Grace has come to us in unexpected ways in the midst of life. We have known healing, courage, restored love — salvation. From these blessings of grace we see how to live in resistance to violence; we see how to live in love and in truth without denying bitter realities. We have felt a fire in the heart of things, intimated in moments of surprise, a power which guards, judges, and continually recreates life. We have sensed what Wordsworth called "a presence that disturbs me with joy ... something far more deeply interfused." This presence, felt as mystery and offered as faithfulness to one another, sustains and heals life. It calls for justice.
~ from PROVERBS OF ASHES by Rita Brock and Rebeca Parker
The word "humility" (also "human") is derived from the Latin "humus," meaning "the soil." Perhaps this is not simply because it entails stooping and returning to earthly origins, but also because, as we are rooted in this earth of everyday life, we find in it all the vitality and fertility unnoticed by people who mostly tramp on across the surface, drawn by distant landscapes.
Who can afford to live without beauty? Beauty fills us with passion; it graces us with joy and lights up our existence. A landscape, a piece of music, a film, a dance – suddenly all dreariness is gone, we are left bewitched and dazzled. If we get lost in dark despair, beauty takes us back to Center.
I found my inner silence, the silence that emanates from the center of the self. I felt it for the first time as something perceptible and real... I felt all shining like a mirror. I had the sense of eternity in space and time. I felt "washed" and clean, whole and at the same time without boundaries, as if universal life had entered me and my heart was beating in unison with its rhythm. But most of all I knew that this was more than just a state of mind. It was a way of living and being and of relating to others.
I was looking at the peach tree in blossom, and then I suddenly felt that it was not just the tree that was beautiful, but LIVING BEAUTY seemed to be coming through it, and it was in touch with me. It was an intensely personal contact, and it was like some BEING was communicating with me in a wordless way. It was like meeting some very special person who had an extraordinary effect on me. This eternity, I felt, was seeking itself through the activity of innumerable forms of life -- through nature, as with a flower or spider weaving a web, or through a human being creating a work of art, so that the same life would express itself through me... I was flooded by an overwhelming sense of harmony. In a flash countless aspects of beauty were revealed to me which I had never realized before.
Eliminate something superfluous from your life.
Break a habit.
Do something that makes you feel insecure.
Carry out an action with complete attention and
intensity as if it were your last.
