If you provided a marriage feast
and the thankless guests crowded
at the table, gobbling the food
without tasting it, and shoving
one another away, so that some ate
too much and some ate nothing,
would you not be offended?
Or if, seated at your bountiful table,
your guests picked and finicked
over the food, eating only a little,
refusing the wine and the dessert,
claiming that to fill their bellies
and rejoice would impair their souls,
would you not be offended?
Love, faith, and hope are the elements the soul needs to make its journey home. Love of truth motivates the soul to want to set out on the journey; faith sustains and supports it as it proceeds; and hope gives it the optimism that things will unfold in the right way.
I don't know who I am. And I don't think people ever will know who they are. We have to be humble enough to learn to live with this mysterious question. Who am I? So, I am a mystery to myself. I am someone who is in this pilgrimage from the moment that I was born to the day to come that I'm going to die. And this is something that I can't avoid, whether I like it or not...I'm going to die. So, what I have to do is to honor this pilgrimage through life. And so I am this pilgrim — if I can somehow answer your question — who's constantly amazed by this journey. Who is learning a new thing every single day...I am this person who is proud to be a pilgrim, and who's trying to honor his journey.
The spiritual journey is one of continually falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, looking sheepishly at God and taking another step.
For millennia, a genuine cri du coeur, cry of the heart — a longing for a taste of mystery, a touch of the sacred — the yearning to embark upon a meaningful journey has been answered by pilgrimage, a transformative journey to a sacred center. It calls for a journey to a holy site associated with gods, saints, or heroes, or to a natural setting imbued with spiritual power...always, it is a journey of risk and renewal. For a journey without challenge has no meaning; one without purpose has no soul.
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Greetings and happy new year! While the universe may exist within timeless cycles in an eternal now, we experience our individual lives as a linear journey with a beginning and an end...or perhaps a transition to another beginning. To awaken our spirits enough to be mindful of the longing for something we cannot always name but yearn for nevertheless is to set forth on an inner journey no less complex or real than the outer one. Shall we set forth anew on this path together?
"Peace!" the angel announced. But peace is as much task as gift. Only if we become calm as earth, fluid as water, and blazing as fire will we able to rise to the task of peacemaking, and the air will stir with the rush of wings of angels arriving to help us. This is why I wish you that great inner stillness which alone allows us to speak, even today, without irony, of "peace on earth" and, without despair, to work for it.
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB, thanks to Toto Rendlen
The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity . . . a secret known to only a very few people, a secret to be rediscovered over and over again.
What shall I do
with this quiet joy?
It calls forth the expanse
of my soul, calls
it forth to go singing
through the world...
calls it forth
to bear into this world
a place
where light will glisten
the edge of every wing
and blade of grass,
shine along every hair on every head,
gleam among the turnings of every wave,
glorify
the turning open of each life,
each human hand
Perhaps the most important lesson of Ladakh has to do with happiness. Only after many years of peeling away layers of preconceptions did I begin to see the joy and laughter of the Ladakhis for what it really was: a genuine and unhindered appreciation of life itself. In Ladakh I have known a people who regard peace of mind and joie de vivre as their unquestioned birthright. I have seen that community and a close relationship to the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with material wealth or technological sophistication.
From the deep well of silence, joy is
constantly bubbling up and flowing out.
Practice reveals that we are immersed in that joy.
Practice also reveals what is blocking the flow.
I was walking down the street in New York City one day, when I heard a woman's voice saying, "I was very sick all winter." Intrigued, I turned around and saw the woman handing a street person, sitting on the sidewalk, some money. She went on talking to him. "I had pneumonia, and every time I started to get better, I'd have a relapse. Now I am finally really getting better, and I just wanted to share the joy."
Waiting tests our grit and faith, and anything else we have on the line. We activate every nerve in us to move, to do something—and then we wait. But if we wait a little longer with patience and endurance, we will know what to do. During this period, we can stir up the gifts that are in us, encourage ourselves to be strong and calm, to find a calm center in the midst of all the whirling debris around us. When we can wait with joy, it connects us to the right things, puts us in the right place to receive. Joy is not of the emotions but of the spirit, and it can bubble up and grow in our weakest moments.
~ from A CHEROKEE FEAST OF DAYS by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
The words "wow" and "awe" are the same height and width, all w's and short vowels. They could dance together. Even when, maybe especially when, we don't cooperate, this energy—the breath, the glory, the goodness of God—is given.
Greetings, dear friends! Long ago when I taught kindergarten, at this time of year rich with ceremony and meaning, we learned together about traditions around the world. We traced the common threads of our humanity that are woven into these diverse tapestries of story and ritual. Traditions help us to remember who we are, how we understand the world both visible and invisible, and what we cherish. Waiting, giving, rejoicing, hoping, thanking, being present to one another, sharing, feasting, lighting candles and fires, and gathering together resonate throughout the world regardless of particular beliefs. Our hearts and minds turn to thoughts on gratitude, generosity, and love as we seek to become a kinder, gentler world. Wishing you Peace, Joy, and Light!
