Do not be afraid, little flock. It is my Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. ~ Luke 12:32
The game is not over yet. We are still under the loving hand of our Common Father, and the marching orders have not changed: to live and establish ourselves in alignment with the highest benchmarks of what we know human beings are capable of: courage, commitment, compassion, forgiveness, conscience, integrity. To simply keep walking toward these, arm and arm if at all possible, for there the force of individual integrity is vastly magnified. Until then, as we all navigate through this season of winnowing, it will be more important than ever for those of you who can stay with it, to hold fast to sobriety, integrity, impartiality, and métis (skillful action at exactly the right time). To be able to look sphinx-like into the eyes of this necessary winnowing and not wince or flail. Not to indulge in nostalgia, self-pity, blame, or rumination. To keep walking forward in forgiveness and quiet hope into the future. Our Father is still trying to give us the Kingdom; the timing depends on our readiness to bear it. Let us continue, quietly, with the readying.
Hope is a muscle, a practice, a choice that actually propels new realities into being. And it's a muscle we can strengthen. It is not the same as idealism or optimism. This kind of hope has nothing to do with wishful thinking. Hope as I've seen it lived is at once fierce and persistently joyful. I've come to understand this quality of hope as an essential foundation and power for the generative story, the generative landscape, that is emerging out of all of the rupture this moment in the life of the world has laid bare.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance,
chaos to order,
confusion to clarity.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!
Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.
In the universe there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.
Is sorrow the true wild?
And if it is—and if we join them—
your wild to mine—what's that?
For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation.
What if we joined our sorrows, I'm saying.
I'm saying: What if that is joy?
We have entered a time of descent that takes us down into a different geography. In this shadowed terrain, we encounter a landscape familiar to soul—loss, grief, death, vulnerability, and fear...This is not a time of rising and growth. It is not a time of confidence and ease. No. We are hunkered down. Down being the operative word. From the perspective of soul, down is holy ground...
How can we meet these unpredictable times with any sense of presence and faith?
To do so, we must become fluent in the manners and ways of soul. We are required to develop another set of skills and ways of seeing as we descend ever further into the collective unknown. We are being asked to hone the faculties of soul that will enable us to navigate through the Long Dark....
Walker, your footsteps
are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road,
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea.
An expression of faith
In life Herself
Is to sow seeds into dark soil
Not knowing what awaits.
Returning to the patience
Reverence
Grace
Humility
Practiced by our ancestors...
Reminding me to wake up amidst the confusion
To do what must be done to feed the children.
To tuck vibrant seeds into fertile soil
And patiently tend the garden,...
The garden that our ancestors left for us is beautiful.
May we water it well with our tears and our laughter, our stories, and our songs.
Today I choose to plant seeds of hope into the winds of an unknown future...
It's a New dawn.
The time to be those ancestors our grandchildren are waiting for is upon us.
What seeds are you sowing?
Love is frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love. Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them.