life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “thankfulness”
yay, it’s Friday!
Success is not a result of spontaneous combustion.
You must set yourself on fire.
– unknown
Find what you love and let it kill you,
fine advice from Bukowski.
Set your soul,
your very life, on fire.
Come alive with your passion.
Then let it loose
all over your world.
Feed it well.
Let it breathe.
Until your songs
rise from the ashes
of what used to be
your broken life.
It now glows beauty –
warms the worn and tired.
Your voice speaks grace to the lonely pilgrims,
the ones with the bleeding feet,
resting. or struggling, along the way.
AL 11/21/13
worship is simply giving God his breathe back. – Lou Giglio
Prayer,
which is breathing with the Spirit of Jesus,
leads us to this immense knowledge.
– Henri Nouwen
You breathe different in a room
when you know it’s not about the good you can accomplish
but about the grace you can accept.
– Ann Voskamp
I am the cloud of your mercy,
a thunderhead of your grace.
Fields are thirsty,
the river is dry.
Let it go,
let it go.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
in the middle
The White
by
Patricia Hampl
These are the moments
before snow, whole weeks before.
The rehearsals of milky November,
cloud constructions
when a warm day
lowers a drift of light
through the leafless angles
of the trees lining the streets.
Green is gone,
gold is gone.
The blue sky is
the clairvoyance of snow.
There is night
and a moon
but these facts
force the hand of the season:
from that black sky
the real and cold white
will begin to emerge.
about the good life
There’s an ache that comes from love, from not wanting another to suffer, from worrying, from watching a struggle and not knowing whether to step back or to lean in.
There’s an ache that comes from beauty, from the wonder of the eyelash, the glory of the curl, the softness of the skin, the strength of the embrace, the fragility of the face, so young, so tiny, so new.
There’s an ache that comes from happiness, from feeling like the luckiest girl in the world and knowing it won’t always be that way and not wanting it to end.
There’s an ache that comes from wanting, from desire, from the body, from wanting to return to that place long, long ago when it was a way it will never exactly be again. And from being so glad for that knowing.
There’s an ache that rises from the dance, from the ground, all the way up from the soles of your feet, up, up, up, reminding you that the earth is your home and your final destination. An ache so great that the only thing to do is to dance low and slow as long as your breath can carry you.
There’s an ache that comes from delight, from too much goodness, too much flow. All will ebb and fade, all will go, but right now, it’s still rising, rising, rising and that JOY feels like a heartbeat, a pulse, a rhythm that you can count on, that you can know in your bones, that will only fade when your very last breath has fallen away.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last thirty-nine days, it’s that JOY is really a code word for life, and when I raise my consciousness to experience it, no matter how it flows through me, I am met with gratitude, wonder and a exhilaration at the miracle, the sheer miracle of being alive and all the messiness and bliss that comes with it.
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that it is not a constant state, but a low grade buzz that sometimes roars and other times purrs, but that it is always available to sink down into, if I’m feeling the ache that makes for tears or the ache that makes for celebration. It is a reminder that I am here, a simple human being in the middle of a riddle that constantly asks me what matters to me most, what is it exactly that helps me know I am still here in this wild and precious life.
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that it exists in the intersection of my simple life and the lives of others, that when there is no one to receive our stories, that there is where our joy dims, and that when I receive the stories of others, and best yet create together the ones that we all call our own, that this is what makes our joy shine brighter and brighter and brighter.
Life is complicated and messy and hard and unruly. I’ve spent years in tears. Years, literally, in a quiet, still spot on my couch, being extremely still and silent in my sorrow, wondering if there would ever be any sun. Yet, here it is. Shining so bright, marveling at how everything changes and that even grief cannot stay, that everything, every single thing, has to keep moving and keep changing so that this ebb and flow of life can go on.
Where is your ache today?
Jen Lemen
Wild Precious Life letters from a hopeful girl
http://www.hopefulworld.org
it takes great courage to believe in goodness…be courageous
And I peel squash and there is God and yada, yada, yada.
And yadah, it’s Hebrew, and it literally means to hold out the hand in four ways:
1. to bemoan with this wringing of hands.
2. or to revere with an extending of hands.
And this too on the page of the Strong’s Concordance:
3. Yadah means to confess.
4. Yadah means to give thanks.
Yadah – the whisper of Psalms 92:1: It is a good thing to [yada] — give thanks – and sing praises to unto thy name, O most High.
And in the midst of genocides and suicides, the divorce and disease, the death and dark, we understand the yada all around us, the holding up of fists at God instead of extending the hand in thanks and we empathize with the unbeliever’s confusion, because it’s our own confusion, and in this struggle to be grateful to God for always and for everything, we pray with humble earnestness for the unbeliever: because before a Good God haven’t we all been been momentary unbelievers?
And yet there it is, and you hear it now, at the cusp of the feasting, the yada, yada, yada, that sings relentless and bold:
We won’t stop confessing He is good and we won’t stop thanking Him for grace and we won’t stop holding out our hands — and taking His hand. We won’t stop believing that “God is good” is not some trite quip for the good days but a radical defiant cry for the terrible days.
That “God is good” is not a stale one-liner when all’s happy but a saving lifeline when all’s hard.
And we will keep giving thanks, yada, yada, yada, because giving thanks is only this: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God.
And every time I give thanks, I confess to the universe the goodness of God.
Thanksgiving in all things accepts the deep mystery of God through everything.
– Ann Voskamp
Read full blog and sign up for these beautiful, life changing, reflections. www.aholyexperience.com
a little fire will warm – too much fire will destroy
Poems come and go. Captured moments, feelings or pictures in time, but there are days which come and last forever. Yesterday was such a day. Yesterday I got very righteously angry. I don’t like to be angry, I try at all costs to avoid it. I do not like the feeling I get, I do not like this passionate, loud superhero-gone-vigilante that comes forth and melts the air and sets fire to the rain. I am a very passionate person, and I so I am very careful with my anger.
I have been caregiving for 2 very sick people for the past 6 months. One, a man who I had dated for 2 years and ended it 2 years ago. The other his mother, who has advanced Alzheimer’s and dementia. It has been the most difficult, invisible and thankless job I have ever done, and I learned so much about illness, about Alzheimer’s and dementia, about the long shadows of abuse, about being of service without trying to ‘fix’ others. Lots of learning to stand firm against the revolving emotions of Alzheimer’s fluctuating emotions and quirks. Lots of lessons on supporting a sick person without enabling them to become a victim, or victimizer. Lots of grimy lessons in patience and clean up of horrible human messes. Lots of eye opening lessons about incontinence, medical stuff I have no desire to know, and lots about loss of control and dignity. Lots of watching a man not fight for his life. Lots of watching this man do exactly opposite of the Doctors orders. Lots of watching victim mentality drain the strength, and very life, out of a man. Lots of prayer and meditation to keep death away and be a healing presence without becomin
g an enabler. Lots of care, and prayer and meals and laundry and pills and loneliness and…and …
In the past 6 months I have been through a very wide range of emotions…then yesterday…came the anger.
I was thinking last night and it was over 10 years ago since I was as angry as I was yesterday.
As I wake this morning, and think about yesterday, I realize that I have learned a lot over these past years, I have grown intimate with Christ, and the very walk and way of Christ, which has born much fruit, even in my anger. Jesus said to be “angry and sin not”. I did that yesterday! I was appropriate in my anger, I was in control of my anger and did not carry that anger forward to others, I worked through it and let it go. I then assisted the person who I was angry with to get help from the appropriate sources and I stayed responsible to finish this task of service I am currently called to as caregiver for his mother, until it is completed later this week.
I am not proud, I am astonished. haha This is not my doing. This is spiritual grace and, maybe even a little, maturity??? 🙂 I’m going to stay very humble on this. I know myself. I know that anger is a very toxic and hazardous weapon. I do not want to be an angry person and I will continue to go well beyond the extra mile to avoid it, but I am not quite so afraid of it today after my experience yesterday. I am actually happy that I allowed myself to experience and demonstrate my learning, and the self control, God has taught me on this path of discipline I have walked.
This morning I can see, with a brand new perspective, that anger can, in certain instances, be a healthy tool which is needed at times. I am glad this moment of anger is behind me. I am thankful for these lessons. I am so thankful it worked to help someone, hopefully, begin a path to living life abundantly, and I truly hope it is WAY more than 10 years before I need to use that tool again.
joy is the way to live bravest of all
Thanks therapy is God’s prescription for joy.
This isn’t trite — this is treatment. Breathing oxygen to live, it can seem ridiculously simple too. Jesus always leaves the option open for you to choose: “Do you want to be well?”
Sometimes we hurt so bad, we can’t even think to say yes, we forget how to mouth thanks.
And in all the leaves, all in the mess, it’s right here:
Everything that falls, turned back to thanks, unlikely therapy turning a fallen world.
– Ann Voskamp
www.aholyexperience.com
empty
Today I found myself empty
Empty of words
Empty of color
Empty of strength
Empty of empathy
Empty of ability
Empty of defenses
Empty of thoughts even.
I’ve been here many times over the years,
I understand it better now.
I rested a lot.
Did minimal work,
other than cleaning up diarrhea
and fixing meals,
I mainly stayed in bed
stayed in open, wordless, prayer –
Allowing the emptiness to be.
For five months now,
I have been giving my life force
to others, to keep them alive.
I have earned this emptiness.
I must allow myself to recharge.
I have nothing more to give at this moment.
The filling up of the emptiness
must be done carefully
and in prayer.
Tomorrow is another day.
Baby steps.
AL 10/12/13
treasure
Your faith is not a strength or accomplishment,
a possession or a quality of yours at all;
it is a gift from God.
In your surrender to the love of the Beloved,
whose heart beats in yours,
you are given God’s own love,
for God and for the world.
Your faith is divine love alive in you.
Be thankful. Guard this treasure.
You don’t need to protect it;
it can face the worst of the world.
Don’t hoard it, or hide it.
But attend to it, care for it.
Don’t abuse it or forget it
or take it for granted.
Water the plant and give it light.
Let it live in you, strong and clear.
Even when your faith is a mystery,
all darkness and struggle,
it is still a gift:
God’s love in you, for your sake,
for the sake of the world.
Let the Loving One, who is in you,
help you guard this treasure
with humble joy and gratitude,
and give it away all the time.
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
life: acoustic & amplified 
