perceptions | life: acoustic & amplified

Archive for the category “perceptions”

23 Sep 2014

enter the ocean to find the road

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through it’s black water
to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.

The Well of Grief
David Whyte

I grieve
a simple bottle of shells,
it has held me for years.
it has held years for me.
In this large, stormy cloud is also hidden:
the apple tree,
coffee on the deck,
Aunt Margie,
the saxophone,
guitars I bought –
not for me –
the songs I couldn’t sing for you,
the losses I couldn’t prepare for,
the love I couldn’t earn,
the lessons I have learned,
more than a few, broken pieces
of my soul
mending as the salt falls,
making room for something new,
more must be felt,
but I know,
as spring comes to April,
sun breaks through and finds room
to grow some new flowers
in my heart

ACL 4/5/13

Green things change,
become the color of surprise,

the color of gratitude,
the color of morning.

Bees still buzz quietly
but it is the color of letting go.

The color of something inside you.
An eye opens, and closes.

A reckoning, even as leaves fall:
not subtracting, but adding up.

Seed pods lift their empty hands
and blacken, become still.

Trees tunnel down into themselves.
Garden plants become song.

They are not dying, not giving up.
They are getting ready for something new.

________________________
Weather Report

A day also otherwise,
as even mourning bears joy,
and the beginning of autumn here
signals in the Southern Hemisphere,
where also our beloved live,
Spring’s splendid revival.

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

Posted in attitude, awareness, Choice, courage, dark, Faith, find art at pinterest, Grieving, healing, Letting Go, Life, Love, Miracles, perceptions, soul and spirit, Tears, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

03 Jul 2014

always

Posted in attitude, awareness, find art at pinterest, Joy, perceptions, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

28 Jun 2014

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. – I Corinthians 1:27

The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up. Making it to the top, entering the limelight, breaking the record – that’s what draws attention, gets us on the front page of the newspaper, and offers us the rewards of money and fame.

The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets, and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.

– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org

Posted in attitude, awareness, Beliefs, Change, Choice, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, Letting Go, Life, mystery, perceptions, soul and spirit, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

22 Jun 2014

i double-dog dare you!

Posted in action, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beginning, beloved, Choice, determination, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Growth, healing, Letting Go, People, perceptions, Relationships, soul and spirit, Today, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

13 Jun 2014

you are a chooser

It is not so much that the boat passed
and you failed to notice it.
It is more like the boat stopping
directly outside your bedroom window,
the captain blowing the signal-horn,
the band playing a rousing march.

The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.

But you had this idea you were going by train.

You kept checking the time-table,
digging for tracks.

And the boat got tired of you,
so tired it pulled up the anchor
and raised the ramp.

The boat bobbed into the distance,
shrinking like a toy—
at which point you probably realized
you had always loved the sea.

“Missing the Boat” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Posted in action, Adventure, awareness, Beginning, Choice, courage, determination, Dreams, find art at pinterest, inspiration, perceptions, success, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

03 Jun 2014

open and empty to be filled

Don’t take anything personally. Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. Their point of view and opinion come from all the programming they received growing up. When you take things personally, you feel offended and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflict. You make something big out of something so little because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong.
– Don Miguel Ruiz

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, community, connection, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, friendship, grace, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, People, perceptions, Relationships, Respect, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

01 Jun 2014

laundry

All our life
so much laundry;
each day’s doing or not
comes clean,
flows off and away
to blend with other sins
of this world. Each day
begins in new skin,
blessed by the elements
charged to take us
out again to do or undo
what’s been assigned.
From socks to shirts
the selves we shed
lift off the line
as if they own
a life apart
from the one we offer.
There is joy in clean laundry.
All is forgiven in water, sun
and air. We offer our day’s deeds
to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,
our arms up, then lowered in supplication.

“Laundry” by Ruth Noose

Posted in awareness, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, Life, perceptions, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

30 May 2014

my every day challenge!

Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”

Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.

By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.

– Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest

Cast all your anxiety on God, who cares for you.
—1 Peter 5.7

Your anxiety is not you:
it is a separate burden,
shaped to your shoulders, yes,
but not your soul, your flesh.
Stop, be still, and rest beneath it;
go down to where you are.

Breathe deeply of the Presence
who dawns within you,
who loves you dearly,
who is your bone and muscle,
who grows about you like skin
and bears the burden for you,
though it lifts only the tiniest bit
from your shoulders,
and holds the weight
so you can breathe.

God will hold it
until you walk free.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net