This is the house that Jack built! This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cat that killed the rat That ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cow with the crumpled horn That tossed the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the maiden all forlorn That milked the cow with the crumpled horn That tossed the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the man all tattered and torn That kissed the maiden all forlorn That milked the cow with the crumpled horn That tossed the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the priest all shaven and shorn That married the man all tattered and torn That kissed the maiden all forlorn That milked the cow with the crumpled horn That tossed the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cock that crowed in the morn That waked the priest all shaven and shorn That married the man all tattered and torn That kissed the maiden all forlorn That milked the cow with the crumpled horn That tossed the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the farmer sowing his corn That kept the cock that crowed in the morn That waked the priest all shaven and shorn That married the man all tattered and torn That kissed the maiden all forlorn That milked the cow with the crumpled horn That tossed the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built!
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
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!
Can I show you where we can go together? Can I dance with you, grab hold of your hand, my fingers clasped around your palm? You are graceful when you dance with me. You are free, your steps light and sure. You plant each foot firmly into soil. You know this ground, this earth. The floor is level and you respond, fully, to my subtle hints at what will be the next move to make.
You trust Me. You know Me. You want to be with Me. You know who you are and your burden is light and your smile is radiant and your eyes shine.
Walk past people sealed in their houses,
silence piled up on their roofs,
into the palimpsest of the woods,
thigh deep in the smoothness,
the substance of silence,
the weight of the light.
Snow in the trees, beneath the trees,
branches bowed with the weight of heaven.
In the open field the white
spreads like a calm sea.
The brook admits you;
beneath you know you are walking on her back.
At the far end of the frozen marsh
stand among the falling constellations
until it is possible
to belong in the cold and quiet,
to be erased and redrawn,
to be a flake in this drift of silence,
blanketed by the softly falling presence,
covered in God.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light http://www.unfoldinglight.net
To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail, write to Steve at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com
Photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
I came to the end of the sidewalk
was wondering which way I should go
There were gates for each road all around me
The signs up above were all flashing to show…
They read…this way
and that way
and his way
and her way
There was your way
and my way
and right way
and wrong way
I stood at the end of the end of the sidewalk
It was all so confusing I struggled to know
Which gate was the one I should enter
Which road was the one to lead me back home…
Cause there was
high way
and by way
low way
and long way
There was which way
and what way
there was fast way
and slow way
Then I saw a small sign near the bottom
It wasn’t flashing or bright
But this sign it caught my attention
Cause this one pointed towards LIFE…
Some signs read short way
and one sign said no way
one was blinking far away
all the way to the milky way
there was dream way
and scream way
There was wander way
and squander way
But this road it had a small entrance
Not many had gone through before
The gate was all rusted and creaky
Had to knock just to open that door…
It was dark and a little bit lonely
There was just a small lamp for to see
It took me awhile to adjust to the style
For this road was far greater than me
Cause it’s Your way
not my way
It’s a new way
towards life way
The longer I walked, I saw better
Though it never got easier to see,
But this road lead right where I followed
cause Life was the journey, you see…
ACL 2/7/15
Diamond Road…Sheyl Crow
Walk with me the diamond road
Tell me every story told
Give me something of your soul
That I can hold onto
I want to wake up to the sound of waves
Crashing on a brand new day
Keep the memory of your face
But wipe the pain away
When you¹re lonely (you¹re not alone)
When you¹re heart aches (on Diamond Road)
It’s gonna take a little time
Yeah, it’s gonna take a little time
When the night falls (you’re not alone)
When you’re stumbling (on Diamond Road)
It’s gonna take a little time
To make it to the other side
So don’t miss the diamonds along the way
Every road has led us here today
Little bird, what’s troubling you
You know what you have to do
What is yours you’ll never lose
And what’s ahead may shine
Beneath the promise of blue skies
With broken wings we’ll learn to fly
Pull yourself out of the tide
And begin the dream again
When you¹re lonely (you¹re not alone)
When you¹re heart aches (on Diamond Road)
It’s gonna take a little time
Yeah, it’s gonna take a little time
When the night falls (you’re not alone)
When you’re stumbling (on Diamond Road)
It’s gonna take a little time
To make it to the other side
So don’t miss the diamonds along the way
So don’t miss the diamonds along the way
Every road has led us here today
Won’t you shine on
Morning light
Burn the darkness away
Walk with me the Diamond Road
Tell me everything is gold
Give me something of your soul
So you don¹t fade away
When you¹re lonely (you¹re not alone)
When you¹re heart aches (on Diamond Road)
It’s gonna take a little time
Yeah, it’s gonna take a little time
When the night falls (you’re not alone)
When you’re stumbling (on Diamond Road)
It’s gonna take a little time
To make it to the other side
So don’t miss the diamonds along the way
Don’t miss the diamonds along the way
Every road has led us here today
Life is what happens while you¹re making plans
All that you need is right here in your hands.
Matthew 7
7 “Ask and it will be given to you;seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
13 “Enter through the narrow
gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Beautiful photo by Kerri DeBlasi
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.
In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.
But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news
that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—
the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.
So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.
And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.
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?
http://youtu.be/2erURmS1POs
The funny thing is that in spite of the euphoria one feels upon entering paradise, cloaked in miracles, surrounded by angels, love, and unimaginable beauty, it gradually becomes all they know, commonplace, ordinary, and then, shockingly… invisible.
What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?
life: acoustic & amplified 