“Life doesn’t always get better.
But you do.
You get stronger.
You get wiser.
You get softer.
With tattered wings you rise.
And the world watches in wonder
at the breathless beauty of
a human who survived life.”

L.R. Knost

Image by Carlos Tamayo

“In our own sense of the Highest and Holiest, let us now in silence face our own shortcomings and failures, and those we find in others; looking first into our own depths and then at the life around us, facing honestly the inevitable imperfection of being human…

Let us now, in some awareness of weakness or sin or failure, in ourselves and in others, recognise our need to forgive and to be forgiven; in silence of heart and mind forgive ourselves and others who need our forgiveness; and be open to receive forgiveness human and divine…

O Holy One, we need your presence in and around us, to know ourselves in both weakness and strength, to find forgiveness for ourselves, to renew our faith and love, to live better lives in ourselves and among others.”

Bruce Findlow, Unitarian minister and Principal of Manchester College Oxford 1974-1985, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“Does the caterpillar know what’s about to happen when it spins a cocoon?
Does it realize that it’s doing more than simply seeking safety?
Does it understand that it’s involved in something greater than simply acting on instinct?
Does it imagine, within its long-sought rest, the beauty to which it will open itself? Does it glimpse the possibility that it may continue its life in a dramatically different fashion than anything it has experience up to this time?
Does it have any idea that it’s about to transform?
Do you?”

From Earth Bound: Daily Meditations For All Seasons by Brian Nelson

“O friend, Who could be so lucky?
Who comes to a lake for water
And sees the reflection of the moon?
Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his lost son
and can see again?
Who parched with thirst,
Lowers a bucket into a well
And comes up with an Ocean of nectar?
Who could be so lucky?
Or like Moses goes for fire
and finds what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
And discovers a passage to the other world.
Soloman cuts open a fish, and there’s a gold ring.
Who could be so lucky?
An oyster opens his mouth for a drop of water,
And discovers a shinning pearl within himself
Who could be so lucky?
But, O friend,
don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others.
Unfold Your Own Myth!”

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

“Let us be still and listen for all the sounds around us…
The noise of passing traffic, the steps of passers-by; a distant train or a barking dog; an aeroplane overhead…
The wind in the leaves, the rattle of branches; the singing of birds, the patter of rain; the rustle of autumn leaves or the quiet of winter snow…
The creak of a chair, the tick of a clock, the sound of our own breathing, the beating of our own hearts.
Let us listen to the sounds within us, sounds known only to ourselves…
The unspoken noise of our own tumbling thoughts,
the silent shouting of our own feelings…
The cascading pictures in our own minds’ eyes – all disturbing our quiet. Let us be still within.
Let us listen to a stillness deeper within us. Let us listen to the voice of inner silence.
Let us be still and know that God is here.”

Sydney H. Knight (1923 – 2004), Unitarian minister and hymn writer, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“Make space for having a moment. Go outside and find the magical places. The hidden parts of the garden, the woods and the streams. Even if you’re in the city you can always find the wild. Back-alleys can be great places for that! As for ceremonies, they can be as simple as lighting a candle and giving thanks for the elements. I like to start with earth, to bring us out of our heads and ground; to send our roots down. It doesn’t have to be a big, grand thing. I’m not one for pomp and formality! It just is – we give thanks, our hearts open in gratitude, and we’re in a different place. A more loving place!”

Glennie Kindred

International Youth Day

“When you took the time to recognize
what I was doing well,
you were measuring water into the mouth
of a desert-parched little girl.

Now I carry a pitcher,
treasured legacy in my hand. I offer
witness: a voice to say, “I see you.”
affirm, “What you can do matters.”
argue, “You have something good to share.”

Thank you for those flowers planted,
for my sacred mandate to scatter seeds
into every crack in the concrete;
into every unclenched, opening hand.”

Teacher to Teacher to Teacher by Atena O. Danner

“One of the best preparations for the future is to pay attention to the present moment. Not by being provident, cautious, and miserly with life’s experiential wealth, but by attending to the unfolding of today’s events and one’s part within them.

For those who have places to go and tasks to accomplish, the active use of the imagination to shape their destiny should never be despised. There is no such thing as a “destined future” – one that is fixed and immovable – since every step we take toward the future, every action and intention, changes the dance of our life to some degree. By imagining our future in an active way, we become more sensitive to the influences and interests around us. This active imagining also helps break down our romantic or false expectations and sets up pathways of practice toward our life’s purpose, as we grow ever more sensitive to the unfolding patterns. Furthermore, it helps sustain us when achievement seems far off or unendingly delayed.

The work of shaping the future consists not in the ruthless excision of everything and everyone standing in our way, but in the gentle retuning of ourselves and our abilities to the pitch of our innate life’s purpose. This is a daily, intentional shaping whereby we become attuned to the song that is always singing us.”

From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews

“Matter and Spirit: These were no longer two things, but two states or two aspects of one and the same cosmic Stuff.. Matter is the Matrix of Spirit. Spirit is the higher state of Matter.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955), Jesuit priest, paleontologist and theologian, quoted in Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox

Image: The Emergence of Spirit and Matter from the Shiva Purana, Marwar, 1828

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

“In the old times, when people’s lives were so directly tied to the land, it was easy to know the world as gift. When fall came, the skits would darken with flocks of geese, honking “Here we are.” It reminds the people of the Creation story, when the geese came to save Skywoman. The people are hungry, winter is coming, and the geese fill the marshes with food. It is a gift and the people receive it with thanksgiving, love, and respect. But when the food does not come from a flock in the sky, when you don’t feel the warm feathers cool in your hand and know that a life has been given for yours, when there is no gratitude in return — that food may not satisfy. It may leave the spirit hungry while the belly is full. Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.

How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again? I know we cannot all become hunter-gatherers — the living world could not bear our weight — but even in a market economy, can we behave “as if” the living world were a gift?

We could start by listening to Wally. There are those who will try to sell the gifts, but, as Wally says of sweetgrass for sale, “Don’t buy it.”Refusal to participate is a moral choke. Water is a gift for all, not meant to be bought and sold. Don’t buy it. When food has been wrenched from the earth, depleting the soil and poisoning our relatives in the name of higher yields, don’t buy it.

In material fact, [wild] Strawberries belong only to themselves. The exchange relationships we choose determine whether we share them as a common gift or sell them as a private commodity. A great deal rests on that choice. For the greater part of human history, and in places in the world today, common resources were the rule. But some invented a different story, a social construct in which everything is a commodity to be bought and sold. The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one.

One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend. One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the world. One of these stories asks us to bestow our own gifts in kind, to celebrate our kinship with the world. We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.”

From Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Professor of Environmental Biology and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation