Grateful

A special greeting for Thanksgiving for all those who read and follow the Blog in the United States. Gratitude helps us to focus on what we have, and not on what we lack, 

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite – only a sense of existence. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on the bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment. 

Henry David Thoreau, Letter, Friends and Followers, 1856

Miracles

Only a total dance, an authentic love, a whole-hearted joy, may perhaps create some miracles around you.

But you will not be the one who has done them; you will not be the one who can brag about them.

They will happen only when you are not.   

Osho

Slowly, evenly

Drink you tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunday Quote: Longing

Could it be in longing we are most ourselves?

Li-Young Lee, LV

Demented gardeners

[Even some] lovely people feel that their real identity is working on themselves, and some work on themselves with such harshness. Like a demented gardener who won’t let the soil settle for anything to grow, they keep raking, tearing away the nurturing clay from their own heart, then they’re surprised that they feel so empty and vacant. Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do.

John O’Donoghue, Anam Chara

Off to work

The place God calls you to

is the place where your deep gladness

and the world’s deep hunger meet

Frederick Buechner, born 1926, American writer, preacher, and theologian