Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step: only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road.
Dag Hammarskjöld : Markings
2012: the year you’ve been waiting for
In Thomas Friedman’s, ‘That Used to be Us’, Bill Gates notes that, “We can renew our excellence not so much with things other have invented, but rather with things we used to do quite well ourselves.” I wonder if I could let that perspective influence my initiatives in the new year. So much focus is on new things and new ways of moving forward but maybe there is a hint in our own personal histories. What was I doing right during a previous high point in my personal life or career? What did I used to do that was working and can I recreate that? Perhaps even improve upon it.
May 2012 be the year you’ve been waiting for…
how i failed in 2011
When I realized that some of my resolutions for 2012 are exactly the same as those in 2011. I cringed. Why didn’t I make more progress in 2011? What were the reasons I couldn’t evolve in the preferred direction? Resolutions seem to focus so much on where we want to go and not how I want to get there. I think the method of travel is just as important. What was I thinking right before I crashed? What was I thinking when I choked?
this will never work. i don’t deserve it. how does this fit in with my true vision for my life. is this even necessary? the answer is just going to be no. i don’t actually want anyone to know who i really am. i’m too scared. i’m too tired. it’s too expensive. it’s not worth it. i’ll be humiliated. i’m not sure i can complete it. what if i don’t finish? what if i suck? this isn’t who i really am.
Only in confronting these thoughts for yourself can you get your mind right for 2012.
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Ray Bradbury: on purpose
My job is to help you fall in love.
Ray Bradbury, 1995 Speech at Brown University
blenkinsopp: the prophetic role originates in isaiah
“Viewing this issue from a broader perspective, I will argue that three very influential interpretative trajectories about the function and place of prophecy and the prophetic role originate in the book. There is, first, the profile of the prophet who insists on justice and righteousness in public life, speaks out on behalf of the marginal classes of society, refuses to confer absolute validity on existing political and religious institutions, directs an unsparing criticism against political and religious elites, and, in general, plays a deliberately critical and confrontational role in society. In contrast to this “classical” prophetic role, there is the prophet in the guise of an apocalyptic seer who predicts and heralds the final and decisive intervention of God in human affairs and the affairs of Israel in particular, announcing imminent judgement for the many and salvation for the few. There is, finally, the prophet as “man of God” who counsels, intercedes, chides occasionally, heals, and works miracles – who, in other words, does what the “man of God” was expected to do in ancient Israel. It is in this capacity that the Isaiah of the few narrative passages in the book very soon became the subject of biographical interest, in the same way, if not to the same extent as Jeremiah, in the book which bears his name.”
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Opening the Sealed Book: Interpretations on the Book of Isaiah
mary oliver: the summer day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
-Mary Oliver
prayer of humble access
the prayer of humble access is always a tender moment during mass. kneeling beside the other acolytes, quietly saying this prayer together, has become one of my most cherished parts of mass. it is both confession and thanksgiving. a statement of our very faith.
We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
the sloppy almost of our perfectionism
the wonderful gift of lent is that it brings you face to face with your own striving for goodness. we make these resolutions to abstain from chocolate or pizza, to spend more time with our parents or children and somehow, if we are lucky, we come up short. we are confronted with the sloppy almost of our perfectionism. and we are re-taught the truth, that we are not meant to be perfect. God does not expect us to be perfect. He encourages us to try, to get as close as possible. when we fall, which we surely will, His grace is there to meet us. which is almost surely the very point of Easter.
camellias of capitol hill
we walked among the spoils of spring
gifts that god bestowed
‘to those who have waited’
the camellias of capitol hill whispered to me
all i could do was
smile
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
long overdue
the truth is between
the one that is here and the one that is not
expecting blossoms, expecting joy
pleasure is long overdue.
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment