Reflection for June 8, 2011

Deep Peace of the Running Wave To You

A Gaelic Blessing

To access the latest information on UN protection of the ocean

http://www.iucn.org/?7612/Breakthrough-at-the-United-Nations-hopes-grow-for-the-high-seas

Reflection for June 1, 2011

Note: Richard Rohr’s book, “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life”, speaks of the classical hero/heroine’s journey.

The first task, which the hero or heroine thinks is the only task, is only the warm-up act to get him or her to the real task. He or she “falls through” what is merely his or her life situation to discover her Real Life, which is always a much deeper river, hidden beneath the appearances. Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events. This deeper discovery is largely what religious people mean by “finding their soul.”

(Father Rohr would identify this as our task in the second half of life.)

No one can keep you from this second half of your own life except yourself. Nothing can inhibit your second journey except your own lack of courage, patience, and imagination. Your second journey is all yours to walk or to avoid. My conviction is that some falling apart of the first journey is necessary for this to happen, so do not waste a moment of time lamenting poor parenting, lost job, failed relationship, physical handicap, gender identity, economic poverty, or even the tragedy of any kind of abuse. Pain is part of the deal. If you don’t walk into the second half of your own life, it is you who do not want it. God will always give you exactly what you truly want and desire. So make sure you desire, desire deeply, desire yourself, desire God, desire everything good, true, and beautiful.

Reflection for May 11, 2011

A Monk

Striking his bell day after day

a monk remains in his pale grey deep dream.

The traces and shadows of so many past years

appear in memory like a patch of incense smoke

that spreads everywhere in the old temple.

The remains of sorrow stay in the censer

together with the grief of devout men and women.

boredom meanders perpetually

round and round in the sutras.

Sleepy words trickle from his mouth,

a man talking in his dream.

His head nods along with his knocking

of the wooden fish,

both so empty yet so heavy.

Stroke after stroke, the hills and rivers

are lulled to sleep.

The hills and rivers sleep lazily in the afterglow,

as he finished tolling the funeral bell

of another day.

1931, The Han Garden

Pien Chih-lin

Pien Chihlin (born 1910) came from the Chinese coast near Shanghai, to enroll

at Peking University in 1929. He loved the ancient city, yet his verses were not

choked in its dust. Some of the passages seem obscure, but most of his poems

breathe a clear, pure air. They represent life through a series of impressions, often

quiet but never trivial as they may seem at first reading.

--Anthology of Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry, 1963

Edited by Kai-yu Hsu

- Wooden Fish: hollowed wooden box which a monk strikes with a stick while

chanting sutras. It owes its name to an old legend about about some original

Buddhist sutras being swallowed by a marine monster on their way to China.

Striking the wooden fish therefore, becomes a gesture demanding the monster

to disgorge the Word.

Reflection for May 4, 2011

Embody peace___

become a witness

to the word.

Let it flow

from the core

of your being

out into the world.

Let every muscle,

bone, fiber, cell

speak

of the deeper truths.

Become

a prayer for peace.

Nancy Gibbs Richard

From: A Small Steadying Sail of Love

Poems, Meditations and Photographs

Reflection for April 27, 2010

“…the angel spoke, and he said to the women, “Thee is no need for you to be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen…..”

Mark 28:5-6

There must be always remaining in everyone’s life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and, by an inherent prerogative, throws all the rest of life into a new and creative relatedness, something that gathers up in itself all the freshest of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright white light of penetrating beauty and meaning – then passes. The commonplace is shot through with new glory; old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.

Deep is the Hunger by Howard Thurman

Reflection for April 20, 2011

The Vessel

Formed from the earth (clay)

Trusting our vision……………………………….our intuition

Having courage……………………………………..taking risks

Saying yes, to helping hands

Turning upside down …………………………... different perspective

Creating what we like ……………………………daring to think large

Right timing to polish the clay with smooth stone until it shines

Repetition.………………………………………….……like a long mantra

Going through fire.……………………………….. becoming more solid

Coming to the right place.…………………………. community effort

Arms digging a grave and gentle laying down the clay bodies

Being together in the same hole.………..leaning on each other

Trusting my choice of adding sea wheat, orange- and banana peels

to the saw dust and fire wood layers that fill the grave

Trusting others and the experienced teacher

Blessing ritual and letting go!

Surrendering all creations to another fire (in the ground)

Waiting with patience………an evening and a whole night!

In the morning taking away the cover…taking away the stone

Looking what’s left in the ashes

Many hands carefully lift up, what we had given up

Hearts beating …… hands working ……eyes looking

Hallelujahs ___ sounds of joy and amazements

Seeing the images of transformation

Forming our stories

Do you see what I see?

Reflection for April 13, 2011

Nurture You

to

Nurture the World