Daily

  by Naomi Shihab Nye

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips
 
These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares
 
These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
 
This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out
 
This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky
 
This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again
like flags we share, a country so close
no one needs to name it
 
The days are nouns: touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world

Love this

Plant
So that your own heart
Will grow.
Love
So God will think,
... “Ahhhhh,
I got kin in that body!
I should start inviting that soul over
For coffee and
Rolls.”
Sing
Because this is a food
Our starving world
Needs.
Laugh
Because that is the purest
Sound.
-Hafiz

Lord, the air smells good today, 

straight from the mysteries 

within the inner courts of God. 

A grace like new clothes thrown 

across the garden, free medicine for everybody. 

The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise, 

the first blue violets kneeling. 

Whatever came from Being is caught up in being,  

drunkenly 

forgetting the way back. 

Rumi (Lord, the Air Smells Good Today, 13th Century)

Unarmed Truth & Unconditional Love

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.  
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love this image of 'unarmed truth'.  We hear that phrase 'to speak the truth in love' but his words move it from a pious phrase to such a visual image of true humility. 

unarmed: without weaponry ( anything to injure, defeat or destroy) to have empty arms, to not hold something that provides security, strength, or efficacy to defend oneself...

This is how my husband speaks to me; with unarmed truth and with my closest human experience of unconditional love.  He speaks the truth to me; and even if it stings I see it is because the truth wants to live in me more fully and I have, in that moment at least, resisted.  He disarms me.

When I think of my human experience of unconditional love I think of my own children (and for that, all children) in that wonderful baby to child phase of wide open arms.  How they would rush into me with joyous abandon whether in affection or need.  How they could speak to me, even without words, and how I long for that truth to live in me more completely...to believe I am loved unconditionally, and to be that same love.  This is my image of God.  And from that place, as james taylor sang, to shower the people you love with love. 

My failings are close to home.  Those moments when unarmed truth is not chosen and I pick up the weaponry (I am right, or the one in control here, or just too tired of this)

Thankfully, I don't have the final word.  Dr. King was right.  Unarmed truth and unconditional love do have the final word, not in some last day when the world reaches it's conclusion, but each day, and having received, I offer my deep felt amen to God's grace.  May unarmed truth and unconditional love have the final word in me and you.

FAITH

This photo of our grandson always prompts gratitude and a smile...
to remember how securely love holds us...
and to savor the many blessings of life with wild abandon and confident joy

Hello World

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.        Frederick Buechner