Words to let sink in

Look at the birds
Consider the lilies
Drink ye all of it
Ask
Seek
Knock
Enter by the narrow gate
Do not be anxious
Judge not; do not give dogs what is holy
Go: be it done for you
Do not be afraid
Maiden, arise
Young man, I say, arise
Stretch out your hand
Stand up, be still
Rise, let us be going…

Kathleen Norris, Imperatives (Extract) 

Create joy

Life will bring you pain all by itself.

Your responsibility is to create joy

Milton Erikson, American Psychologist,

Striving

One must bear in mind that there is a considerable difference between perfection and completeness….

The individual may strive after perfection,

but must suffer from the opposite of his [or her] intentions for the sake of ….. completeness.

Jung

Hold what is asked

Windowsills evenly welcome both heat and cold.

Radiators speak or fall silent as they must.

Doors are not equivocal,  floorboards do not hesitate or startle.

Impatience does not stir the curtains,

a bed is neither irritable nor rapacious.

Whatever disquiet we sense in a room

we have brought there.

And so I instruct my ribs each morning,

pointing to hinge and plaster and wood —

          You are matter, as they are.

          See how perfectly it can be done.

          Hold, one day more, what is asked.      

Jane Hirshfield,  A Room

Everything, everywhere

The gate of heaven is everywhere.
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Sunday quote: Transcendence

The start of the Advent season…

A person is not a thing or a process,

but an opening through which the absolute manifests.

Martin Heidegger