A year is nothing but the amount of time it takes for the earth to go completely around the sun before it begins the trip all over again. The completion of a year, then, is not a sign that things are ending. It is surely much more the realization that life repeats itself unendingly. We have a chance to do everything again, better this time, more comfortably this time, more joyfully this time. Songs of Joy, Joan Chittister
On meaning, as we age:
A burden of these years is that we might allow ourselves to believe that not being as fast or as busy as we used to be is some kind of human deficiency.
A blessing of these years is that we can come to understand that it is the quality of what we think and say that makes us valuable members of society, not how fast or busy we are. The Gift of Years, Joan Chittister
ONE WORLD Celtic Woman I hear a baby crying, A sad sound, a lonely sound. I want to take her in my arms, And then I dry away all her tears.
I see a boy who's frightened, A young boy with old eyes, I long to say you're welcome here, You can be happy now that you're warm We're all a part of one world, We all can share the same dream... And if you just reach out to me, Then you will find deep down inside.... I'm just like you,
Loud voices raised in anger, Speak harsh words, such cruel words, Why do they speak so selfishly? When we have so much we can share.
So let your hearts be open, And reach out with all your love, There are no strangers now, They are our brothers now, And we are one.
We're all apart of one world, We all can share the same dream, And if you just reach out to me, Then you will find, deep down inside, I'm just like you....
We're all a part of one world, We all can share the same dream, And if you just reach out to me, Then you will find, deep down inside...
…The season of Advent is a season of preparation, a time of getting ready for what lies ahead. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says of John the Baptist, “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ ’’ And in another Advent reading, Isaiah proclaims to us, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). While both Matthew and Isaiah draw our attention to the horizon from which the holy one will appear, they also draw our gaze to the path itself.
The season beckons me to ask, what am I preparing for? What is the way that is being prepared within the wilderness of my life? What does it mean for my own life to become a path, a way of welcome for the Holy One? How do I give myself time to notice the ways that the path unfolds before me and within me? What are the acts of preparation that bring delight to my life? Whom do I ask or allow to help me prepare?
Chances are, if we don’t enjoy the process of getting ready, we won’t enjoy the event we are getting ready for. If we become so consumed by getting Christmas right—the right present, the right cards mailed to the right people at the right time, the right dishes for Christmas dinner—we risk missing the surprising ways that God prepares us in this season. As we open to God’s guiding in these Advent days, we may discover that the space being prepared for the coming birth lies within our own selves.
Jan L.Richardson, NIGHT VISIONS: searching the shadows of advent and christmas, UnitedChurch Press, 1998
You love those who search for truth.In wisdom, center me, for you know my frailty.Psalm 51
“Life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and sensational, played to an audience of one,” Anthony Pail writes.Whatever you are struggling with internally right now is your call to the next stage of life.Treat it gently.Don’t try either to stamp it out or make it happen.Just ask yourself what you are being allowed to learn from it.That’s wisdom.
Joan Chittister, Songs of Joy
“It is good to have an end to journey towards,” Ursula Le Guin writes, “but it is the journey that matters in the end.”How we get where we get is often more important in the end than getting there.The goodness of the work itself, the joy of the sharings while we do it and the love we find along the way, whether we succeed at it or not, now that’s what makes life, life.
On Monday Oct 13 we celebrate Columbus Day – the discovery of America.But today, let us consider the wisdom of the Native Peoples of this country whose way of life was changed forever by this event.
PRAYER TO THE FOUR DIRECTIONS
Great Spirit of Light, come to me out of the East (red) with the power of the rising sun.Let there be light in my words, let there be light on my path that I walk.Let me remember always that you give the gift of a new day.And never let me be burdened with sorrow by not starting over again.
Great Spirit if Love, come to me with the power of the North (white).Make me courageous when the cold wind falls upon me.Give me strength and endurance for everything that is harsh, everything that hurts, everything that makes me squint.Let me move through life ready to take what comes from the north.
Great Life-Giving Spirit, I face the West (black), the direction of sundown.Let me remember everyday that the moment will come when my sun goes down.Never let me forget that I must fade into you.Give me a beautiful color, give me a great sky for setting, so that when it is my time to meet you, I can come with glory.
Great Spirit of Creation, send me the warm and soothing winds from the South (yellow).Comfort me and caress me when I am tired and cold.Unfold me like the gentle breezes that unfold the leaves on the trees.As you give to all the earth your warm moving wind, give also to me ao that I may grow close to you in warmth.
Simplicity is openness to the beauty of the present, whatever its shape, whatever its lack. Simplicity, clearly, leads to freedom of soul. When we cultivate a sense of "enoughness", when we learn to enjoy things for their own sakes, when we learn to be gentle even with what is lacking in ourselves, we find ourselves free to be where we are and to stop mourning where we are not. We find that simplicity is an antidote to depression. Joan Chittister
Here's a test: James Thurber wrote that people "Should strive to learn before they die/ What they are running from, and to, and why". Simplicity, in other words, is knowing what my life is really all about. Which of Thurber's questions are you able to answer? Joan Chittister Songs of Joy: New Meditations on the Psalms for Every Day of the Year
It felt the encouragement of light Against its Being,
Otherwise, We all remain Too Frightened.
The Suburbs
Complaint Is only possible
While living in the suburbs Of God.
Hafiz, The Gift, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
Living in the Now
There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment. This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future. Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or not at all.
The first time I heard the word Mystery I did not understand what it meant. As an avid reader of mystery stories, I had the idea that something is a mystery only because its solution has not yet been found. But mystery is different from Mystery. By it’s very nature Mystery cannot be solved, can never be known. It can only be lived…
…We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may even see the unknown as an insult to our incompetence, a personal failing. Seen this way the unknown becomes a challenge to action. But Mystery does not require action; Mystery requires our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives…
…A sense of Mystery can take us beyond disappointment and judgment to a place of expectancy. It opens in us an attitude of listening and respect. If everyone has in them the dimension of the unknown, possibility is present at all times. Wisdom is possible at all times. The Mystery in anyone may speak to them and heal them in the grocery store. It may speak to us and heal us too. Knowing this enables us to listen to life from the place in us that is Mystery also. Mystery requires that we relinquish an endless search for answers and become willing to not understand, that we be open to witness. Those who witness life may eventually know far more than anyone can understand.
Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next question. After all these years I have begun to wonder if the secret to living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.
From My Grandfather’s Blessings, by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
Among other wonders, we are alive With one another, we walk here In the light of an unlikely world That isn’t ours for long. May we spend generously The time we are given. May we enact our responsibilities As thoroughly as we enjoy Our pleasures. May we see with clarity, May we seek a vision That serves all beings, may we honour The mystery surpassing our sight, And may we hold in our hands The gift of good work And bear it forth whole, as we Were borne forth by a power we praise To this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.
Once upon a time in the heart of a certain kingdom, lay a beautiful garden. Of all the dwellers of the garden, the most beautiful and beloved to the master of the garden was a splendid and noble Bamboo. Year after year, Bamboo grew yet more beautiful and gracious. He was conscious of his master's love, yet he was modest and in all things gentle. Often when Wind came to revel in the garden, Bamboo would dance and sway merrily, tossing and leaping and bowing in joyous abandon. He delighted his master's heart.
One day the master spoke: "Bamboo, I would use you."
Bamboo flung his head to the sky in utter delight. The day in which he would find his completion and destiny had come! His voice came low: "Master, I am ready, use me as you want."
"Bamboo," the master's voice was grave, "I would be obliged to take you and cut you down."
A trembling of great horror shook Bamboo. "Cut...me...down? Me whom you, master, have made the most beautiful in all your garden? Cut me down? Ah, not that, not that. Use me for your joy, oh master, but don't cut me down."
"Beloved Bamboo," the master's voice grew graver still. "If I do not cut you down, I cannot use you."
Bamboo slowly bent his proud and glorious head. The came a whisper. "Master, if you cannot us me unless you cut me down, then do your will and cut."
"Bamboo, beloved Bamboo, I would cut your leaves and branched from you also."
"Master, master spare me. Cut me down and lay my beauty in the dust, but would you take from me my leaves and branches also?"
Bamboo, alas! If I do not cut them away, I cannot use you."
Bamboo shivered in terrible expectancy, whispering low. "Master, cut away."
"Bamboo, Bamboo. I would divide you in two and cut out your heart, for if I do not cut so, I cannot use you."
"Master, master, then cut and divide."
So the master of the garden took Bamboo and cut him down and hacked off his branches and stripped his leaves and divided him in two and cut out his heart and pierced his skin and removed parts of Bamboo's flesh, and lifting him gently, carried him to where there was a spring of fresh, sparkling water in the midst of the master's dry fields. The putting down one end of broken Bamboo into the spring and the other end into the water channel in the field, the master laid down gently his beloved Bamboo. The clear sparkling water raced joyously down the channel of Bamboo's torn body into the waiting fields. Then the rice was planted and the days went by. The shoots grew. The harvest came. In that day was Bamboo, once so glorious in his stately beauty, yet more glorious in his brokenness and humility. For in all his beauty he was life abundant. But in his brokenness he became a channel of abundant life to his master's world.
You are a dot among dots, so extend yourself to whoever needs you, and let this extension of yourself be filled with the unending love that is at your fingertips.
