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Archive for the category “truth”

27 Feb 2015

preaching to myself today…

From the place where we are right/flowers will never grow/in the spring./The place where we are right/is hard and trampled/like a yard./But doubts and loves/dig up the world/like a mole, a plough./And a whisper will be heard in the place/where the ruined/house once stood.

Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai

On this day of your life

I believe God wants you to know…

…that the best argument you can make

is no argument

at all.

Do not argue with life, or with anyone in life. Life

presents itself perfectly in every moment, and every

person believes his or her point of view to be valid

and ‘right.’

Arguing with any of this is pointless, and a terrific

waste of energy. Simply create what you choose next.

Love, Your Friend …

Commentary on Community:

Conversations

Every time we gather becomes a model of the future we want to create.

Authentic conversations create a future distinct from the past.

Conversations create possibility.

Show up. Be present.

The more words you use, the less likely you are to be authentic.

Inversions

These two matter to me at the moment:

The future creates the present.

The listener creates the speaker.

Taking (emotional) risks creates safety

Changing the Future

The past is only a lesson about the future to be used in the present.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Restorative Justice

This thought is taking from “Community” and “Sitting in the Fire.”

Restorative justice is communal justice (as opposed to individual retribution).

Restorative justice adds a measure of balance to the community.

Based on the community conversation practices of Peter Block

http://www.asmallgroup.net

Captured by Eric Hansen – Hansen Resource Development

To be truly alive

is to be fully, freely, lovingly present

in this moment,
drinking in the grace of God
and pouring myself out in love
for God and for all beings.

What do I gain

by abandoning this
to be right,
to get my way,
to be comfortable,
to manage how people think of me?

When I win the argument,

protect my beliefs, defend myself,
when I judge another
and put them in their place,
when I separate myself from those
who suffer pain or injustice,
when I buy another trinket
for my heart’s little room
and close the door,
what have I lost?

I am not a body or a reputation

but a soul.
God of love,
open my door.
Let life spill in
and spill out.
Let me suffer and love,

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Change is the end result of all true learning.

– Leo Buscaglia

photo source tracks found at

http://pinterest.com/al513

Posted in attitude, awareness, Choice, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, friendship, Letting Go, Life, Love, People, Respect, soul and spirit, strength, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

26 Feb 2015

breaking open

Abundance is not a state of finances or wealth, it is a state of inner health. Wherever there is joy, appreciation, gratitude, giving, caring, creativity, vision, inspiration, love, patience and playfulness, there is abundance

– Unknown

You don’t need anyone’s affection or approval in order to be good enough. When someone rejects or abandons or judges you, it isn’t actually about you. It’s about them and their own insecurities, limitations, and needs, and you don’t have to internalize that. Your worth isn’t contingent upon other people’s acceptance of you — it’s something inherent. You exist, and therefore, you matter. You’re allowed to voice your thoughts and feelings. You’re allowed to assert your needs and take up space. You’re allowed to hold onto the truth that who you are is exactly enough. And you’re allowed to remove anyone from your life who makes you feel otherwise. — Daniell Koepke

From love we learn to ease

our fretful longing for more
and to rest in the blessedness
of things as they are.

From love we learn to heal our losses
and our fears of loss.

Love awakens us.
It shows us the truth about ourselves and
gives us the courage to live this truth.

Love sustains us:
it is our quintessential nourishment.

And love connects us–to others,
to ourselves, and to the source of all being.

Love is our teacher,
and we are love’s apprentices.

– Rich & Antra Borofsky

Posted in awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Growth, Love, People, touch, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

25 Feb 2015

what am I to do?

Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.

—Mark 8.34

God of love, be in me
to embody your gentleness and grace,
to love at my own cost,
to enter the suffering of the world,
to hold the wounded in my heart,
to bear the monstrous without explanation,
to absorb the pain without retaliation,
to let there be a hell on earth
without another,
to trust that even the greatest evil
cannot drive you out,
and that love and forgiveness alone
will change the world.
Grant me faith to be willing
to be overwhelmed
and raised again.
I do not ask for heroic strength
but for you
to bear the cross in me,
that by your Spirit in me
I may be Christ,
crucified,
and risen,
no longer small,
no longer threatened,
no longer afraid.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light

www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Change, Choice, courage, Faith, find art at pinterest, Gospel, grace, Letting Go, Love, mystery, Peace, soul and spirit, truth, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

19 Feb 2015

Recognize what is before your eyes, and what is hidden will be revealed to you. – The Gospel of Thomas

Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought…
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,
yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.

Thanks, Robert Frost by David Ray

Spirit,
drive me out
into my solitude,
my desolations,
my discomfort.

Set me down
among the wild beasts,
fears and hungers
pawing around inside me.

Put me at peace with them,
not the master but the saved,
the one to be tamed,
to listen to them,
lie down among them,
and go my way,
returned
to my feral innocence.

They will roam my wilderness,
I will learn their eyes,
I will live differently.

Among them,
who also answer,
are angels who attend
to those who wander there
so that we will.
_________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

photo source tracks found at

Posted in awareness, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, grace, Gratitude, healing, Hope, Letting Go, Life, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, touch, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

15 Feb 2015

I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. – Harriet Tubman

To go forth now
from all the entanglement
that is ours and yet not ours,
that, like the water in an old well,
reflects us in fragments, distorts what we are.

From all that clings like burrs and brambles—
to go forth
and see for once, close up, afresh,
what we had ceased to see—
so familiar it had become.
To glimpse how vast and how impersonal
is the suffering that filled your childhood.

Yes, to go forth, hand pulling away from hand.
Go forth to what? To uncertainty,
to a country with no connections to us
and indifferent to the dramas of our life.

What drives you to go forth? Impatience, instinct,
a dark need, the incapacity to understand.

To bow to all this.
To let go—
even if you have to die alone.

Is this the start of a new life?

Departure of the Prodigal Son by Rainer Maria Rilke

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14 Feb 2015

love is for the strong

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Love’s Exquisite Freedom by Maya Angelou

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Stop trying to change someone who doesn’t want to change. Stop giving chances to someone who abuses your forgiveness. Stop walking back to the place where your heart ran from. Stop trusting their words and ignoring their actions. Stop breaking your own HEART. — Unknown

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08 Feb 2015

deciding where you want to go…

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

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

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.

photo source tracks found at

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, Beginning, Change, Choice, create, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Gospel, grace, healing, home, Life, Love, Miracles, Seasons, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

07 Feb 2015

you otter know…

I was walking in the forest
I was feeling all alone
The birds and bees were sleeping,
the weeping willow weeping

Then I heard a little creature
Start moving oh so slow
and the little brook began to play
music with its toes
the woodpecker was keeping time
upon that tall oak tree
and I could not help start dancing
cause I knew it was for me
and as I whirled and twirled about
I came upon a log
where the beaver and the otter
were acting more like hogs
and then they each began to croon
they’re words were oh so rare
I stood there for a moment
my foot still in the air

and they sang to me…

You otter know I love you
loved you from the start
(well, if you’ll beaver me
then I’ll beaver you
You never walk alone)
You otter know I love you
love your precious heart
(well, beaver me it’s true
I’ve always loved you
You’re never far from home)

and the band it just kept playing
and my happy heart did gasp
Cause this was so much better
than that silly talking a**
uhhh donkey

Then my heart it felt so happy
and my eyes at last could see
That though I hadn’t been aware
You’d never once left me
and as I danced on down that path
I swear I sang this song
The one my friends had written,
which had been there all along

and I sang…

You otter know I love you
loved you from the start
(if you’ll beaver me
then I’ll beaver you
You never walk alone)
You otter know I love you
love your precious heart
(beaver me it’s true
I’ve always loved you
You’re never far from home

So as I must now end this tale
I want you all to see
that I am not so special
you’re just as loved as me
So come along don’t hesitate
hurry up, don’t wait
just find the groove
dance all day long
help me sing our song…

ACL 2/5/15

Ephesians 1:4
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
New Living Translation

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Posted in Adventure, beloved, Dancing, find art at pinterest, healing, Life, Love, mystery, nature, soul and spirit, Trust, truth, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

04 Feb 2015

I see you there on your cloud…will you see me?

Next to grace, I bet God thinks making us need each other was one of his best ideas.
– Bob Goff

There’s this progressive shedding that has happened as I walk into my own being. Being responsible for ONLY my own life is an ever challenging, evolving process.
Several years ago, much to my surprise, I found some people just didn’t like me. No real reason even, just a vibrant dislike vibe when I walked in. I am super sensitive and my nature is to want to be liked. Yup, I’m a giant people pleaser! My progress has evolved over years of learning, and is still a work in process.
Many years ago I would twist myself into weird shapes and do anything to make the other like me, then I slowly learned to allow it to be and not prove myself, or force anything. It has been a gradual, sometimes extremely painful, learning.
Parallel to that, there has been this great and mighty internal work going on, and as I have shed yesterday and baby-step by baby-step learned tiny, mind blowing truths about what love really looks like, I have also been growing into my own voice.
It’s a rather unexpected thing for me, it’s scary and challenging, and yet essential for me to step into my calling. my purpose here.
I am being called to share my experiences in walking this path. Called to be vulnerable and speak as myself. Now, when people don’t like me, I can’t fully say, ‘Well, they really don’t know me at all. They haven’t encountered the real me’, because, more and more of myself is becoming visible.
I feel very alone. I feel unprepared. I feel unworthy. I feel I’m not good enough. I feel afraid of many things, rejection is one of the biggies.
What I know for sure is…none of these feelings matter. This is bigger than me and I cannot say no. What I have gained is too valuable not to share.
Anyway, this has come out different and longer than I expected when I started writing. I am crying so I know it is what I need to say.
I just ask you to pray for me.
If you are reading this, you are a fellow pilgrim. Thank you for sharing this moment on path with me.
As we say in Kentucky to friends as we go our separate ways for a moment, ‘Ya’ll come see us soon, don’t be a stranger.’

photo source tracks found at

Posted in awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, community, compassion, courage, determination, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, healing, Letting Go, Love, mystery, power, Prayer, Relationships, Trust, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

30 Jan 2015

we’re all just ex-babies! embrace it!

…everyone is involved, whether they like it or not, in the construction of their world. So, it’s never as given as it actually looks; you are always shaping it and building it. And I feel that from that perspective, that each of us is an artist. Secondly, I believe that everyone has imagination. That no matter how mature and adult and sophisticated a person might seem, that person is still essentially an ex-baby. And as children, we all lived in an imaginal world. You know, when you’ve been told don’t cross that wall, because there’s monsters over there, my god, the world you would create on the other side of the wall.
– John O’Donohue
http://www.onbeing.org/program/inner-landscape-beauty/transcript/1125

King Lear
THERE WOULD BE a strong argument for saying that much of the most powerful preaching of our time is the preaching of the poets, playwrights, novelists because it is often they better than the rest of us who speak with awful honesty about the absence of God in the world and about the storm of his absence, both without and within, which, because it is unendurable, unlivable, drives us to look to the eye of the storm. I think of King Lear especially with its tragic vision of a world in which the good and the bad alike go down to dusty and, it would seem, equally meaningless death with no God to intervene on their behalf, and yet with its vision of a world in which the naked and helpless ones, the victims and fools, become at least truly alive before they die and thus touch however briefly on something that lies beyond the power of death. It is the worldly ones, the ones wise as the world understands wisdom and strong in the way the world understands strength, who are utterly doomed. This is so much the central paradox of Lear that the whole play can be read as a gloss if not a homily on that passage in First Corinthians where Paul expresses the same paradox in almost the same terms by writing, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28), thus pointing as Shakespeare points to the apparent emptiness of the world where God belongs and to how the emptiness starts to echo like an empty shell after a while until you can hear in it the still, small voice of the sea, hear strength in weakness, victory in defeat, presence in absence.
I think of Dostoevski in The Brothers Karamazov when the body of Alyosha’s beloved Father Zossima begins to stink in death instead of giving off fragrance as the dead body of a saint is supposed to, and at the very moment where Alyosha sees the world most abandoned by God, he suddenly finds the world so aflame with God that he rushes out of the chapel where the body lies and kisses the earth as the shaggy face of the world where God, in spite of and in the midst of everything, is.
-Originally published in Telling The Truth
http://m.frederickbuechner.com/

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Posted in art, attitude, awareness, beloved, create, Dancing, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Freedom, fun, inspiration, laugh, Letting Go, perceptions, Smile, soul and spirit, truth, Vulnerability, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “truth”

preaching to myself today…

breaking open

what am I to do?

Recognize what is before your eyes, and what is hidden will be revealed to you. – The Gospel of Thomas

I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. – Harriet Tubman

love is for the strong

deciding where you want to go…

you otter know…

I see you there on your cloud…will you see me?

we’re all just ex-babies! embrace it!

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