Tag: Life

Deepening our trust in ourselves

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

stairs

Genuine faith is born of the ability to trust in what is most fundamentally true within ourselves. Circumstance will change, and all manner of things pleasant and unpleasant will arise and fall away; sometimes our lives will be touched with joy, and at other times we will be given tremendous pain and sorrow. Many times we will be afraid. But the object of faith is not to eliminate difficult circumstances, nor is faith about trusting in a God who will rescue us from hurt or who – if only believe strongly enough – will make everything better. The real question of faith is when pain and loss inevitably come our way, do we withdraw in fear that we will be destroyed, or do we deepen our trust in our innate capacity to endure them?

Wayne Muller

Mysteries

Karl Duffy1 Comment

46 Sunlit bloomTruly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver, Evidence.

Doors that open

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

dark_windowEither you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

Adrienne Rich, Prospective Immigrants Please Note

Why disruption is good

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Carnival ride upside down.jpg

The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favour:

hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out

Hafiz

Image : Flickruser Brent and MariLynn

Good Friday: Between two notes

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Tree on Green Hills: Tiny tree on green hills of Hammar, Skåne, Sweden.My life is not this steeply sloping hour,
in which you see me hurrying.
Much stands behind me: I stand before it like a tree:
But I am only one of many mouths
and at that, the one that will be still the soonest.
I am the rest between two notes,
which are somehow always in discord
because death’s note wants to climb over –
but in the dark interval, reconciled,
They stay here trembling.

And the song goes on, beautiful.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Fragile love

Karl Duffy1 Comment

hospital_stay_291_20090127-121532

The strongest love

is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.

Paul Coelho, Eleven Minutes