Sometimes, it is the willingness to let go just a little that makes all the difference in the world. It is flying a kite and releasing some string to stretch upwards.
“Let out a little more string on your kite.” (Alan Cohen)
What, now?
Ease
bound wound
gripping
for dear life
so tightly
taut
nearly snapping string
me
tangled, twisted knot?
If you
just you
take one breath
one
perhaps
on this sun-kissed breeze of possibility
you could
lift
lilt
like your long ago smile.
I am often challenged to see life’s challenges as ways to grow; to turn the bitter into wine. It has become easier with age, maturity, and perhaps wisdom. It is easier to embrace change as inevitable and life is a transient journey I am on. Nothing remains constant and static. It becomes easier to reclaim my voice with an attitude of resilience. I stand in ways that allow me to move back and forth into the pain and breathe. Rilke spoke of this so well in this wonderful poem.
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell.
As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
How often have I held onto something that was not good and healthy for me?
Wallace Stevens wrote this beautiful reminder that we each have work to do. I recall something Jon Kabat-Zinn said: “Find a Job with a capital J. Stop doing someone else’s work. Find work that makes you complete.” I paraphrase here. It is easier to be fully present as fulfilled persons.
Thomas Merton and Parker Palmer wrote about the common roots of voice and vocation. I find meaning and completion in the work I do. Somehow, I make the world a better place. As I find my voice, my being made whole and any holes in that being filled. I understand the meaning of my life’s song with perhaps no clear meaning to anyone else.
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
I have written about the concept of extraordinary and ordinary based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Pastor Ashcraft took a biblical passage and showed us the same thing. The extraordinary is sometimes so obvious we do not recognize it. What is extraordinary in my life? This question, as Pastor Aschcraft suggested, is likely in somethings we view as ordinary. I need to pause and let it reveal itself to me.
Jesus and Peter had to pay the temple tax but had no money. So Jesus sends Peter back to his old vocation, fishing. Go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours — Matt. 17:27 NIV.
If you are in His will, God will provide for your need. Prayer means getting the supernatural into the natural. If you’re working, you won’t have to change your routine, just request the dosage of God’s blessing upon your natural labors.
They call this miracle money, and after 33 years of being a Christian, I have seen God answer like this over and over, in my own life and others. It especially happened when I pastored in Guatemala, particularly when we bought a property and had…
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I was not sure I would post tonight, but as I read comments left on don’t worry, be happy I came across one from Valerie. Valerie suggested a poem by G. K. Chesterton. We regard the donkey as a beast of burden, but it serves a literal and figurative purpose in the Christian world and perhaps beyond.
Literally, the donkey, that simple beast of burden, carried Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This simple animal symbolically in the Middle East of Jesus’ time was an animal of peace. Today, figuratively we recall Jesus used this beast of burden as his mode of transport elevating it.
I wanted to pay tribute to women, all women. We were each born of a mother and that is the first nurturing light in our lives. Each of these women. provided something important to the world and has moved it forward. Celebrate.
Aung San Suu Kyi – A force for democracy in Burma, she is an opposition politician who spent 15 of the past 22 years in jail for her activism.
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature and is widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century
Rosa Parks – In December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, age 42, refused to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. She was later known as the first lady of civil rights and the mother of the freedom movement.
Somaly Mam – a Cambodian author and human rights advocate, focusing primarily on needs of victims of human sex trafficking.
Agatha Christie – British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary…
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This is a great Friday thought. Let go of the those things that provide positive space and lean into the wind strengthening your resolve.
Strictly to bring a smile to your face. Although my brother tells me donkeys are great watchdogs and, when he has had one on the farm, he has not worried about coyotes nearly as much. Donkeys laughing provide humour and protection. Enjoy.
Mary Oliver wrote this poem about being an early riser and what it can mean. I used to fight the alarm clock, turn over several times, and hit the snooze button. With age, I realized that 5:00 or 5:30 AM was the time my body wanted my mind to join it and begin the day. I eat breakfast quietly, go for a cup of tea, and reflect. I do all of this in solitude. Even the busiest Starbucks at 6:00 AM, is quiet. I find many of the things that make the day worth facing in that quiet and solitude. I find creative space there.
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 