Reflection for February 25, 2009

ASH WEDNESDAY

I rise early

sit long over coffee and poems

savor every sip

every morsel and metaphor

while it lasts

for I know it will not.

I value each day now

each hour

each book or poem

each encounter

each moment with this love

with this

and this.

A stack of prunings

grows in the back yard

awaits a summer to dry

an autumn to cure

before it becomes

the blaze that warms

next year's winter dawn

and burns itself to ash.

           _Donna Hardy 2009

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were

behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.

For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter

that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

           _Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, II, 13.

Reflection for February 18, 2009

"Surely you, too, have fallen under the spell...Suddenly there it is in silhouette-

a single, noble winter tree, black against the pale sky.  You stop because you must.

You fix it on your eyes so that it cannot get away. What is so compelling here? 

What catches you and holds you in this common sight?  

There is a magnificent, creative loneliness in it -the way it stands isolated in the wide reaches of the fields, darkly melancholy. 

There is struggle in the twisted, writhing branches, as if growth and survival have not been easily come by. 

There is strength in the way it has been exposed mercilessly to the storms, with no barn or house to break the blast.  Yet it has endured, taking on dignity with the visitations of frost, snow, and ice.  

There is acceptance in its open display of imperfection...

Most of all, perhaps, there is honesty in the starkness of the winter tree. 

Stripped of all pretense and embellishment, nothing is there but the tree's truth.

Before the eyes of all it lives the way it is - nothing more. 

In its utter, exposed openness it is a kind of prayer."                  

Mary Jean Irion,  Yes, World 

A tree is a lens, a viewfinder, a window. I wait below for a message of what is yet to come.

Rochelle Mass, "Waiting for a Message" 

Reflection for February 11, 2009

The place I want to get back to

(by Mary Oliver in Thirst, 2006)

is where

   in the pinewoods

      in the moments between the darkness

and first light

   two deer

      came walking

         down the hill

            and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,

   this one is okay

      let's see who she is

         and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,

   so quiet, as if

      asleep, or in a dream,

         but anyway, harmless;

and so they came

   on their slender legs

      and gazed upon me

         not unlike the way

I got out to the dunes and look

   and look and look

      into the faces of the flowers;

         and then one of them leaned forward

and muzzled my hand and what can my life

   bring to me that could exceed

      that brief moment?

         For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods.

   not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

      Such gifts, bestowed, can't be repeated

If you want to talk about this

   come to visit. I live in the house

      near the corner, which I have named

         Gratitude. 

Reflection for February 4, 2009

How wonderful, O Lord, are the works of Your hands!

The heavens declare Your glory,

The arch of the sky displays Your handiwork

In Your love You have given us the power

To behold the beauty of Your world

Robed in all it's splendor:

The sun and the stars, the valleys and the hills,

The rivers and the lakes all disclose Your presence.

The roaring breakers of the sea tell of Your awesome might;

The beasts of the field and the birds of the air 

Bespeak your wondrous will.

In Your goodness You have made us able to hear

The music of the world. The voices of loved ones 

Reveal to us that You are in our midst.

A divine voice sings through all creation.

Jewish Prayer

Reflection for January 28, 2009

Praise Song For the Day

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other,

catching each other's eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn

and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is

stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a 

tire, repairing the things in need of repair

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of 

wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box,

harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; a teacher says, "Take out

your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth,

whispered or disclaimed,words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of

someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the

other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; we walk into that

which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names

of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks,

raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean

and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. Praise song for

every hand-lettered sign; the figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial,

national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no

need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be

made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for

walking forward in that light.

                                      By Elizabeth Alexander

                                      Read at President Obama's Inauguration,

                                      January 20, 2009   

reflection for January 21, 2009

  New Beginnings

  Blessings

  Spirit of Life, bless us as we enter this new time,

  and as we bless one another in peace.

  In this time of hope we wish to affirm life for all.

  We commit ourselves again

  to bring your hope of freedom

  to all who suffer despair.

  Fill us with a thirst for your justice

  and teach us to move beyond

  reliance on empty promises and false hopes.

  Spirit of Life, renew our vision of a different possibility,

  a different world.

  Open the eyes of those who are fed

  to the cries of the hungry.

  Move the hearts of those who are whole

  to offer healing to those who suffer.

  Turn our eyes inward and outward

  to the beauties within and without.

  Help us to care for your presence

  in the sap-filled plants, in the soaring birds,

               in the murmuring ocean,

  in the gurgling streams with their families of fish,

  and in our own hearts,

  often broken sometimes healed.

  Spirit of Life, renew our dreams.

  Help us to attend to your voice

  and to know your call amid all the others.

  Repair our dreams for the future

  when they have become ragged.

  Bless all the women of the future,

  and grant them loving and listening friends and family.

  Open for them a way of peace

  so that their children and their children's children

  may receive an inheritance

  of womanly grace and hope.

  Amen, We Pray. Amen

  (Hildegarde of Bingen)

 

  From: Praying with the Women Mystics

  Selected, compiled, and interpreted by Mary T. Malone

 

    

Reflection for January 14, 2009

     I thought I'd lost you. But you said I'm imbued

in the fabric of things, the way

wax lost from batik shapes

the pattern where the dye wont take.

I make the space around you,                                            

and so allow you shape; and always

you'll feel the traces of that wax

soaked far into the weave:

the air around your gestures,

the silence after you speak.

That's me; that slight wind between

your hand and what you're reaching for;

chair and paper, book or cup;

that close, where I am: between 

where breath  ends, air starts.

             from: Where You Are, a requiem poem by Mark Doty 

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I

ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take

the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there 

your hand shall lead me, and your right hand hall hold me. If I say, "Surely the

darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not

dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

         -from Psalm 139