Month: March 2024

A larger purpose

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March 25th, The Feastday of the Annunciation

In her poem “Annunciation,” Denise Levertov suggests that the message the angel Gabriel brings to Mary is one that comes to each of us. We receive an intimation of some purpose larger and more challenging than anything we have imagined for ourselves, but all too often those strange and risky times….

“More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.“

Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life

Sunday Quote: live by love

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Trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)

e.e.cummings

Abundance

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In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition.

Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires.

Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Manipulating the world

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Your mind has very little control over this world. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It cannot control the weather and other natural forces. Nor can it control all people, places, and things around you. You have given your mind an impossible task by asking it to manipulate the world in order to fix your personal inner problems.

If you want to achieve a healthy state of being, stop asking your mind to do this. Just relieve your mind of the job of making sure that everyone and everything will be the way you need them to be so that you can feel better inside. 

Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul

Know your own song

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A bird gets up every morning and sings its song.

It does not wait to hear what other birds are singing, nor does it look to see if another bird is getting more notice. It knows its song innately and sings.

This is nature: knowing your own song

Michele Oka Doner, 1945 – American artist and author

The light

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The “light” is the capacity to reconcile your experience, your sorrow, with every day that dawns. It is that understanding, which is beyond significance, that allows you to live a life and embrace the disasters and sorrows and joys that are our common lot.

But it’s only with the recognition that there is a crack in everything. I think all other visions are doomed to irretrievable gloom. And whenever anyone asks us to accept a perfect solution, that should immediately alert us to the flaws in that presentation.

Leonard Cohen, in a commentary on his song Anthem