Moments of orange light: An invitation to happiness

A very grey start to the day here in Ireland …but every day we are given opportunities to collect little moments of colour that give us courage to keep going and renew happiness.

We are invited not just to live life, but to celebrate it.

The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while, the roughage

shines like a miracle as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course, loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light is an invitation
to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.

Inside the bright fields, touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do —
what can you do about it —
deep, blue night?

Mary Oliver, Poppies

Sunday Quote: At home

The spiritual life is about becoming more at home in your own skin

Parker Palmer

Simple treasures

 

The little things? The little moments?

They aren’t little.  

Jon Kabat Zinn

Oh Soul,

You worry too much

Your arms are filled with treasures of all kinds

Rumi

Sightless among wonders

A prayer, this time from the Hebrew tradition, encouraging us to embrace each moment and the “ordinary blessings” of this day:

Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.”

Jewish Sabbath Prayer

We always think we need to do more..

Our heart is often divided by doubt and our efforts go into what or how we should be, or into trying to prove ourselves. We need to dis-engage from this mind which produces narratives such as ‘I need to do more” and not hold on to notions of progress which require a perfect self-image:

Thomas Merton said the way we have structured our lives, we spend our whole life climbing up the ladder of supposed success, and when we get to the top of the ladder we realize it is leaning against the wrong wall — and there is nothing at the top. To get back to the place of inherent abundance, you have to let go of all of the false agendas, unreal goals, and passing self-images. It is all about letting go. The spiritual life is more about unlearning than learning, because the deepest you already knows.

Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go

Sunday Quote: Full of wonder

 

This is a wonderful day.

I’ve never seen this one before

Maya Angelou