, Patience, Peace, People, power, receiving, Reflection | Leave a comment
30 Nov 2015

decisions determine destiny 

 

Today I want to feel my way 

into a familiar name 

for the One who holds us all:

a name of endearment,

like the names lovers use in the tangled sheets

a name that ripples through sunlight and tears.

I will listen for that name today, 

Knowing it is the name the Beloved uses to call me.

😍

~Oriah House (c) 2015   My child, don’t be afraid. I am here. I know how hard it is to feel, sometimes. This moment, I know, is difficult to let yourself feel. Don’t hold back. Don’t protect yourself from feeling, your emotions this way and that. This is a gift from Me, the way your heart swings from high to low. I am the constant one. I keep you still. 

 

There are things you will have to face now. I know you want to bury your head, and I let you do that, your head buried on my chest. But know when you lift your head, I will be there to help you to rise. And you will rise, and your feet will find firm footing, and you will square your shoulders and take one step forward, and then another, and you will find you know your way.

 

There is much ahead, and the path does not always seem clear. But I help you to rise. I go ahead, and I help you to rise. And when you stumble, I will help you to stand again. And when you are scared, I will firm your trembling lip and I will navigate you through the storm of emotions and I will quiet your quivering heart.

 

You are fierce and gentle. You are beautiful and strong. You are chosen and delighted in. You are all I’ve made you to be. I took everything from you that has kept you from rising. I have taken everything that makes you feel small and unsure and hesitant. 

 

You can go forward, to the places I lead you. And you will know who you are. My child, the one who knows your Father, the one who knows your own name.

😍

loop

http://www.gatherministries.com/loop/?utm_source=Loop+Devotional&utm_campaign=8f1130a969-Loop_69_Time_For_You_To_Rise10_5_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a7b9cec9e0-8f1130a969-100590649

  
    
    
   
You are loved. Always and forever. 

Posted in attitude, awareness, be, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, connection, courage, dark, determination, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Gospel, grace, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Passion, Prayer, Relationships | Leave a comment
03 Oct 2015

what if?

 

 Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
– Leo F. Buscaglia

   
 Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” 
         

But he said to her, “You speak as any fool would speak. 
         

Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
                  —Job 2.9-10

   

      By the grace of God 
         

Christ tastes death for everyone’s sake.
                  —Hebrews 2.9

The question is not why there is suffering:
why shouldn’t there be?
Should there be no germs or earthquakes?

Should life be free of risk, or pain, or tears,
free of choices or freedom, but only directed by God?

Is pleasure always good, pain always bad?

Isn’t suffering necessary for love?

What would “deserving” be?

Would we want a God continually judging us,
the Dispenser Of Suffering And Reward?

Can God actually control suffering or pleasure?

Why is speaking in public, or being alone,
 heaven for one and hell for another?

A blind person I know rebuffs our sympathy:
what we call suffering she does not.

What if one experienced sickness not as suffering 
but a time to accept mortality, to draw near to God, 
a Sabbath?

Who “allows” evil or injustice, war or poverty? 
Who “allows” suffering when we eat meat? 

If a person suffered for their evil,
 could God not comfort them, relieve their sorrow or pain?

Or isn’t that the one thing God promises:
 not to make our lives exactly as pleasurable as we deserve
but to be with us in it all?

There is evil because we are imperfectly loved;
 sometimes we can’t bear our hurt, 
but project it onto others.

How does God deal with evil? 

By being with us in our pain, to heal it
 so we may stop spreading it.
 God suffers with us, “tastes death for everyone’s sake.”

There is no “reason,” nor need there be. 
There is no need for labels of “good” and “bad.”  
There is only gracious presence for all,
and the love that is willing to suffer for others,
 the saving grace of the cross.

Rather than question suffering,
 receive it as part of life, 
enter into people’s pain and the suffering of the world,
 and absorb it, so it may stop spreading —

and you will find God there.

 

__________________

 
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

🔹

I want you to remember

I will always love you

Love does not forget

The sun will shine tomorrow

Don’t look back and regret 
Please won’t you remember 

rainy skies and grey days

Some times you will get

there’s always sun to follow

Then rainbows I predict 
I hope that you’ll remember

Love is really true

Sing and please don’t fret

The sun it shines, although 

you may not see it yet

🔹

AL

 

Listen to Little Anthony sing Tears on my Pillow  http://youtu.be/uxjQ3M_v7xc

🔹

photos found at www.pinterest.com

Posted in attitude, awareness, Beliefs, beloved, Change, Choice, compassion, courage, dark, Death, find art at pinterest, Gospel, grace, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Reflection | Leave a comment
03 Aug 2015

what matters most

  
Maybe no one needs us to out-debate them this summer, like they need us to out-love them. Maybe no one needs us to prove anything like they need us to have proof of what mends us… of what moves us.       – Ann Voskamp

Read full blog post at http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/07/when-you-feel-a-bit-like-the-worlds-ablaze-with-hard-things-the-emmaus-option/

Listen to Adele sing To Make You Feel My Love http://youtu.be/ZzmTFBPMhk8

Photo sources found at www.pinterest.com

   
 

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Beliefs, beloved, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Gospel, grace, Letting Go, Love, mystery, soul and spirit | Leave a comment
03 Jul 2015

interesting conversations (grade: C-)

  
HAMLET: To be, or not to be–that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–

No more–and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–

To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀

Read more at http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_001.html#q445B8QYR85jGYt2.99

 

 I think of difficult days
Days I struggle to stay alive

To keep my head above water

To put one foot in front of the other

To stay hydrated in the middle of my water works
I think of days of joy

When everything sparkles

When I say hello to the bright-eyed me in the mirror

When I am so glad I’m alive

So connected to the whole
I think about the moods of nature

The sunny days

The gray days

Days of angry storms

or gentle raindrops

Days of extreme
Just like me

Extreme weather

caused by my energy

the energy around me 

environmental and

relational factors
personal forecast

Todays weather calls for

Sunny outlook

with occasional clouds

a few showers through out the day

wine at sunset

moon full tonight  

with a dream or two of your kisses

 still warm on my lips

floating through

Waking to a great day tomorrow 

until I see you again

  😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

AL

  
Listen to Amos Lee sing Soul Suckers http://youtu.be/zqidM_U9rgU

☔️☀️☔️☀️☔️☀️

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

   
  

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Choice, connection, courage, determination, find art at pinterest, Gospel, Growth, Habits, Happiness, inspiration, intimacy, Passion, soul and spirit, words, Writing, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
21 Jun 2015

peace stronger than the storm 

  A great storm lashes this nation
while much of the people sleep,

a storm of racial hatred, a storm of fear.

In fear a white man seeks out blacks 

and kills them in their church.

This is not new.

The storm will not stop, 

the waves of death will not stop.

He is only one wave of the storm,

blown by great winds of fear.

It is not out of hope or happiness he kills,

he kills out of fear.

The one wave is not the problem; the storm is.

The storm envelopes us all.  

It defeats us, makes us anxious. 

We cry, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

A great storm battered the disciples’ boat.

Wind, invisible and relentless, 

howled down on them, pushing against them.

Waves would not stop, would not stop

bashing them, beating them, 

filling the boat, threatening to swallow them.
Fear howled in them like the wind,

fear beat in them like waves,

a relentless storm of fear.

Their hearts cried, “Save us! Manage this!”

But Jesus was asleep, not worrying,

not in control. Serene. At peace. 

“Jesus, join our anxiety! Won’t you despair with us?”

But Jesus was unafraid.

Maybe weary, maybe needing not to be needed,

but also unafraid. At peace. 
It was not fear, but his sisters’ and brothers’ cries

that awakened him. In his deep calm he rose,

not in fear, not in anger, but in peace

and gave his peace to the others,

and gave his peace to the winds and the seas.

Infinite peace flowed through him like wind,

passed out into the world like waves,

peace stronger than the storm.

It was not fear, but peace that calmed the storm. 

The Man of Peace cries out in our own souls.

Calms the storms of our fears. 

Grants us peace beyond understanding.

We let it fill us, that divine peace,

deep peace with all the world, 

deepest love for this world and all its children,

children with and without mercy, 

peace with the world and all is raging wounds,

peace even with the storm,

for it is peace with all of life.

This peace is also agony for our sisters and brothers.

It is care that we are perishing.

But it is care, not fear. It is deep peace.
And in that peace we shall awaken.  

Not fear but our sister’s and brothers’ cries awaken us.

We rise, as Christ rises, always in hope.

In deep peace, not in fear or anger,

we will rise and stand in the storm.

The winds will whip us.

The waves will batter us. But we will stand,

because Christ stands in us. 

We will cry out to the storm, 

and cry out to our sisters and bothers

with a peace stronger than the storm,

“Peace! Be still!”
The wind will still lash us, the waves batter.

Fear will react; anger will rise like new waves.

The wounds will retract and hide, afraid to be touched,

the wind afraid to be named.

But in the storm we shall stand in that peace that is love,

cry out with that peace that is anguish,

hold fast with that peace that is courage,

endure with that peace stronger than the storm.

And there shall be peace. 
Peace. Be Still. 

Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?

__________________  

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

                                                    

No, my friends

    darkness is not everywhere   

for here and there

     I find faces illuminated

           from within. 

       Japanese lanterns

             floating 

         among dark trees

😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

Light by Carole Ann Borges

 Listen to Cat Stevens sing Morning Has Broken http://youtu.be/e0TInLOJuUM

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

photo sources found at www.pinterest.com/al513

 

Posted in awareness, beauty, community, compassion, connection, courage, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Gospel, grace, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, kindness, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, nature, Peace, People, power, Prayer, Respect, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

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