life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Miracles”
joy dare
She whispers it, “God does loves us, doesn’t He, Mama?”
And I nod and this is always the question and maybe this is all our faith really is — Faith is this unwavering trust in the heart of God in the hurt of here. Unwavering trust all the time though I don’t understand all the time.
God is always good and we are always loved.
Loved enough to be shaped into goodness of Christ Himself.
– Ann Voskamp
A Holy Experience
http://www.aholyexperience.com
Follow this link to find out more about Ann Voskamp and take the Joy Dare! Free monthly printables available. http://www.aholyexperience.com/joy-dares/
the purpose of love is to create trust in good – Mary Baker Eddy
What if this is as good as it gets?
What if THIS very day is the best life will be?
What if this is what you are called to?
What if this moment is your purpose?
What can you do to find the joy in this moment?
How can you be happy and satisfied right now?
What are the miracles that are happening for you as you read this?
What joy-filled moment is hanging in the air above your head,
ready to splash all over you?
What gifts are being offered, if you will just receive them,
allow them to tumble all around you?
Maybe, just maybe, these questions hold the true secrets of life.
Maybe, living life in joy-fullness right now –
not waiting for some dream to come true –
Not holding back till your illusion of happiness materializes.
But, right now, sitting in whatever circumstance you are in,
no matter if it includes
pleasure or pain,
birth or death,
sorrow or joy,
broken hearts or full.
What if, this very given moment,
you look around and begin
finding the avalanche of jewel-blessings
surrounding you NOW.
Maybe this is the best, and only, secret.
Don’t wait for happy.
Don’t postpone your celebration.
Don’t wait to dance.
Laugh hard until your belly hurts today.
Cry hard until the salt heals your hurts.
The goodness of life is available now,
as well as, every minute
of this day,
Then when this day is done,
and you have enjoyed it’s vast array of gifts,
do the same tomorrow.
AL 7/27/13
the truth of God’s grace is mindblowing
Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable…. The cliché definition of grace is “unconditional love.” It is a true cliché, for it is a good description of the thing. Let’s go a little further, though. Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything and only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights and measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called “gifts” (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualifications the receiver may personally hold…. Grace is one-way love.
Grace doesn’t make demands. It just gives. And from our vantage point, it always gives to the wrong person. We see this over and over again in the Gospels: Jesus is always giving to the wrong people—prostitutes, tax collectors, half-breeds. The most extravagant sinners of Jesus’s day receive his most compassionate welcome. Grace is a divine vulgarity that stands caution on its head. It refuses to play it safe and lay it up. Grace is recklessly generous, uncomfortably promiscuous. It doesn’t use sticks, carrots, or time cards. It doesn’t keep score. As Robert Capon puts it, “Grace works without requiring anything on our part. It’s not expensive. It’s not even cheap. It’s free.” It refuses to be controlled by our innate sense of fairness, reciprocity, and evenhandedness. It defies logic. It has nothing to do with earning, merit, or deservedness. It is opposed to what is owed. It doesn’t expect a return on investments. It is a liberating contradiction between what we deserve and what we get. Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.
It is one-way love. – Paul Zahl
unexpected miracles
Robbed and wounded on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho,
you lie in life’s rough ditch, unable.
Your strength and your treasure pass you by.
Your shadow sees you and is moved with compassion.
Your pain comes to you.
Your failure bends over you.
Your need for forgiveness bathes your wounds.
Your weakness wraps you in clean bands.
Your unworthiness gathers you in knowing arms.
Your brokenness carries you to safe shelter.
Your poverty says, “Treat this one as my Beloved.
I will return, and pay the cost.”
There is no other grace.
There is no less dangerous life.
There is no other salvation.
Who can tell what stranger will be chosen
without knowledge
as your innkeeper, your care giver?
Who can know what dark Samaritan,
pushed away, will come
back to you in your need?
_________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
on our way
You are on your way from Jerusalem to Jericho,
going out from the heart of your religion into your daily life.
Along the way you are assaulted.
Whatever your religion has given you is taken.
You are stripped of a good way to present yourself.
You are robbed of your worthiness, whatever is to your credit.
The priest who would receive your sacrifice is not interested.
The Levite who would assure your righteousness does not.
You have no power, no treasure, nothing to offer,
nothing with which to prove or defend yourself.
You are utterly dependent, and deeply alone.
There is no reason to love you.
And your enemy draws near and bends over you.
Your fear, what you reject and despise, looms.
And heals you.
The one you distance makes you a neighbor.
The one you judge shows you mercy.
The one you refuse to love loves you.
We are loved without reason.
We are saved, not successful.
Only the one dependent on mercy can show us mercy.
Only the vulnerable can teach us trust.
We need the poor, to learn to receive.
We need the guilty, to learn to be forgiven.
We need the alien, to see ourselves, and all souls.
Without them, how destitute we are
on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho,
poor and naked, lost in the land of grace,
love draining out of us, ravenously sucking on our egos,
shivering in the rags of our self-sufficiency.
I don’t know about trusting the Lord
what the mother in the projects knows.
I don’t understand forgiveness like the prisoner.
I need to learn humility from the prostitute.
I will truly get mercy only side by side
with those who have no other hope.
The Samaritan I fear and despise
is my teacher, my master,
my savior,
my Christ.
________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
the painter
these clouds of
pink and blue cotton candy
all mixed and fluffy
the sky is
breathtaking
grand
heart stopping
I lose my ability to concentrate on driving
pull my car over so I can stare
breathe it in
this full bloom
colors so
intense across the massive sky
extravagantly piled onto
this extreme canvas
this moving masterpiece
with oranges and burgundies
moving into a living pallet
night slowly absorbing the colors
leaving diamonds in
the shifting colors of blue
leaving me full
even wordless for a while
absorbing this masterpiece
in awe of this painter
of the world
the glory so displayed
for our moments
if we will just take a moment in return
to receive
to breathe
to give thanks
to feel glory
for the extravagant and luscious gifts
from the painter of the sky
so beyond our scope
the one who creates beauty
of such magnitude
it drives to my knees
in gratitude for being able to see it
on a July evening
as I pay tribute with a few
of these words
I have been given
to that something so magical
the miracle
which we have named
in our language:
sunset
AL 7/5/13
photo by Matt Halverson aka The Storm, Cincinnati, OH
And then I woke up to this from Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience http://www.aholyexperience.com/
New newsletter posted on my website www.songsfromthevalley.com
lessons from nature
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
Do you know what happens to wildlife when left alone from intellectual minds? It thrives, because thriving is its default setting. Just look at a forest.
And do you know what happens to wildlife when given just a little direction by intellectual minds? It still thrives, because thriving is its default setting. Just look at a rose garden.
And do you know what happens to wildlife when there is too much thinking? Yeah, what wildlife?
Wild thing,
The Universe
Notes from the Universe
http://www.tut.com/
You do not just happen to be here,
you have been sent.
You are intended to be here,
to convery a presence.
The land of uncertainty and the unknown,
these are your territory.
You are sent not away
but ahead.
You are accompanied,
paired with one who goes with you.
It is not your success, but your love and courage
that fulfill your purpose.
The path will need you;
the journey will create you.
What we receive compels us,
and, not alone, we go.
_____________________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
life: acoustic & amplified 