life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “truth”

Zec. 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried:

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You will face situations that will challenge the very foundation of what you believe. Even though it will feel very difficult at times, I want you to understand it is necessary. For these situations will cause you to do some much needed soul searching, which will bring you to a new plateau of faith.

The situations you face will provide opportunities to seek Me for wisdom, and establish trust in your life. I am your very present help in times of trouble; and I alone will bring you through. It is a refiner’s fire that is burning within you. Let those things burn that cannot withstand the heat, for that which remains will be cherished for its eternal value. Eternal value is what your life is all about, and that is a very precious thing.
http://chosenoneministries.com/mainpage.htm

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it’s a brand new day

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becoming

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Do you know who you are

O you forever listed
under some other heading
when you are listed at all

you whose addresses
when you have them
are never sold except
for another reason
something else that is
supposed to identify you

who carry no card
stating that you are—
what would it say you were
to someone turning it over
looking perhaps for
a date or for
anything to go by

you with no secret handshake
no proof of membership
no way to prove such a thing
even to yourselves

you without a word
of explanation
and only yourselves
as evidence

To the Happy Few by W.S. Merwin

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be you 😎

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The people gathered around Aaron, and said to him,
“Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us.”
—Exodus 32.1

We tire of believing in a God so slippery,
a Lover so invisible,
so we make little ones
that we can set somewhere and not lose.

The golden calf of being busy.
The idol of producing.
The image of conforming.
The little god of being right.

We worship the god of having things under control.
We bow down to the idol of understanding things.
We give our gold to fashion the calf of being liked.
We adore the image of a happy, easy life.

Forgive us, God.
Take away our golden idols
that have so spectacularly failed us
and give us yourself instead.

Teach us to repent with each breath.
Help us to let go and trust
your Mystery, your Presence,
your Infinity, your Love.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Every now and then I sit and watch the sun rise to remind myself how it’s done – peacefully, steadily, warmly and in beautiful color. – Richelle E. Goodrich

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If I write a love poem
you will read it.

If I say my lover’s eyes are oceans, or galaxies
you will understand.

If I say I long for the feel of the curve of her waist
your hands will feel empty.

If I say her comfort is my earth
you will smile to yourself.

If I say she is larger than the world
you will grow confused.

If I say she is older than music
you will become wary.

If I say she is God
you will sigh and put the book down.

What can I do but sing of my love,
her hands like fields of wheat?

So I will not tell you the secret part,
only that her mouth is a river I kneel and drink from,

her love makes dawn arise in me,
her voice is like rain.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. – Harper Lee

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It’s all connected –
All the love,
All the loss,
All the joy,
All the pain.

The world is made of God.
We live in the ocean of God’s breath,
His very words.

We are all artists.
We all speak creation.
Our words are our greatest art form,
make sure they are painting a masterpiece.

God is love is life is truth is word is love is…
every little thing is connected to each other.

Everything I really needed to know
I learned from the ocean
and the trees.
The mountains
introduced me to the angels.
Acorns were my very first teachers
the finest flock of seagulls
were my most recent.

We are the temple.
We includes the universe
we find ourselves in.
We are brothers and sisters
to stars and starships

ACL 3/31/13

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions, my one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
– Oscar Wilde

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It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world. Through the opening of the mouth, we bring out sounds from the mountain beneath the soul. These sounds are words. The world is full of words. There are so many talking all the time, loudly, quietly, in rooms, on streets, on television, on radio, in the paper, in books. The noise of words keeps what we call the world there for us. We take each other’s sounds and make patterns, predictions, benedictions, and blasphemies. Each day, our tribe of language holds what we call the world together. Yet the uttering of the word reveals how each of us relentlessly creates. Everyone is an artist. Each person brings sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible.
– John O’Donohue

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We seldom hear the voice of the Holy One
who is, after all, fearsomely immense,

who sits, enthralled, perfectly still as a bird
watcher, saying nothing, offering only

the merest whispers, hidden in this world
so cleverly as to seem natural,

so as not to frighten us
away.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it. – Miranda July

oh yeah, it’s a brand spankin’ new day!!’

You wake with
no aches
in the arms
of your beloved
to the smell of fresh coffee
you eat a giant breakfast
with no thought
of carbs
there is time to read
with a purring cat on your lap
later you walk by the ocean
with your dog
on this cut crystal day
your favorite music and the sun
fill the house
a short delicious nap
under a fleece throw
comes later
and the phone doesn’t ring
at dusk you roast a chicken,
bake bread, make an exquisite
chocolate cake
for some friends
you’ve been missing
someone brings you an
unexpected present
and the wine is just right with the food
after a wonderful party
you sink into sleep
in a clean nightgown
in fresh sheets
your sweetheart doesn’t snore
and in your dreams
an old piece of sadness
lifts away

“The Perfect Day” by Alice N. Persons

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How can I forget that the only thing that we’re always really teaching is love? – Ann Voskamp

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What if this is the last thing I ever write?
What if I’m gone
tomorrow,
or even today?
What is the most important thing I have learned
from my time here?
Not even hard questions for me to answer:

God = Love

Yes, that’s it.
Sounds simple,
yet it is so much more.
We are the beloved creations of God,
never alone,
loved beyond our comprehension.
Begin to explore it.
Just glimpses of this true, pure love
will change your life.
Begin to discover,
excavate the truth,
about what love really is,
how it acts,
what it looks like,
the intimacy possible,
the truth
of trust without borders.
(We’ve been tricked into thinking
it’s about physical attraction,
or that it’s self-serving)
Real love has NO fear attached.
No agenda, no claims, no hoops to jump.
None.
We are free to be transparent,
accepted as we are.
free to be our best, and highest, selves.
We are always loved like this.
Every breath.
We are given the free will to decide to choose it,
or not.
Hope we talk tomorrow…
but, if not,
I’ve shared the best thing I know.
Don’t worry –
I’m ok –
either way!

AL 12/16/12

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yes

You do not have to choose the bruised peach
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don’t have to bury
your grandmother’s keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.

You don’t need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine’s wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.

You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.

You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world’s pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes …

See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways
with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.

“Permission Granted” by David Allen Sullivan

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every little thing

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We have to go the “second mile” with God. Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say – “I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis.” If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis.
– Oswald Chambers

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