A right turn towards the lake instead of the usual left that leads to home. Down a short gravel road, park, a five-minute walk through bare trees and dried leaves to the water’s edge. Azure sky, blue water, red dirt. The piercing golden sun hovers over the horizon. Waves […]
Grand Sacred Angels we are, whether you agree or not! Go to the Creator of You Ask this love what your worth is Ask the Author of existence what you are worth The Almighty Sacred will say: Your nature longs to be worth it You want peace You want stillness Love […]
Shall I love God for causing me to be? I was mere utterance; shall these words love me? Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer, And one free subject loosened all His grammar, I love Him that He did not in a rage Once and forever rule me off the page, But, […]
“Like everybody else, I bowed my head during the consecration of the bread and wine, I lifted my eyes to the raised host and raised chalice, I believed (whatever it means) that a change occurred. I went to the altar rails and received the mystery on my tongue, returned to my place, shut my eyes […]
Experience of life: its routines; the workaday world; home leisure, reassuring in their way, buttress our sense of life’s rational elements, its continuity upholding our need for a beginning, a middle, and an end, and awareness of place along the line, holding off conflicts that bear no resolution: the creep of illness and indifference; the […]
Someone spoke to me last night, told me the truth. Just a few words, but I recognized it. I knew I should make myself get up, write it down, but it was late, and I was exhausted from working all day in the garden, moving rocks. Now, I remember only the flavor— not like food, […]
That I did always love I bring thee Proof That till I loved I never lived—Enough— That I shall love alway— I argue thee That love is life— And life hath Immortality— This—dost thou doubt—Sweet— Then have I Nothing to show But Calvary— — Emily Dickinson (Poem 549)
Somewhere in flatter-than-flat western Kansas, a patch of sky blue next to the edge of a golden orange-to-red cloud reflecting the setting sun is just so beautiful that you want to pause, hold your breath, soak it in all in, but it is so much bigger than you, you can’t take it all in, so […]
Dragonfly hovers Grace and time appear to pause To taste the moment
What we choose to fight is so tiny… When we win it’s with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. — Rainer Maria Rilke, from the poem “The Watching Man”
Do we dare say it, “it’s all for you”? The winters marked the Earth Its floor with frozen glass You slip into my arms And you quickly correct yourself Your freezing speech bubbles Seem to hold your words aloft I want the smoky clouds of laughter To swim about me forever more I will race […]
I watched a rosebud very long Brought on by dew and sun and shower, Waiting to see the perfect flower: Then, when I thought it should be strong, It opened at the matin hour And fell at evensong. I watched a nest from day to day A […]
This moment, mortal as you or I, was full of boundless, senseless, silly joy, as if it knew something we didn’t. — Adam Zagajewski (via)
True love in every moment praises God. Longing love brings a sorrow sweet to the pure. Seeking love belongs to itself. Understanding love gives itself equally to all. Enlightened love is mingled with the sadness of the world. But selfless love bears an effortless fruit, working so quietly even the body cannot say […]
Do you still get homesick? Do you dare let yourself feel that ache, That deep emptiness of longing, a hole of nothingness? Or do you cover it up, With half promises, with misdirected hopes, with distractions? Do you still long for wholeness, Completeness, oneness, with another? Do you still hunger? Do you still long for […]
When someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you’ve had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold, fresh water. When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touches your skin, you are loved. When someone deeply listens to you, the […]
You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums, or in the silence after lightning before it says its names - and then the clouds’ wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, […]
I recently rediscovered a rare moment of inspired creativity I had left as a comment to this article back in March, 2008, “No Resistance is Futile”. The form of haiku— Like banks of a river flows Creativity The point of the article, and the website too, is that limitations, restrictions, or boundaries narrows ones focus […]
Say “death” and the whole room freezes— even the couches stop moving, even the lamps. Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at. Say the word continuously, and things begin to go forward. Your life takes on the jerky texture of an old film strip. Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment […]
All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems. Short is your stay here: now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear, […]
Asking people to pray is like telling the wind to blow the ear to listen the eye to see We cannot not pray anymore than not be once given the gift of existence We can only shut it out or deny it Prayer is simply the conscious dimension of being when it opens out to […]
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look will easily unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring […]
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror up to where you’re bravely working. Expecting the worst, you look, you look, and instead, here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see. Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be […]
When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. […]
Lord of the Starfields Ancient of Days Universe Maker Here’s a song in your praise Wings of the storm cloud Beginning and end You make my heart leap Like a banner in the wind O Love that fires the sun keep me burning Lord of the Starfields Sower of Life Heaven and earth are Full […]