Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes. It’s more than bones. It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It’s more than the beating of the single heart. It’s praising. It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life — just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another
Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweet Grass
It’s morning again…and the world’s drying off with fresh-laundered sunshine.
Life’s face is never the same
though we may look at it for all eternity.
Kolbein Falkeid, Norwegian poet, 1933 –
After a period of unusually warm weather in Ireland, we now have wind and rain. Change and what doesn’t change….
My real dwelling
Has no pillars
and no roof either.
So the rain cannot soak it
And the wind cannot blow it down!
Ikkyu, 1394–1481, Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and poet
This prophetic message is also taught by the Prophet Muhammad: “If the Hour of Resurrection comes up, and one of you is holding a sapling, finish planting it”
It is an amazing saying. If the End of Days is upon you, still, finish planting. Go ahead with the act, even if it — and you — will not survive to fruition. Yes, there are days that it seems like the world around us is coming to an end. It may — or it may not. But let us keep planting.
It is not merely the fruit of these collective saplings that will save this world; it is the hope, the faith, and the stubborn clinging to the good of us planters that will save our own soul, and save this small, wounded, beautiful home.
Omid Safi
The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you are famous. Pizza tastes good regardless of your job title.
The best of life exists beyond the things we are encouraged to crave.
Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Technologies of the soul tend to be simple, bodily, slow and related to the heart as much as the mind. Everything around us tells us we should be mechanically sophisticated, electronic, quick, and informational in our expressiveness – an exact antipode to the virtues of the soul. It is no wonder, then, that in an age of telecommunications – which, by the way, literally means “distant connections” – we suffer symptoms of the loss of soul. We are being urged from every side to become efficient rather than intimate.
Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life
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