If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has the power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.
Human consciousness, then, should not be
what utterly separates us from the rest of
"nature." Rather, consciousness is where this
dance of energy organizes itself in increasingly
unified ways, until it reflects back on itself in
self-awareness. Consciousness is and must be
where we recognize our kinship with all other
beings. The dancing void from which the
tiniest energy events of atomic structures flicker
in and out of existence and self-aware thoughts
are kin along a continuum of organized
life-energy...
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing
universe—to participate in the dance of life
with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it,
organs that draw nourishment from it—is a
wonder beyond words.
~ Joanna Macy and Molly Brown in COMING BACK TO LIFE: THE UPDATED GUIDE TO THE WORK THAT RECONNECTS
Throughout my life, by means of my life,
the world has little by little caught fire in my sight,
until, a flame all around me,
it has become almost luminous from within.
Such has been my experience in contact with the Earth.
The diaphany of the divine at the heart of the universe on fire.
~ from THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Teilhard de Chardin
The word humility, like the human, comes from humus, or earth. We are most
human when we do no great things. We are not so important; we are simple dust and spirit—at best, loving midwives, participants in a process much larger than we. If we are quiet and listen and feel how things move, perhaps we will be wise enough to put our hands on what waits to be born, and bless it with kindness and care.
The discipline of gratitude is the
explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
~ from THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON by Henri J. M. Nouwen
The way of hubris . . . pretends that we can be well by
dispersing, by breaking down life's oneness into entirely
unrelated compartments. And it pretends that we can be well by depriving, by denying to others and to other species what we ourselves most cherish. "By way of contrast," says Hildegard [of Bingen], "humility does not rob people or take anything from them. Rather, it holds together everything in love." The way of humility . . . remembers the sacred Ground of being within us all. And it knows that we will be truly well to the extent that we love one another.
