Round Four of Words that have Sustained - Lent 2022...Prayers and Possibilities...
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| Phraya Nakhon Cave, Sam Roi Yot National Park, Prachuap Khiri Khan. |
3/1
To answer your question,
Yes.
You will die a few more deaths
before your final chapter.
You will stare at the ceiling of
one tomb or another, feel the
gushing roaring ache of
absence.
Don’t let fear become more than
the occasional tightness at the
back of your throat, a
fluttering in the ribcage.
The first death shaped your hands into keys
your shoulder blades into wings
and your heart into a book of poems
that will always remember
the way out.
The first death gave you Life.
Do not lay it down.
- Christa Wells
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| Posting a couple more shots of Phraya Nakhon Cave because it captures the mood so well. |
3/2
Keeping the heart open, even in hell, makes space for the Beloved. It is in the darkest nights of our souls, when all we know is that we know nothing, that the presence of the sacred may quietly well up, mingling with our pain and connecting us to a love that will never die.
Mirabai Starr, WILD MERCY: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics (H/T Christa Wells)
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Old steps leading from Wat Phra Non up to Wat Doi KongMu, Maehongson. |
A Prayer
Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.
- clarissa pinkola estes
While I agree with the last three lines of this poem, only the person going through the suffering/hard time gets to say that to themselves. No one else has the right or should be foolish enough to say that to another person. If they do, they deserve what they get in return!
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| Maehongson, view from the other angle of the previous photo. |
In our day to day lives, we often show courage without realizing it. However, it is only when we are afraid that courage becomes a question. Courage is amazing because it can tap into the heart of fear, taking that frightened energy and turning it towards initiative, creativity, action and hope. When courage comes alive, imprisoning walls become frontiers of new possibility, difficulty becomes invitation and the heart comes into a new rhythm of trust and sureness. There are secret sources of courage inside every human heart; yet courage needs to be awakened in us. Courage is the spark that can become the flame of hope, lighting new and exciting pathways in what seemed to be dead, dark landscapes.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
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| I had lined up a few initial poems and prayers for this series of 'Words' as the last round ended - I am struck by how many of these initial ones speak to the courage/light/darkness we are witnessing in Ukraine. These are not the traditional sunflowers being posted in solidarity with Ukraine, but rather Tithonia diversifolia (sometimes called Mexican Sunflower or tree marigold) that blanket the hills in a few areas in North Thailand in November and December. |
WAITING TO GO ON
It must be
we are waiting
for the perfect moment.
It must be
under all the struggle
we want to go on.
It must be,
that deep
down
we are creatures
getting ready
for when
we are needed.
It must be
that waiting
for the listening ear
or the appreciative word,
for the right woman,
or the right man,
or the right one,
or even
the right moment
just to ourselves,
-we are getting ready
to be ready
and nothing else-
Like this moment
just before
the evening light
arrives
working
by the kitchen
window,
sensing
a deep
down symmetry
in every
blessed thing.
The way
that everything
unbeknownst
to us
is preparing
to meet us too.
Just on the other
side of the door
someone
is about to knock
and our life
is just
about to change
and finally
after all these
years rehearsing,
behind
the curtain,
we might
just be
ready
to go on.
From ‘Waiting to Go On’: in ‘River Flow:
New and Selected Poems’
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
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| My friend Pan who is as gentle with people as he is with this old beach dog on the beach in Pranburi, Thailand. |
3/6
Be content to live an anonymous, unspectacular, misunderstood life among people...
Let Christ transfigure the darkness in ourselves & in the world.
Let there be great care to maintain the simplicity of presence...
Love what is obscure & little for there you will find Christ.
- Celtic Daily Prayer Book 2
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| Just downstream from the Maesagna waterfall, Maehongson |
3/7
When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.
This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.
-JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
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| Yesterday the sun rose at 6:35, but it didn't appear above the mountains until 7:10 and it was one of those sunrises that completely took me by surprise. The photo doesn't capture the beauty and the 'wait...what just happened?!' moment. |
3/8
ON WAKING
I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gift of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life.
The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.
- John O'Donohue
BENEDICTUS (Europe) / TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)
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| Maehongson, looking over Jong Kham Lake up the hill to Wat Doi Kong Mu (where the previous sunrise photo was taken.) |
3/9
AS NIGHT FALLS
I can breathe deeply
and be at peace
for in God I am without fear.
O God our protector;
by whose mercy the world turns safely into darkness
and returns again to light:
we give into Your hands our unfinished tasks,
our unsolved problems,
and our unfulfilled hopes;
for You alone are our sure defense.
-Northumbria Community Celtic Daily Prayer Book Two ~
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| Phuket |
3/10
Each one of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you. The mystic Thomas a Kempis said that when you go out into the world, you return having lost some of yourself. Until you learn to inhabit your aloneness, the lonely distraction and noise of society will seduce you into false belonging, with which you will only become empty and weary. When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. In a sense this is the endless task of finding your true home within your life. It is not narcissistic, for as soon as you rest in the house of your own heart, doors and windows begin to open outwards to the world. No longer on the run from your aloneness, your connections with others become real and creative. You no longer need to covertly scrape affirmation from others or from projects outside yourself. This is slow work; it takes years to bring your mind home.
- JOHN O'DONOHUE - Excerpt from the book, Eternal Echoes
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| The dream of my life isn't usually Freedom Beach on Phuket, but some days it helps restore the soul - and it makes a better photo. |
-JOHN O'DONOHUE, Excerpt from the book, Eternal Echoes
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| I posted these photos on the blog of takeoff from Seattle on a very foggy afternoon in January - but above the cloud was clear sky and a beautiful moon and then landing in Phuket literally flying into this blazing sunrise with the moon off the wing (yes that is the moon, not the sun!) and thought they fit with these words. |
3/13
When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist James Hollis for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly gets bogged down in our narrow preferences for security and control. But the enlargement question elicits a deeper, intuitive response. You tend to just know whether, say, leaving or remaining in a relationship or a job, though it might bring short-term comfort, would mean cheating yourself of growth. (Relatedly, don’t worry about burning bridges: irreversible decisions tend to be more satisfying, because now there’s only one direction to travel – forward into whatever choice you made.)"
–Oliver Burkeman’s last column in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/.../oliver-burkemans-last...
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| The view from the third floor of the Rak Teh (Love Real) building (also where my friends Iven and Kashmira and their family lived the past decade and a half in Bangkok) looking down on Burana Sat Street. The tea/coffee shop on the sidewalk has been open 24 hours a day for over 50 years. |
3/14
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
JOHN O'DONOHUE - Excerpt from the blessing, 'The Inner History of a Day,' found in the books: Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
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| Early morning herbal drink available to all, Wat Doi Kong Mu, Maehongson |
3/15
A PRAYER FOR YOUR WILD SOUL
Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul. Listen to the voices of longing in your soul. Listen to your hungers. Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life. Listen to your memory and to the inrush of your future, to the voices of those near you and those you have lost. Out of all of that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul, yet tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability; that has enough healing to gain the ointment of divine forgiveness for your wounds; enough truth and vigour to challenge your blindness and complacency; enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty. Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.
- JOHN O'DONOHUE - Excerpt from ETERNAL ECHOES
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| A remarkable prayer on any day but especially a weary one wherever one happens to be in the world, in peace or at war. Sunflower, trinity of coconut palms and the non Irish patron saint of Ireland coming to meet together in Thailand - what a strange mashup. |
3/17
I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.
I summon today all these powers
between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today.
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man
who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man
who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
- Selections of a prayer attributed to St. Patrick:
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| Maehongson, Thailand |
3/18
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| Rak Teh (Love Real) Monday night street church gathering prior to my friends Iven and Kashmira's departure after living in the neighborhood for 14 years. |
- David Brooks - The Second Mountain
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| Sunset, Phuket, Thailand |
the earth becomes a thin place.
where sunsets and sunrises
break time open
into the eternal present,
if just for a moment,
Our perception is altered
Like an eternal reset
-Bob Holmes, Contemplative Monk
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| Sunset over one of the churches I hang out when I'm here in Maehongson. บ้านหัวน้ำแม่สะกึด |
Until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes,
And the busy world is hushed,
And the fever of life is over, and our work is done.
Then in thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging,
and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen.
- Book of Common Prayer
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.
Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.
So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:
a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.
- Rainer Maria Rilke - Trans. Anita Burrows & Joanna Macy
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| Grand Palace, Bangkok |
The spiritual sobriety of this season feels very reflective of the sobriety of Jesus’ actions during his temptation in the desert....Christ, the famished. Christ, the power-less. Christ who turns away from the devil’s offers of reigning over the kingdoms of this earth...
Today, I am struggling with the King Jesus image for an entirely different reason. I would like a little more of him: an earthly authority, a royal lord to rule over our human indecencies. I am wholly dissatisfied with the Psalmists’ promises in this week’s lectionary, “Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.” It feels like, these days, evil befalls us and our tents are plenty scourged.
At the moment of writing this, the world is aching. In Canada, the trucker convoy has been disbanded through a war measures act, leaving our country stunned at the state of our own brokenness and discord. In Texas, there are proposed laws that would put families of LGBTQ children at considerable risk. Ukraine is being invaded. And the list could go on.
I confess, reading Jesus’ refusal of the devil’s offers makes me twinge today. “Are you sure?” I want to ask him, “is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”
And so, in the midst of our groaning, we must stretch our necks to look beyond, and attempt to see how Jesus sees. As we consider the manner of Jesus, we must consider his choices. Last week, for transfiguration Sunday, Jesus refused Peter’s offer to build a Tabernacle. He leaves behind the option to remain apart, to reign over traditional sacred space, and he descends the mountain to rejoin the crowd.
This week, he refuses Satan’s offer to take hold of empire and economy. Again, an option for distinction and dominion are considered and refused.
The story of Jesus’ temptation is firmly planted in the lenten journey. Jesus will walk this path: he will again and again choose the way of sacrifice. He will choose solidarity with the Other. He will choose peace over vengeance. He will favour freedom over dominion. This will lead him all the way to the cross.
The only dominion he will ever choose will in fact be at his resurrection, when he will exert dominion over death.
And even then, his return will not be to take back that which he “should have grabbed” in the wilderness, during his 40 day temptation. There is evidently no buyer’s remorse to be found in Jesus, no regrets at refusing the perfect opportunity for power and reign. His true saving, transformative and earth-shattering work will be offered in his return as a fellow co-traveller, extending forgiveness. A companion. A comforter.
Incarnatus Deus.
-Jenna Smith, Street Psalms https://streetpsalms.org/no-buyers-remorse/
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| Jong Kham Lake, Maehongson. 6:55AM |
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,
A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,
May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved
Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart...
- JOHN O'DONOHUE,Excerpt from the blessing, 'For the Artist at the Start of Day' in the books, Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
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| One of my favorite photos of one one of my favorite places - Veranda Lodge, Hua Hin |
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from 'A Morning Offering' from To Bless the Space Between Us (US) / Benedictus(Europe)
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| My young friend Kyin - artist and prophet - on the beach at dusk in Prajuab last month. |
They are not just on our foreheads,
But in our mouths.
The horrors of war surround us,
And the calls of the innocent
Cry out for justice.
Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy.
Yet hidden in the ashes
There is hope.
We can create the beauty
We wish to see in the world.
Newness does push up through the cracks.
Beauty will emerge from our grief.
Light will shine in the darkness.
Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy.
Let us not ask after power but for justice.
Let us not incite war but peace.
Let us follow Jesus into the wilderness,
Uncover the ashes,
And embark together
On a journey
Of renewal and transformation.
- Christine Sine - read the full post here - well worth it
https://www.episcopalcafe.com/creating-beauty-from-death.../
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| Early morning, poolside, Phuket |
night’s stillness,
so a new waking to life dawns within me, so a fresh beginning opens.
In the early light of this day,
in the first actions of the morning,
let me be awake to life.
In my soul and in my seeing
let me be alive to the gift of this new day, let me be fully alive.
-John Philip Newell -from Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter
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| Vanda orchids, Phuket Airport |
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| Sunset, Doi Kong Mu, Maehongson |
The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer.
The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore.
The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.
We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out;
to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be.
It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way.
Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame.
Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.
- Heidi Priebe From the blog In The Margins
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| Water Tales, Maehongson |
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| Another early morning shot of one of my favorite views in Maehongson. |
“I remember one morning getting up at dawn. There was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling. And I... I remember thinking to myself: So this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. And of course there will always be more...never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment, right then.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours
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| Doi Pui, Thailand |
'The moment was already enough. Joy was already doing what genuine joy does, pulsing its way from my beating heart throughout the rest of the cells in my body...
Something inside of me felt held against my will by an evangelical culture I thought I had left far behind. A culture where a Bible verse or worship hymn had to be shoehorned into every occasion without consent in order for it to have any perceived value.
Before I took my next step on the trail I determined right then and there to a) be kind to myself regarding what just happened and b) return to all those bliss filled scents that my body found so genuinely pleasurable.'
- Ryan Taylor - full blog post here https://tallmonasticguy.typepad.com/.../i-was-reminded...
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| Mortar and Pestle, Garlic, Chilli, fish/shrimp paste, MSG/salt, joy, tears... |
) of feeling what you're feeling...“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
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| Just off of Soi Duang Tawan, Talad Noi, Bangkok |
Palm Sunday - We have to give ourselves permission to be weak enough to enter into Holy Week. Stop pretending that you can hold everything together. No one is telling you that you have to be strong. Instead, you need to be real. You do not need to put on a special face to others to show you are a Christian. Stop perpetuating illusions about the way others tell you to be. This week is about your relationship with Jesus Christ and what he needs most is for you to be a real person – just as you are – even if you are weak, vulnerable, filled with chaos, and bombarded by a variety of conflicting emotions. If this is who you are, then this is the “you” Jesus wants to meet on this journey to the cross.
-John Predmore, S.J. - full link https://predmore.blogspot.com/2015/03/palm-sunday.html
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| Sunset taken from Maehongson airport |
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| Veranda Lodge, Hua Hin |
When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days. When your mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light, grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently. When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes an adventure of beauty.
- JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from his books, Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US) and Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
power, and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
that your soul in its brightness and belonging
connects you intimately with the rhythm of
the universe.
May you have respect for your individuality
and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here,
that behind the façade of your life,
there is something beautiful and eternal happening.
- JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from the blessing, 'For Solitude,' from his books:
Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
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| Maehongson, Thailand |
A limb surrendering pain
Has taken me
My attendants are afraid of me
And offer futile hyssop
I am low, crouching, open-mouthed
And naked, wailing
All undignified
Please take this pain
I did not ask to have to
Comprehend this undoing
Of my flesh, my bones,
My bread, my breath.
Do not forsake me.
- Linda Lunt Roberts (yes, that Linda!) I've carried this poem around for several years but forgot who wrote it so when I did a quick google search, I was so shocked and pleased that I knew the author. Though not intended as Good Friday imagery, it works for me today.
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| Whatever your wilderness looks like...a couple options in Thailand... |
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| Early morning Maehongson views |
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
- Mary Oliver
On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry -- old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling -- and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.
We don't realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren't put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously.
-JOHN O'DONOHUE - Excerpts from his books: Walking in Wonder (US/UK) / Walking on the Pastures of Wonder (Ireland)
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