Tag: wellbeing

Days that restore

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Holzöster See Frühjahr2010.JPG

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season, the plant begins to die. If dormancy continues to be prevented, the entire species will die. A period of rest – in which nutrition and fertility most reality coalesce – is not simply a human psychological convenience; it is a spiritual and biological necessity.

Wayne Muller,  Sabbath

photo werner100359

and quieting the spirit

Karl Duffy1 Comment

portmarnock sun

It is time now, I said, for the deepening and quieting of the spirit
Among the flux of happenings.

Something had pestered me so much
I thought my heart would break.
I mean the mechanical part.

I went down in the afternoon
To the sea which held me, until I grew easy.

About tomorrow, who knows anything.
Except that it will be a time, again,
For the deepening and the quieting of the spirit.

Mary Oliver, Swimming, One Day in August

…..finished and unfinished

Karl Duffy3 Comments

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I love this quote from Karl Rahner, one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the last Century. There is a great comfort in knowing in our bones the truth of these words. We have to continually balance two aspects within us: one which wants to know everything, to be everywhere, to be faithful to the energy and desire within. The other is that restlessness which knows that this can never really be possible, and that how we relate to what we don’t know is ultimately more important than what we do know.

In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable

we eventually learn that here, in this life,

all symphonies remain unfinished

A way of being present

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Most people think of love as a feeling,

but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present

David Richo

Life as it is

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Those who don’t love themselves as they are rarely love life as it is either. Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain or even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat  ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength and greatness.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Content with enough

Karl Duffy2 Comments

tea11

If you have one pot

And can make your tea in it

That will do quite well.

How much he is missing

Who must have a lot of things.

Sen no  Rikyu, 1522 – 1591, Japanese tea master