spring

Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry, an umbilical spot of grace where we were first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues Peace. To know this spot of inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. We each live in the midst of ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

I know nothing,
except what everyone knows...
if there when Grace dances,
I must dance! 

The return to a sense of community where people hold all things as sacred is an affirmation about the grace within human nature. We are meant to grace one another: to be sources of grace and healers of grace. So grace is an abundance, not a scarcity. Grace comes through our art: the art of living, the art of our language, the art of our relationships, the art of our forgiving.

Yahya deeply trusted in God's forgiveness. The preacher from Rayystands amazed and overwhelmed before the mystery of divine love: is it not the greatest miracle of grace that God, the ever rich who needs nothing, should love? How then, should we, who are so much in need of Love, not love God? He sums up his whole feeling in one short prayer: "Forgive me, for I belong to Thee."

Know who you are.
Do not debase the name.
Carry it in your heart,
a root flame of love.
Walk through the world in silence.
The moment will come.
The sign will be a soft, stirring of wings,
a gold shimmer of air.

A name ís an important word with meaning and energy that identifies someone or something. Our names bring certain patterns to our lives and have the capacity to forge our destinies. A name is also used as a way of entering into a person's world, wisdom, or life ... a code ingrained is us that allows us, when it is called, to remember, recognize and respond to our purpose.

There are many truths that do not have a name. Truths do not need names. But we do. We notice truths with names much more easily than truths we have not yet named, and naming is a way of realizing a truth that we had not noticed before

A name is a holy place. The name is a womb that nourishes the one who bears it with all the love and hope mingled in the giving of the name. If not dictated by some angel, names are chosen carefully for for saints or statesmen, prophets or poets, family doctors or relatives or places with wonderful sounds. Names are chosen with love in gratitude or by faith in potential or for hope of intercession. Names carry meaning within them, every year of life drawing out the meaning of the life named.

The human being is God's representative on this earth, one who knows the true names of things. This knowing of the names is the knowing of the distinguishing characteristics of things, their innate qualities.