For some there comes a time when a second chance is given.That time then becomes a celebration of the unrecognized gifts of the past and humble gratitude for the wonder of present.
This then is a collection of reflections and comments on life,work,love and faith to be sung ,and danced to, in thanksgiving for a second chance.
"It is said that once you have seen green flash , you'll never go wrong in matters of the heart"
" Another great difference between our civilization and yours is ...you admire the person who pushes their way to the top in any walk of life, while we admire the one who abandons their ego"
- Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrer
" Often the reason why some do not believe in God is that they have often ceased to believe that God can love them"
- Thomas Merton
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The Green Flash
Consider the turtle and the hare
They say the turtle is calm and deliberate, no rush
Making progress when he sticks his neck out.
Consider that every day has a night,
Every competitive sport has an opportunity for a break-
A time out , a time for the athletes to take a breath.
Long duration competitions give the athletes
A time to recover and get reinvigorated for the next game or race.
Musicians have measures and and rests.
At the close of a composition there is a time for a break.
Notes without silence in-between is not music
Books and poems end, don't tell Joyce
Long distance hikes and solo global sailors
Seek the opportunity to nourish themselves.
Eventually sailors seek to secure serenity of a safe harbor.
Le Mans and Nascar drivers consider their fuel
And wear and tear on their vehicle.
Pit stops are critical .
These are the days that can last forever.
Zen monks patiently create sand mandalas
Then rest and wipe the creation of the colored grains away.
The art is in the doing not the completing.
The constant busyness distracts from the essence , the truth.
Pilgrims seem to learn all this a little to late sometimes.
Slow down, relax , regroup , be mindful,
Listen to the children play ,
Breathe slowly when sitting on the beach at sunset
The blessing of witnessing and savoring the green flash
Charlie Brown asked Lucy why she was so happy. Lucy explained how it was "Christmas" and explained further that this was the time of year to "spread joy, caring, compassion, giving, peace and love."
Charlie Brown wondered to Lucy "Why do we do these things at "Christmastime" and why can't we do these things and be that way all year round?"Lucy yelled at Charlie Brown , "What are you some type of religious fanatic?"
Now sit back relax and watch the full film version of"Scrooge" with Alistair Sim ( 1951)
"Business" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again."Mankind was my business.The common welfare was my business: charity, mercy, forebearance and benevolence, were all my business.The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business"
- The Ghost of Jacob Marley, A Christmas Carole , C, Dickens
" For us there is only the trying.The rest is not our business."
- T.S. Eliot
" vanity of vanities! All thing are vanity!
Vanity of human toil.
What profit it have we from all the toil
which we toil under the sun?"
- Eccl 1:2-4
"What do you want? " St. Augustine said that all our desires are really a longing for God in disguise; where there is real desire , there is prayer. So, be at peace in your desire, you are already praying."
- Sacred Space , Novena Day 2
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Trying and Being
Sometimes it takes a spark to light the fire.
Sometimes the lighting is sourced from the love fueled
by an encouraging voice who has more faith
in you than you have in yourself.
The battle between vanity, ego, pride and humility
rages on ever since the spirit was illuminated
by the difference. Fantasies of grandiosity attempt
to drown any considerations of raw reality or neurotic insecurity.
Coaches shout “Shoot the god dammed ball!
You don’t score points if you don’t shoot and we don’t
win the game if we don’t get any points!”
Your inner voice asks “Is all this about playing and winning a game
by accumulating points?
What if one just wanted to play - you know no points, no rewards -
just being ?”
Sometimes simplicity of letting go completely…
is the success…
the authenticity of truth, just trying and trust.
- JF Sobecki
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Slow Turning - J. Hiatt
https://youtu.be/2L22C5IJTfE
Roll with it Baby - S. Winwood
https://youtu.be/u_vkKozA8OI
Its all up to what you value - G. Harrison
https://youtu.be/JtzPtDxy1ic
“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God’s] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.”
–Thomas Merton
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. - T. Merton
amdg
“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”
The congregation complained that their pastor was becoming redundant and putting people to sleep every Sunday with the same ole sermon...blah, blah, blah. The pastor then one Sunday commented from the pulpit that he heard their concerns and after listening to their confessions and observing their behavior in the community he said the message in the sermons would continue to be the same until they got it.
"Into
this world, this demented inn, where there was absolutely no room for him at
all, Christ comes uninvited.”
- Thomas
Merton
For
Religious fanatics only...
Charlie
Brown asked Lucy why she was so happy. Lucy explained how it was
"Christmas" and she explained further that this was the time of year
to "spread joy, caring, compassion, giving and love." Charlie Brown
wondered to Lucy, "Why do we just do these things at Christmastime and
why can't we do those things all year round?" Lucy yelled at Charlie
Brown "What are you some type of religious fanatic?"
“Christmastime
is a little jolt to stop us and get us back on the right path.”
- Unknown
“But
you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began
to apply this to himself.
Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy,
forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade
were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Sometimes a
sign of growth and progress can be discovered not just in what type of shelter
we live in but also how we live in that shelter and make it a living and vibrant
home; a place where we know we belong. Sometimes this shelter is a weigh
station as we continue to make passage. New chapters wait to be written. Sometimes this shelter becomes a final
resting and launching spot for that third act ... the finisterre.
(For
Lindsay, Joe, Caroline, Chase, Leigh, Hal and Quinn as they move on to their
new homes that wait to be filled with life and love.)
The House of Belonging
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
Faded hand scripted notes flew around the room as a bad moon storm of memories began to deluge the wandering spirit. It was almost a forever ago that a retreat on the theme of Spirituality and Work found it’s way from inspiration to implementation. A voice kept whispering,“It’s never been about the money!”
The pilgrim teacher didn’t listen as the whirlwind almost brought down the house. His heart was a beat from being seized up from all the desire and pressures to fill the siloes. A nephew of Richard Cory whose heroic last attempt at salvation was to rescue the pilgrim eventually suffered the same fate as his infamous uncle. Meanwhile Dickens’ spirits continued to work overtime on the pilgrim.
Waking to a morning of the Second Chance Dance the pilgrim teacher could be heard singing,“ I don’t know anything, never did know anything…” and asked, “What day is this?” He recalled how Ebenezer’s first acts on his day of redemption sought forgiveness from family and friends as he commenced the practice of Ignatian generosity. The pilgrim has been a little slower to respond to the illumination and amazing grace.
One portrayal of the “Carol” classic has Fessiwig proclaiming that labor is “… an opportunity to use one’s gifts to provide for one’s family.” Then there is Thomas A‘Kempis depressing the pilgrim teacher with the proclamation, “At the Day of Judgment we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done."
“But I have read so many books!” The pilgrim teacher protested.
Sociologists and economists can’t shoot straight and constantly miss the point .The movement of weights or the execution of activities have very little to do with the nature of work. It’s been said one’s labor is the expression of authenticity. Albert Camus’ observation then becomes even more haunting…“Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.” The pilgrim frets, “ Is Freud right that ‘love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness?’ ”
Off in the tall distance a retired Jersey Johnny breaks out the blues harp attempting a new song in a new key. He mutters in between breaths “This is work!”
++++++++
"As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”
Isaiah 55:10-13
+++++++
“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him….
The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him….
This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do….
The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt on this April day in this field under these clouds is a holiness consecrated to God by His own creative wisdom and it declares the glory of God.
The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.
This leaf has it own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape, and their beauty and their strength canonize the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river.
The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.
The great, gashed, Half-naked Mountain is another of God's saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity….
for me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.
Trees and animals have no problem. God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied.
With us it is different. God leaves us free to be whatever we like. We can be ourselves or not, as we please. We are at liberty to be real, or to be unreal. We may be true or false, the choice is ours. We may wear now one mask and now another, and never, if we so desire, appear with our own true face. But we cannot make these choices with impunity. Causes have effects, and if we lie to ourselves and to others, then we cannot expect to find truth and reality whenever we happen to want them. If we have chosen the way of falsity we must not be surprised that truth eludes us when we finally come to need it!
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny….
The seeds that are planted in my liberty at every moment, by God's will, are the seeds of my own identity, my own reality, my own happiness, my own sanctity….”
