Kindness

I believe in kindness. 

Also in mischief. 

Also in singing, 

especially when singing 

is not necessarily prescribed.

--Mary Oliver

Valentine for Ernest Mann

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment 
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries 
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

--Naomi Shihab Nye

Give Me the Courage to Live

Give me the courage to live! Really live—not merely exist.
Live dangerously.
Scorning risk!
Live honestly.
Daring the truth—
Particularly the truth of myself.
Live resiliently—
Ever changing, ever growing, ever adapting.
Enduring the pain of change.
As though ‘twere the travail of birth.
Give me the courage to live,
Give me the strength to be free
And endure the burden of freedom
And the loneliness of those without chains;
Let me not be trapped by success
Nor by failure, nor pleasure, nor grief,
Nor malice, nor praise, nor remorse!
Give me the courage to go on!
Facing all that waits on the trail –
Going eagerly, joyously on,
Without anger or fear or regret
Taking what life gives,
Spending myself to the full,
Head high, spirit winged, …
Gracious God, hear my prayer;
Give me the courage to live.

--Howard Thurman

To Make A Promise

Make a place of prayer, no fuss,
just lean into the white brilliance
and say what you needed to say
all along, nothing too much, words
as simple and as yours and as heard
as the bird song above your head
or the river running gently beside you.

Let your words join
one to another
the way stone nestles on stone,
the way water just leaves
and goes to the sea,
the way your promise
breathes and belongs
with every other promise
the world has ever made.

Now, leave them to go on,
let your words
carry their own life
without you, let the promise
go with the river.
Have faith. Walk away.

--David Whyte

We Remember Them

At the rising of the sun and at its going down
	We remember them.

At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter
	We remember them.

At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring
	We remember them.

At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer
	We remember them.

At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn
	We remember them.

At the beginning of the year and when it ends
	We remember them.

As long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us as
	We remember them.

When we are weary and in need of strength
	We remember them.

When we are lost and sick at heart
	We remember them.

When we have joy we crave to share
	We remember them.

When we have decisions that are difficult to make
	We remember them.

When we have achievements that are based on theirs
	We remember them.

As long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us as
	We remember them.

Reform Judiaism Prayer Book

Mameen

(For John O’Donohue)

Be infinitesimal under that sky, a creature

even the sailing hawk misses, a wraith

among the rocks where the mist parts slowly.

Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed

by circumstance, how great reputations

dissolve with infirmity and how you,

in particular, stand a hairsbreadth from losing

everyone you hold dear.

Then, look back down the path to the north,

the way you came, as if looking

over your entire past and then south

over the hazy blue coast as if present

to a broad future.

Recall the way you are all possibilities

you can see and how you live best

as an appreciator of horizons

whether you reach them or not.

Admit that once you have got up

from your chair and opened the door,

once you have walked out into the clear air

toward that edge and taken the path up high

beyond the ordinary you have become

the privileged and the pilgrim,

the one who will tell the story

and the one, coming back from the mountain

who helped to make it.

--David Whyte

[Hiking in the Connemara]