The Unbroken

There is a brokenness

out of which comes the unbroken,

a shatteredness

out of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow

beyond all grief which leads to joy

and a fragility

out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space

too vast for words

through which we pass with each loss,

out of whose darkness

we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound

whose serrated edges cut the heart

as we break open to the place inside

which is unbreakable and whole,

while learning to sing.

--Rashani Rea

Visiting Catherine and Ben

He's 90, full of wit and good cheer.  She's 89, no longer

clear who she's with or what's happening.  Before we

go in, he explains, "She'll ask the same question time

and again.  It's hard, of course, but she remains her

same sweet self and we love each more than ever."

Today she wants to know, "When was the last time

we saw each other?"  "Last year at this time," we

say, "right here in your lovely home.  It's so good

to see you again!"  "Oh, yes!", she says, with her

whole heart.  Five minutes later she asks again.

"Would you like cheese and crackers?", she asks,

"Sounds good," we say, and I ask if I can help.  He

warns me off with a shake of his head, quietly saying,

"She can still do a few things like this--they help

her feel more in control of her life."

She returns with a tray--cheese, crackers, napkins

and small plates carefully arranged--stopping

in front of each of us until we take our share.

"This is communion," I think, "the bread of life,

the wine of love, and our cups floweth over.  Never

has a cathedral seen a moment more holy than this."

--Parker J. Palmer

[Photo of John and Gladys Toop with great grandchildren.]

Our Relationship to Time

Our relationship to time has become corrupted exactly because we allow ourselves very little experience of the ‘timeless’. Our language itself is bound in the same way we are bound; we speak continuously of ‘saving’ time, but time in it richness is most often lost to us when we are busy without relief. We speak of ‘stealing’ time as if it no longer belonged to us. We speak of ‘needing’ time as if it wasn't around us already in every moment. We want to ‘make’ time for ourselves as if it were in our power to do so. Time is the conversation between absence and visitation, the frontier and sometimes the barrier between ourselves and those we love; the hours becoming ripe with happening only when we are attentive, patient, and present.

--David Whyte

The Gift

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

--Denise Levertov