And in this life
we will constantly be
pulled between
love and loss,
grief and gratitude
pain and purpose.
But how brave it is
to allow yourself space
for the tension.
To know that
seemingly opposite things
can all be true at once
and to hold them all
in your hand at once,
in your heart at once.
—Liz Newman
Every day is a fresh beginning;
Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,
And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,
And puzzles forecasted and possible pain,
Take heart with the day, and begin again.
—Susan Coolidge (excerpt)
[Photo of early morning lights through the fog in the Sequatchie Valley].
I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.
Onward, old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.
Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch
though I’m not twenty
and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.
—Mary Oliver
When I stop comparing and allow myself
to be ordinary—folding tea towels
and T-shirts into neat squares, rinsing out
the sticky jar that once held honey—I taste
a piece of eternity. Giving myself to the task
at hand, the chore becomes a privilege:
I get to scrub last night’s pasta pot, I get to
sweep pebbles and pine needles from the mudroom.
This is how we enter the timeless motion of those
who came before us—by accepting the assignment,
which is to beautify and repair our own small
corner of the world. Afterward, I am stained
like the inside of a favorite coffee mug
with evidence of my delight in these daily rituals
that can never be washed away, the ordinary
being at least one gateway to the holy.
—James Crews
Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat of the sweet grass?…
For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in…
And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
Both intimate and ultimate,
And you will be heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper
Oh let me, for a while longer, enter the two
Beautiful bodies of your lungs…
Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.
It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of a single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life- just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
Still another…
And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.
And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
—Mary Oliver
[Photo of zinnias at Flat Top Mountain Farm in TN].
And in this life we will constantly be pulled between love and loss, grief and gratitude pain and purpose. But how brave it is to allow yo...
