Tuesday, July 6, 2010

In Silence



.
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your
.
Name.
Listen 
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
Silence are you?
.
Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet.) Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.
.
~ Thomas Merton
(excerpt from In Silence)
.
.

I loved what I could love




I had a natural passion for fine clothes, excellent food, and
lively conversation about all matters that concern
the heart still alive.  And even a passion 
about my own 
looks.

Vanities: they do not exist.

Have you ever walked across a stream stepping on
rocks so not to spoil a pair of shoes?

All we can touch, swallow, or say
aids in our crossing to God
and helps unveil the 
soul.

Life smooths us, rounds, perfects, as does the river the stone,
and there is no place our Beloved is not flowing
though the current's force you
may not always
like.

Our passions help to lift us.

I loved what I could love until I held Him,
for then - all things - every world
disappeared.



~ Saint Teresa of Avila




The Inner History of a Day


.
.
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
.
~ John O'Donohue
(excerpt from The Inner History of a Day)
.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Love letters


.
.
Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.
.
~ Ikkyu
(Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology,
 trans. by Sonya Arutzen)
.

from: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front






Ask the questions that have no answers. 
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. 

Say that your main crop is the forest 
that you did not plant, 
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested 
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. 
Put your faith in the two inches of humus 
that will build under the trees 
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear 
close, and hear the faint chattering 
of the songs that are to come. 
Expect the end of the world. Laugh. 
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful 
though you have considered all the facts. 
So long as women do not go cheap 
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy 
a woman satisfied to bear a child? 
Will this disturb the sleep 
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields. 
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head 
in her lap. Swear allegiance 
to what is highest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos 
can predict the motions of your mind, 
lose it. Leave it as a sign 
to mark the false trail, the way 
you didn't go.
Be like the fox 
who makes more tracks than necessary, 
some in the wrong direction. 
Practice resurrection.




~ Wendell Berry
from Collected Poems

Look it Over



.
I leave behind even
my walking stick.  My knife
is in my pocket, but that
I have forgot.  I bring
no car, no cell phone,
no computer, no camera,
no CD player, no fax, no
TV, not even a book. I go
into the woods.  I sit on
a log provided at no cost.
It is the earth I've come to,
the earth itself, sadly
abused by the stupidity
only humans are capable of
but, as ever, itself. Free.
A bargain!  Get it while it lasts.
.
~ Wendell Berry
(Leavings)
.

Friday, June 25, 2010

As a caterpillar


.
.
As a caterpillar, having come to the end of 
one blade of grass, draws itself together and 
reaches out for the next, so the Self, having 
come to the end of one life and dispelled 
all ignorance, gathers in his faculties and 
reaches out from the old body to a new.
~ The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
.

Always in the distance



.
Always in the distance
the sound of cars is passing
on the road, that simplest form
going only two ways,
both ways away.  And I 
have been there in that going.
.
But now I rest and am 
apart, a part of the form
of the woods always arriving
from all directions home,
this cell of wild sound,
the hush of the trees, singers
hidden among the leaves -
.
a form whose history is old,
needful, unknown, and bright
as the history of the stars
that tremble in the sky at night
like leaves of a great tree.
.
~ Wendell Berry
(A Timbered Choir)
.

The world of machines



The world of machines is running
Beyond the world of trees
Where only a leaf is turning
In a small high breeze.
.
~ Wendell Berry
(A Timbered Choir)
.
photo by: Kathleen Connally
.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

the smallest word




Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar.



~ Mechtild of Magdeburg

in every moment




True love in every moment praises God.
Longing love brings a sorrow sweet to the pure.
Seeking love belongs to itself alone.
Understanding love gives itself equally to all.
Enlightened love is mingled with the sadness of the world.
But selfless love bears an effortless fruit,
Working so quietly even the body cannot say how it comes and goes.



~ Mechtild of Magdeburg



Sunday, June 20, 2010

They come singly


.
.
They come singly, the little streams,
Out of their solitude.  They bear
In their rough fall a spate of gleams
That glance and dance in morning air.
.
They com singly, and coming go
Ever downward toward the river
Into whose dark abiding flow
They come, now quieted, together.
.
In dark they mingle and are made
At one with light in highest flood
Embodied and inhabited,
The budded branch as red as blood.
.
~ Wendell Berry 
(Given)
.

Things will go where they're supposed to go


.
.
Things will go where they're supposed to go 
if you just let them take their natural course. 
Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt 
when it's time for them to be hurt. 
Life is like that. 
I know I sound like I'm preaching from a podium, 
but it's about time for you to learn to live like this. 
You try too hard to make life fit your way of doing things. 
If you don't want to spend time in an insane asylum, 
you have to open up a little more 
and let yourself go with life's natural flow.
.
~ Haruki Murakami
(Norwegian Wood)
.
.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

at night



.
at night,
deep in the mountains,
I breathe...
everything is still,
all thoughts emptied
into the night.
my robe has become
a garment of frost.
suddenly, above the
highest peak,
the full moon appears.
.
~ Ryokan
.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Eating Together





.
In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.
.
~ Li-Young Lee
(Rose)
.