heartsteps

O Great life-giving Spirit
whose commanding voice I hear the winds
and whose warm breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me
one seven-billionth of the humans on planet earth.
I am a natural part of the universe -
as natural and necessary as the rocks,
the trees, the birds and the mice
no more important – nor any less.

Let me walk in beauty
let my spirit see the dynamic spirit of life in all that exists
with no prejudice or malice toward any creation.
May I begin to remember who I am in the natural order of things
as I stand in my own shallow pool of time
May I come to know what time it is
in my life and in all life.

Great Spirit of Love,
Connect my heart to my head.
Make me wise
that I may understand the things you have taught all people.
in every heart close or far from my own.
Make me courageous when the cold winds of life fall upon me.
Give me strength and endurance for everything that is harsh
everything that hurts
everything that makes me squint and wince.

I seek strength not to be greater or lesser than my brother or sister
but to remove the tough and slimy obstacles to equality
that has made their home inside myself.
Prepare me to move through life ready to take what comes.
Comfort me and caressed me when I am tired and old.
Unfold me
the way your gentle breezes unfold the leaves on trees.

O Spirit of Creation
make me always ready to come to you with clean hands
and straight eyes
so that when life fades as the fading sunset
my spirit may come to you without shame.
Let me remember every day that the moment will come
when my sun will go down
my river will join the vast ocean
and this rock which is bounced along so many bumps
will finally come to rest.
Give me a great sky for setting into
a crystal-clean ocean for flowing into
and an unpolluted earth for my final resting place.
And when it is time for me to join the earth again
May I come steadily and with glory.

Fran Peavey

Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.
Get some fresh air, try to smile.
Say something kind
To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.

Always exercise your heart’s knowing.

You might as well attempt something real
Along this path:

Take your spouse or lover into your arms
The way you did when you first met.
Let tenderness pour from your eyes
The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.
Play a game with some children.
Extend yourself to a friend.
Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants -
Why not let them get drunk and wild!

Let’s toast
every rung that we climbed on Evolution’s ladder.
Whisper, “I love you! I love you!”
To the whole mad world.

Let’s stop reading about God -
we will never understand Him.

Jump to your feet, wave your fists,
Threaten and warn and the whole universe

That your heart can no longer live
Without real love!

Hafiz

When will we learn,
O Lover of all creation
that self-diminishment is not a
prerequisite for the Christian life?

You do not ask us to
drag around our sad sack of sins,
raising clouds of dust in our footsteps
for all to see;
and you do not ask us to do one more
wretched thing from guilt -
particularly, serve you.

When will we learn,
O Tender One,
that all you ask is for us to open our hearts
and to love this precious planet
the love in your sacred heart?

Here, now,
we stopped running from the obvious -
we are:
Love enfleshed,
Love wounded,
Love crazed,
Lovesick;
and all that you ask
is for us to stop whatever it is we think we’re doing
and be who we are:
a sacred cosmos awakening to itself,
the mind of the planet fetching a new future,
your heart pulsing with possibility.
Amen.

Bruce Sanguin

As we climbed up the mountain and came to where I thought the horizon would be, it had disappeared – another horizon was waiting further on. I was disappointed, but also excited in an unfamiliar way. Each new level had revealed a new world. Against this perspective, death can be understood as the final horizon. Beyond there, the deepest well of your identity awaits you. In that well, you will behold the beauty and light of your eternal face.

John O’Donohue

I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field.

A rabbit noticed my condition and
came near.

It often does not take more than that to help at times -

to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love
though they don’t
- chat,

They just gaze with
their
marvelous understanding.

John of the Cross

Hold on to what is good
Even if it is a handful of earth
Hold on to what you believe
Even if it is a tree that stands by itself
Hold onto what you must do
Even if it is a long way from here
Hold onto life
Even if it is easier to let go
Hold onto my hand
Even if I have gone away from you.

You shall ask
What good are dead leaves
And I will tell you
They nourish the sore Earth.
You shall ask
What reason is there for winter
And I will tell you
To bring about new leaves.
You shall ask
Why are the leaves so green
And I will tell you
Because they are rich with life.
You shall ask
Why must summer end
And I will tell you
So that leaves can die.

Nancy Wood

Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning acts of initiative and creation,
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which,
kills countless ideas and splendid plans.
The moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one,
that would never otherwise have occurred.
The whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor,
all manner of unforeseen incidents,
and meetings and material assistance,
which no one could have dreamt,
would come one’s way.
Whatever you can do,
or dream you can,
Begin it!
Boldness has genius, power,
and magic in it.
Begin it now!

Goethe

Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies.
The kernel is soft when the rind is scraped off.
Oh brother, the place of darkness and cold
is the fountain of life in the cup of ecstasy.
So also is endurance of pain and sickness and disease.
For from abasement proceeds exultation.
The spring seasons are hidden in the autumns.
And the autumns are charged with springs.

Rumi

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead he called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why man breathe—
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

e.e. cummings