Photo: Majestic Clouds

 

Spirituality: Henri Nouwen

When you are interiorly free you call others to freedom, whether you know it or not. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or a free woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell. Our world is so full of conditions, demands, requirements, and obligations that we often wonder what is expected of us. But when we meet a truly free person there are no expectations, only an invitation to reach into ourselves and discover there our own freedom. Where true inner freedom is, there God is. And where God is, there we want to be.

Photo: My Newest Painting

 

Spirituality: Macrina Weiderkehr in A Tree Full of Angels

Sabbath time is a time when we turn our attention to what is holy, to what is sacred, to what is important. It's a time when we allow the clamor of the world to fall away and we listen for the still, small voice of God. It's a time when we allow ourselves to be embraced by the love of God, to rest in that love, and to be renewed and refreshed by it.

Spirituality: Joanna Macy in RILKE'S BOOK OF HOURS

That your world is in agony is no reason to turn your back on it, or to try to escape into private “spiritual" pursuits. Rilke reminded me that I had the strength and courage to walk out into the world as into my own heart, and to “love the things / as no one has thought to love them."

Photo: A chorus of color

 

Spirituality: Rumi

 Hope is the source and spring of all the alchemies of transformation, the greatest treasure of the heart and mind, the philosopher’s stone that transmutes agony and tragedy into new life. Never abandon hope, or you abandon your closest and most helpful guide, the Friend.

Spirituality: David Suzuki in The Sacred Balance

Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life's breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.

Photo: Beach Huts

 

Poem: Waken in Me A Gratitude for My Life

 O God, complete the work you have begun in me.

Release me through

a flow of mercy and gentleness that will bring 

water where there is desert,

healing where there is hurt,

peace where there is violence,

beauty where there is ugliness,

justice where there is brokenness,

beginnings where there are dead-ends.

Waken in me

gratitude for my life,

love for every living thing,

joy in what is human and holy,

praise for you.

Renew my faith that you are God

beyond my grasp

but within my reach;

past my knowing

but within my searching;

disturber of the assured,

assurer of the disturbed;

destroyer of illusions,

creator of dreams;

source of silence and music,

sex and solitude,

light and darkness,

death and life.

 

O Keeper of Promises,

composer of grace,

grant me

glee in my blood,

prayer in my heart,

trust at my core,

songs for my journey,

and a sense of your kingdom.

 

From Guerillas of Grace by Ted Loder