During Advent I posted a series on fb of words that have sustained me this year...as the year comes to an end, I'm copying some of those posts here. Grateful for their companionship.
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| Bermuda Railway Trail |
'I believe in God's very real and unshakeable love for me and for every person. The value that brings to our lives is what gives dignity to the paths we walk, whether the paths were of our choosing or not.'
- Amy Grant
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| Royal Navy Cemetery, Bermuda |
“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” - Rainer Maria Wilke
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| Bermuda, View from Boaz Island |
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. - Amen
The Book of Common Prayer |
| Gibbs lighthouse, Bermuda |
You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. - C.S. Lewis
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| Upnor House, Boaz Island, Bermuda |
Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking. - Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace.
You have permission to rest! You don't have to fix everything that's broken. You don't have to try to make everyone happy. It is time to rest. It is time to find refreshment for your body and soul. (not sure who said it) - with a little nod to my Malaysian roots...
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from, 'For One Who is Exhausted' found in his books: Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US) Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Mary Oliver
There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.
- Washington Irving
- Washington Irving
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| (The narrow driveway, carved out of limestone, leading to Bridge House, Bermuda) |
Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it. - Maya Angelou
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| Bermuda Railway Trail |
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- Thomas Merton
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- Thomas Merton
Come into my world
I can not find the doorway
It's overgrown with vines that twist and curl
If you are brave then come into my world
Cause I never saw the changes come
Or knew enough to run when this old house had come undone
And now I'm buried in the walls
And no one comes to call but you
Come into my world
Amy Grant has a particularly vulnerable song that includes these words above...so you won't be surprised when this song instantly came to mind when the other day I was exploring a part of the island and came upon this old house consumed and taken over by the jungle. I imagine many of us have probably felt this way at some point in our lives and it feels a little vulnerable posting this...but I hope and believe there is beauty and healing in being vulnerable at times. See if you don't agree.
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| Bermuda, Hog Bay |
'I am so sorry for your pain' - words spoken to me one evening in a darkened church by an eighty-plus year old woman as she wrapped me in the tightest fiercest hug. It's the only time she saw me this year and the only words she has spoken to me.
A reminder/illustration that sometimes when entering another person's world, when it comes to words that stay with you forever and mean the most...sometimes less is more. Sincere. Honest. No judgement. No questions. (there are plenty of other moments and people who can do the question asking - which is also a good thing and the judging, - less so!)
And her simple, powerful, strong words can be easily used in many other situations when you aren't sure what to say!
A reminder/illustration that sometimes when entering another person's world, when it comes to words that stay with you forever and mean the most...sometimes less is more. Sincere. Honest. No judgement. No questions. (there are plenty of other moments and people who can do the question asking - which is also a good thing and the judging, - less so!)
And her simple, powerful, strong words can be easily used in many other situations when you aren't sure what to say!
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| (Bermuda bus stop mural) |
A question asked by my friend Kris - 'it' being the choice/decisions that needed to be made.
I found it to be a more helpful question to pursue and wrestle with than trying to figure out what was the right or wrong thing to do - though sometimes that might be a perfectly appropriate question too.
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| (Bermuda Community art project created out of recycled bottles and cans) |
'I bless your process. I bless your failures, and victories. I bless the words you have spoken in love. I bless the hard things you haven't said. I bless your apologies. I bless your indecisions. I speak forgiveness into the places you don't want forgiven. I bless you.'
Never underestimate the power of words to speak blessing or curses into someone's life. I have heard many good words this year, encouraging words, hard words, but these from my friend Iven were so powerful and profound.
Never underestimate the power of words to speak blessing or curses into someone's life. I have heard many good words this year, encouraging words, hard words, but these from my friend Iven were so powerful and profound.
'Never forget that the soil maker inhabits our hearts.'
This probably won't make much sense, but they were powerful and healing words from an online sermon my friend Joe preached about the parable of the sower and the seeds. By his own admittance, Joe talked a long one here ('cause he loves this parable so much) but the ending was so encouraging to me.
Whatever we believe our soil story to be...what we think it was or is or will be...God is constantly tilling the soil of our hearts...because the one who tills the soil, who makes the soil also inhabits our hearts... For the sower is the soil maker and the soil maker lives within us.
(Bermuda vegetable fields)
If you want a sermon tomorrow here's the full link
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| Fort Scaur, Bermuda |
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there. - Rumi
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Rainer Maria Rilke - Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
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| Fort Scaur, Bermuda |
I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light. - Barbara Brown-Taylor
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| Fort Scaur, Bermuda |
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
Mary Oliver, The Uses of Sorrow
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
Mary Oliver, The Uses of Sorrow
"He is the way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.
He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.”
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.
He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.”
-WH Auden
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| Blooming Aloe on Christmas Day |
My 8th grade math teacher gave me a Christmas album 30+ years ago and this song has always captured Christmas for me and takes me back to early morning misty rice fields in Maehongson. I still love this song and the various covers...even when all doesn't seem well... so to my faithful family and friends scattered all around the world, whether you are alone or sick , worn out and exhausted, grateful to have survived this year, grieving those who did not or you are content and warm and have a cuddle bubble...peace to you. And to mash up Julian (of Norwich) and Patel (of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) may you somehow be able to lean into that all will be well... and that Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end”
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us...Jesus says 'I'm sorry it turned out this way, but you are whole in my eyes.'
-Anne Lamott
No one is a coward at all parts - CS Lewis (there was some debate online as to whether Clive Staples actually said it - until someone tells me who did, I'm giving him the credit.
Sometimes taking care of yourself means letting yourself be misunderstood. - Laura Munson
...and follow the selfcare advice of this lane in Bermuda...If you are:
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
...take a moment to attend to yourself before continuing on with whatever you are doing. (One of my favorite self care acronyms.)
Climbs a mountain
Tires of the tedium and falls in love
Desire is built
Torn down
Repeated
All will say it's in vain
But with cracked and broken stones
Secretly, I reconstruct my prayer
-Kim Eun-ryoung
Along the Railway Trail that runs the length of Bermuda, someone has created out of the old limestone wall, a place to pause and rest and play chess.
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| Pulpit Rock |
Restoration is God making our mess of a life into a masterpiece. Where our mess becomes our message regardless of where we are on our journey, even in the winter of our lives.
So as we stand in the shambles of our brokenness, as if for the first time, the light of God's love shines through the shards of our brokenness in a glorious display of splintered light. - Bob Holmes
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