Words that have Sustained - Part 4 - Lent 2022

Round Four of Words that have Sustained - Lent 2022...Prayers and Possibilities...

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

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)

Old steps leading from Wat Phra Non up to Wat Doi KongMu, Maehongson.

3/3

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!

Maehongson, view from the other angle of the previous photo.

3/4

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

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.

3/5

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

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

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)

Words that have Sustained - Part 3 - Advent 2021

Advent again...grateful for this season...grateful that there continue to be words that sustain...grateful for the poets and artists and thoughtful humans who capture their feelings and words...the journey continues  - broken...blessed...given... in this journey of life, the journey of being human...(photos from my recent UK trip)

Flying over Ireland, into Dublin

Flying over Ireland, into Dublin

11/28

FOR THE TRAVELER

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

- John O'Donohue

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For the Traveler'
BENEDICTUS (Europe) /
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)

South West Coast Path above Branscombe Beach, Devon

11/29

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossing were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.  

From To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donohue longer excerpt here: https://sarasmeaton.com/thresholds-by-john-odonohue/

Edinburgh

11/30

You never really know where life will lead you, but if you live with pure intention and feed what you love with all your might, consistently and honestly...you might find yourself in places you'd never dreamed you'd go. - Laura Munson

https://lauramunson.com/my-happily-ever-after-what-ive-learned-from-writing-something-that-a-lot-of-people-read/

Exeter

12/1

This long and lonely path

That I walk upon

Is full of mystery

And hope, that one day

I shall find my way home

- Athey Thompson

Dartmoor

12/2

For all those who are walking in grief, who have lost so much, whether the pain and ache is current and acute or distant but still tender.
Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, to the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.

- David Whyte

Words that have Sustained - Part II - Lent 2021

Lent...another period of waiting...preparation...

Weren't we just doing that for Advent?

If I'm honest, I am often tired of the waiting

For what's next...for the already not yet

For this to be over.

So we continue to wait

And be present

Attending to the small and the great things all around

As we continue to journey together.

More words that continue to sustain me... from people and places that inspire and move me.

Josh Garrels The Light Came Down was my steady music companion this past Advent and Christmas. I don't know if I'll be able to post every day during Lent but his closing song on that record feels like a good connection from Advent to Lent and a good starting place to begin this Lenten journey. 

Lost and weary traveler, searching for the way to go.

Stranger, heavy-hearted, longing for someone to know.

May you find a light.

May you find a light.

May you find a light to guide you home.

There are weary travelers, searching everywhere you go.

Strangers who are searching, longing deeply to be known

Previously Lent series posts focused on a single author/artist - Anne Lamott, Rich Mullins, Jonathan Heppner, as well as Kris Rock and Scott Dewey's Meal from Below book. This year I don't have one person (but I'll be pulling from some of these previous sources) and some themes are starting to emerge - certainly the words of poets, the importance of place, and something about the journey...pilgrimage perhaps (those of you who know me know I always appreciate alliteration!) - or perhaps that is just the ongoing theme of life.

To start with, a reminder of the importance of poets and poetry...

'The word workmanship (in Ephesians 2:10) is the word poema in Greek, from which we get the English word poem. We are God’s poem or poetry in the world. What a beautiful image! Whatever else the urban poor (and I would add, all of us really) need today, they need more poetry and less prose. Our exhaustive prose has become a millstone. It’s filled with monologue and imposes blame because it is so often derived from places of privilege and power. In this end, it suffocates, even when is aim is to liberate. Perhaps this is why the great Hebrew prophets were also poets. Perhaps this is why Jesus told riddles and stories. Poets let the air in, and create room for us to breathe again.' Meal from Below pp34-35 Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey

While the locals in Bermuda would disagree, there really aren't cold winter days, so I Included this photo of trees taken during a quick trip to DC in January this year. 

Winter Morning

When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it is because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside winking
off one by one like old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished eating it.

-James Crews

'Now if I hear the sound of the genuine in me, and if you hear the sound of the genuine in you, it is possible for me to go down in me and come up in you. So that when I look at myself through your eyes having made that pilgrimage, I see in me what you see in me and the wall that separates and divides will disappear, and we will become one because the sound of the genuine makes the same music.' -Howard Thurman

(More from Street Psalms and Kris Rocke...Thurman was a contemplative activist through and through. He recognized that direct encounter with God and direct action with humanity is where the Gospel comes alive. Encounter and action is the way of Jesus.)

From my Meal from Below Lent series five years ago...still good words for today...

How do we embrace being fully human, open and mindful and present? Perhaps if we can't embrace it, we start by not judging...just being aware and attentive to all that swirls within and around us - the beauty and the brokenness...

We are forever running from and neglecting the deepest mysteries of our human lives-missing the truth that our humanness itself bears the gift of our salvation. As Paula D’Arcy observes, God comes to us disguised as our lives. God comes most naturally through broken people and broken places and well as our own broken experience to say, ‘I am here!’ This is the way of the Lord…God typically resists the spectacular appearance, knowing how prone we are to deny and escape these earthen vessels in favor of some heavenly vision. That is why TS Elliot claimed that the Incarnation is always in the ‘unattended moment.’ Meal from Below p 44 Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey

A liberated soul is a pierced soul, one that has experienced the piercing of its own violence, and one that has experienced the piercing of grace. The liberated soul is secure and at peace, held in mercy by the graceful One – Jesus, the Prince of Peace. This is our anointing. Meal from Below pp50-51 by Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey

God does not send us out into the desert to die. Though we may feel that we have been in the wilderness of Lent for a long time this year, we are not without lots of well-seasoned guides. It is reassuring to know that thousands have walked out into the desert, led by God, before us and not only survived but thrived and grown in intimacy with God as a result of their experiences.

Beloved Is Where We Begin

If you would enter

into the wilderness,

do not begin

without a blessing.

Do not leave

without hearing

who you are:

Beloved,

named by the One

who has traveled this path

before you.

Do not go

without letting it echo

in your ears,

and if you find

it is hard

to let it into your heart,

do not despair.

That is what this journey is for.

I cannot promise

this blessing will free you

from danger,

from fear,

from hunger

or thirst,

from the scorching

of sun

or the fall

of the night.

But I can tell you

that on this path

there will be help.

I can tell you

that on this way

there will be rest.

I can tell you

that you will know

the strange graces

that come to our aid

only on a road

such as this,

that fly to meet us

bearing comfort

and strength,

that come alongside us

for no other cause

than to lean themselves

toward our ear

and with their

curious insistence

whisper our name:

Beloved.

Beloved.

Beloved.

- Jan Richardson

One of the greatest teachers God gives us is the place where we are. - Dwight Friesen

A good journey begins with knowing where you are and being willing to go somewhere else. - Richard Rohr.

(Overlooking Horseshoe Bay from the Fairmont Southampton, Bermuda)

Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought it would be like and learn to find joy in the story you are actually living. - Rachel Marie Martin

Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong. - Mandy Hale

(the bench - part 2, Bermuda)

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life's desire.

-John O'Donohue

Words that have Sustained

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.

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

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

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

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

I posted this on fb a year ago and it has stayed with me ever since.