As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
--John O'Donohue
Holiness is a center that holds all peripheries; a pure internal almost-absence that makes sense of everyone and everything that busily comes to visit when we do nothing -nothing but pay attention in deeper and deeper ways; holiness is the beautiful something out of all nothingness, birthed inside us and growing inside us, that allows everything on the surface to gather meaning - an internal gravitational field of understanding - allied to an outward and radical letting alone: of family, of food, of other's perspectives; the holy is reached through letting go, by giving up on willed perfection.
Holiness is the rehabilitation of the discarded; the uncelebrated and the imperfect, in our selves, in others, even in our close, un-cooperating, and politically exasperating relatives, into new unities, perceived again as gift. Holiness is the bringing of the detailed outside into the vast unspoken and horizon-less inside, from where the inside seems to give again, transformed as if by the simple act of breathing in and breathing out, back to the world.
Holiness is memory independent of time, time not as besieging force in which things are done, but time radiating out from the place where we stand, welling from the unspoken that holds together all words said at the busy surface; holiness marries hurry to rest, action to spaciousness, and joy to heartbreak in our difficult attempt to give and receive, dissolving giver and receiver into one conversation, untouched by the hurry of the hours.
Holiness might be in Bethlehem, or Jerusalem, or the largest, most glittering, mall, but only if we are there in good company, with the invisible, with a friend, with a loved one, with our affections, with our best and most generous thoughts, most of all with a deep form of inhabited silence, a natural, grounded, central conversation with what and how and to whom we like to give. Holiness is coming to ground in the essence of our giving and receiving, a mirror in which we can see both our virtues and our difficulties, but also, a doorway to the life we want beyond this particular form of exchange.
Holiness is beautiful beckoning uncertainty: time celebrated and time already gone so quickly. Holiness dissolves the prison of time and lies only one short step from the present busy moment: one look into the starry darkness of the mid-winter sky at the midnight hour, one glance at a son or a daughter’s face; one sight of a distressed friend alone in the midst of a crowded celebration.
Holiness is a step taken not to the left or to the right, but to the heart of present besieging outer circumstances, to the core of the pattern we inhabit at the very centre of the celebration. Holiness is reached not through effort or will, but by stopping; by an inward coming to rest; a place from which we can embody the mid winter spirit of our days, a radical, inhabited simplicity, where we live in a kind of on going surprise and with some wonder and appreciation, flawed and far from perfection, but inhabiting the still center of a beautiful, gifted and glowing peripheral.
--David Whyte
[Photo from Christmas 2017]
Either we have hope within us or we don't. It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well or a willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. It is hope, above all, which gives the strength to live and continually try new things.
-- Vaclav Havel
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
-- William Stafford
I have filled myself with beauty against you
Matisse blue in the museum
Bougainvillea climbing the concrete wall
Light on the Bay reflecting, reflecting
I have filled my mind with the beauty of words
The story of the people of Judea
Who crossed the deserts and gave their offerings
They too survived evil
I have filled my ears with the music
Of healing love, the voice of the tribes woman
Singing the long song of outliving the beast
And rejoicing the child newborn
I have filled my mouth
With the food of the angels, honey and lemon,
The fruit that grows from the womb of the earth,
Its seed containing all that is good in our world
I have looked again to the stars, to the sea,
To the beautiful things that man has made,
The voice of the children from the schoolyard
The light filling the window, the small bird
Perched on the last leaves of autumn
Darkness is nothing new on this planet
We lurch from sweet times to bitter
The world reveals our struggle and our strength
Tomorrow and tomorrow as long as we are here
We turn our backs on those who curdle the milk
Who sour the day with their stark greed
Together tomorrow and tomorrow we take a hand
Give our coins to the beggar in the train station
We are the conundrum ourselves, our shadow
And our light, the fig and date, the poison hemlock
Which is your future, your past, dear hearts
As the year unwinds, and resistance ripens
Even in darkness.
For Ruth Stone, Royal Barnard Nov. 21, 2017
--Yvonne Daley
Let’s not say our names
or what we do for a living.
If we are married
and how many times.
Single, gay, or vegan.
Let’s not mention
how far we got in school.
Who we know,
what we’re good at
or no good at, at all.
Let’s not hint at
how much money we have
or how little.
Where we go to church
or that we don’t.
What our Sun Sign is
our Enneagram number
our personality type according to Jung
or whether we’ve ever been
Rolfed, arrested, psychoanalyzed,
or artificially suntanned.
Let’s refrain, too, from stating any ills.
What meds we’re on
including probiotics.
How many surgeries we’ve survived
or our children’s children’s problems.
And, please—
let’s not mention
who we voted for
in the last election.
Let’s do this instead:
Let’s start by telling
just one small thing
that costs us nothing
but our attention.
Something simple
that nourishes
the soul of our bones.
How it was this morning
stooping to pet the sleeping dog’s muzzle
before going off to work.
Or
yesterday,
walking in the woods
spotting that fungus on the stump
of a maple
so astonishingly orange
it glowed like a lamp.
Or just now,
the sound
of your
own breath
rising
or sinking
at the end
of this
sentence.
--Susan Glassmeyer
My father could use a little mercy now
The fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground
His work is almost over it won't be long, he won't be around
I love my father, he could use some mercy now
My brother could use a little mercy now
He's a stranger to freedom, he's shackled to his fear and his doubt
The pain that he lives in it's almost more than living will allow
I love my bother, he could use some mercy now
My church and my country could use a little mercy now
As they sink into a poisoned pit it's going to take forever to climb out
They carry the weight of the faithful who follow them down
I love my church and country, they could use some mercy now
Every living thing could use a little mercy now
Only the hand of grace can end the race towards another mushroom cloud
People in power, they'll do anything to keep their crown
I love life and life itself could use some mercy now
Yeah, we all could use a little mercy now
I know we don't deserve it but we need it anyhow
We hang in the balance dangle 'tween hell and hallowed ground
And every single one of us could use some mercy now
Every single one of us could use some mercy now
Every single one of us could use some mercy now
--Mary Gauthier (lyrics)
May all that is unforgiven in you,
Be released.
May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you,
Blossom into a future,
Graced with love.
--John O'Donohue
May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun.
And find your shoulder to light on.
To bring you luck, happiness, and riches.
Today, tomorrow, and beyond.
May you be blessed in the holy names of those
Who, without you knowing it,
Help to carry and lighten your pain.
May memory bless and protect you
With the hard-earned light of past travail;
To remind you that you have survived before
And though the darkness now is deep,
You will soon see approaching light.
--John O'Donohue
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
--Charles Bukowski
The biography of the bee
is written in honey
and is drawing
to a close.
Soon the buzzing
plainchant of summer
will be silenced
for good;
the flowers, unkindled
will blaze
one last time
and go out.
And the boy nursing
his stung ankle this morning
will look back
at his brief tears
with something
like regret,
remembering the amber
taste of honey.
--Linda Pastan
When I was six years old, my mother bought a used two-tone Chevy Impala with power steering for $200. Power steering. She said the words a...
