Reflection for November 24, 2010

Thoughts on Gratitude

While we cry ourselves to sleep,

gratitude waits patiently to console and reassure us;

there is a landscape larger than the one we can see.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

*

Darkness deserves gratitude.

It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand

that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.

Joan Chittister, Uncommon Gratitude

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To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant,

to enact gratitude is generous and noble,

but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.

Johannes A. Gaertner

*

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardeners

who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

Reflection for November 10, 2010

Welcome Morning

There is joy

in all:

in the hair I brush each morning,

in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

that I rub my body with each morning,

in the chapel of eggs I cook

each morning,

in the outcry from the kettle

that heats my coffee

each morning,

in the spoon and the chair

that cry "hello there, Anne"

each morning,

in the godhead of the table

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

each morning.

All this is God,

right here in my pea-green house

each morning

and I mean,

though often forget,

to give thanks,

to faint down by the kitchen table

in a prayer of rejoicing

as the holy birds at the kitchen window

peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young.

~ Anne Sexton ~

(The Awful Rowing Toward God)

Reflection for November 3, 2010

The Reike Ideals
(Rea-Key means Universal Life Force)

Just for today - do not anger.

Do not worry, and be filled with gratitude.

Devote yourself to your work.

Be kind to People.

Reike Founder - Usui Mikao

Quilts by Larissa