perseverance

June 2022 (Vol. XXXV, No. 6)

Dear Friends ~ Honoring fathers, parents, nurturers all, we find ourselves ushered into the month of graduations and weddings. Times of celebration! Perhaps as children, you, like me, could not wait for summer and the freedom it promised. Yet, amidst the joys of the summer season, we are cognizant this June of the struggles of war, devastation in places around the world, wildfires, floods, illness and loss. Lest we despair, look up into June's bright, azure sky, and deep into its starry nights alive with fireflies. Look to the light, burn candles for peace, huddle with loved ones, yes, even strangers, and persevere, dear friends. ~ Mary Ann 

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Stand up

Fall seven times and stand up eight.
~ Japanese Proverb

Wrestling the light

To wrestle with, and for, the light, for some meaning in life, is always a way of being in the presence of God.
~ Ted Loder in WRESTLING THE LIGHT

Making Peace

A voice from the dark called out,
'The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.'
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can't be imagined before it is made,
can't be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
~ Denise Levertov, "Making Peace", in BREATHING THE WATER

In growth

The Master always left you to grow at your own pace. He was never known to "push." He explained this with the following parable:

"A man once saw a butterfly
struggling to emerge from
its cocoon, too slowly
for his taste, so he began
to blow on it gently. The
warmth of his breath speeded
up the process all right. But
what emerged was not a butterfly
but a creature with mangled
wings.

"In growth," the Master concluded, "you cannot speed the process up. All you can do is abort it."
~ Anthony de Mello from "Miracles" in ONE MINUTE WISDOM

Miracles

A man traversed land and sea to check for himself the Master's extraordinary fame. "What miracles has your Master worked?" he said to a disciple. "Well, there are miracles and miracles. In your land it is regarded as a miracle if God does someone's will. In our country it is regarded as a miracle if someone does The will of God."

~ Anthony de Mello from "Miracles" in ONE MINUTE WISDOM

It always seems impossible

It always seems impossible until it's done.
~ Often attributed to Nelson Mandela, origins with Pliny the Elder

Not to give up under any circumstances

Not to give up under any circumstances should be the motto of our life: I shall try again and again, and I am bound to succeed. There will be obstacles, but I have to defy the obstacles.
~ Sri Chinmoy in BEYOND WITHIN
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