O taste and see
the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything, all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather,
to breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being hungry, and plucking
the fruit.
Denise Levertov, O Taste and See
Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness. Day and night, gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze.
A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.
Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning. Everything is a gift.
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy – because we will always want to have something else or something more.
David Steindl-Rast
Pay close attention to your mean thoughts.
That sourness may be a blessing,
as an overcast day brings rain for the roses
and relief to dry soil.
Don’t look so sourly on your sourness!
It may be it’s carrying what you most deeply need
and want.
What seems to be keeping you from joy
may be what leads you to joy.
Don’t call it a dead branch.
Call it the live, moist root.
Don’t always be waiting to see
what’s behind it.
Reach for it.
Hold your meanness to your chest
as a healing root,
and be through with waiting.
Rumi in Coleman Banks, Delicious Laughter: Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the Mathnawi
Whether success or failure: the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality.
The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.
The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.
May Sarton
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Mary Oliver, The Summer Day [extract]
If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.
Picasso
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