Reflections on mountain, wind, fire, quake and silence: themes from 1 Kings.
Holiness, not in the fire, wind or quake, but in the silence that comes after: It is about sweeping in when we are too comfortable and moving us out of those places we cling to when we fear the unknowns and try to avoid the pain and injustice around us. It is about empowering us to do the things that so many others – and even sometimes our own systems – have told us we cannot do because of our gender, age, or economic situation, our education status, color of skin, or sexual orientation. It is about equipping ALL of us to be prophets by speaking truth, spreading love, and fighting for justice and equality for all of God’s children. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Song: The Climb performed by Miley Cyrus (video link)
Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
— Li Po, Translated by Sam Hamill
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
To me a mountain is a buddha. think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin. ― Jack Kerouac
Continue reading “Reflections on mountain, wind, fire, quake and silence: themes from 1 Kings.”
God on the Mountain: Reflections for this week
Acts of God … where God is and where God is not — reflections on natural disasters and the aftermath — mountain, wind, fire, quake and silence: themes from 1 Kings. Where do you find ‘acts of God’ in your life? What evokes the presence of the sacred for you?
Holiness, not in the fire, wind or quake, but in the silence that comes after: It is about sweeping in when we are too comfortable and moving us out of those places we cling to when we fear the unknowns and try to avoid the pain and injustice around us. It is about empowering us to do the things that so many others – and even sometimes our own systems – have told us we cannot do because of our gender, age, or economic situation, our education status, color of skin, or sexual orientation. It is about equipping ALL of us to be prophets by speaking truth, spreading love, and fighting for justice and equality for all of God’s children. — Nadia Bolz-Weber Continue reading “God on the Mountain: Reflections for this week”
Reflections on vows, theme from Book of Ruth
The Dharma Gates are infinite; I vow to enter them all.
The Buddha Way is unexcelled; I vow to attain it completely.
The Road to Emmaus (excerpt) — Spencer Reece
But if I get nothing right,
I must try to get a nuance of our friendship
and his sponsorship right—
we were bound, bound by a vow, a vow of attention
(there are many causes for attention, among them redemption).
Our attention concerned the spirit,
although that sounds pious and we were not so pious,
we were more selfish, more human than pious.
What else can I say?
I needed a liberator
and liberators can come in some unexpected guises.
I may never wholly explain the two of us.
Perhaps the spirit defies the human mind …
On Making & Keeping Vows
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. — Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Vows are powerful things … They set things in motion. ― John C. Wright, Orphans of Chaos
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come. ― Rumi
We want to renew our vows with our people. We want to reconnect with our people. We want to get our people excited again. — Cyril Ramaphosa
Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us. Society is stronger when we make vows to each other and we support each other. I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative. ― David Cameron
It was a vow we made those long years ago. Neither of us spoke of it afterwards, but it hung between us like a spider web, fragile and easy to break, but danged hard to get shed of once the threads took hold. ― Cassie Dandridge Selleck, The Pecan Man
Riotous madness, To be entangled with those mouth-made vows, Which break themselves in swearing! ― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
There was something of relative freedom in that feudal gesture of the vow; for no man asks vows from slaves … ― G.K. Chesterton
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Vows made in storms are forgotten in calm. — Thomas Fuller
Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that … can never substitute for personal morality. ― Joan D. Chittister
On Wedding Vows
The papers say we’re married, but it’s the heart that writes the love story. ― Anthony Liccione
With the Mother Earth and Father Sun here to witness I give you my everlasting oath. My body is created of this Earth and belongs to it, but my soul belongs only to you. Even when this body succumbs and fades, my soul will continue to look after you even unto the next life, and the next, forever. ― Kazusa Takashima, Wild Rock
Blood of my Blood … and bone of my bone. You carry me within ye … and ye canna leave me now, no matter what happens, You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I wilna let ye go. ― Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber
Among men and women, those in love do not always announce themselves with declarations and vows. But they are the ones who weep when you’re gone. Who miss you every single night, especially when the sky is so deep and beautiful, and the ground so very cold. — Alice Hoffman
The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken. The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it unites each of them with the community in a vow of … responsibility toward all others. ― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays, “The Body and the Earth”
Two people fall in love, and decide to see if their love might stand up over time, if there might be enough grace and forgiveness and memory lapses to help the whole shebang hang together. — Anne Lamott
Story: Dancing Before God
Meditations on dancing in the presence of holiness, themes from 2 Samuel.
This dance is spontaneous creation, a jazz … skillful relationship to change … effortless presence in action. We cannot change the nature of change, but we can choose the way we relate to it. — Dancing Freedom dancers, Dharma Dance
Reflections on Mother’s Day Theme of Wisdom
- Watch this young couple sing this song. Your heart will lift!
Youtube performance of One Day lyrics.One DaySongwriters: Philip Lawrence / Bruno Mars / Matthew Miller / Ari Levine
… It´s not about Win or lose We all lose
When they feed on the souls of the innocent Blood drenched pavement
Keep on moving though the waters stay raging
In this maze you can lose your way (your way)
It might drive you crazy But don’t let it faze you no way (no way)
Gotta hold on Livin life day by day
Gotta hold on Put your focus on that one day
All my life I´ve been waiting for I´ve been praying for
For the people to say That we don´t wanna fight no more
There´ll be no more wars And our children will play
One day (one day), One day (one day) …
One day this all will change Treat people the same
Stop with the violence Down with the hate
One day we´ll all be free And proud to be
Under the same sun Singing songs of freedom like
Gotta hold on Livin life day by day
Gotta hold on Put your focus on that one day
All my life I´ve been waiting for I´ve been praying for
For the people to say That we don´t wanna fight no more
There´ll be no more wars And our children will play
One day (one day), One day (one day) …
Of Wisdom: Sometimes She’s a Feminine, Creative Holy Spirit
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. — Ludwig van Beethoven
… This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom. I am awakened, I am born again at the voice of this my Sister, sent to me from the depths of the divine fecundity. — Thomas Merton
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. — Rumi
Because you are women, people will force their thinking on you, their boundaries on you. They will tell you how to dress, how to behave, who you can meet and where you can go. Don’t live in the shadows of people’s judgement. Make your own choices in the light of your own wisdom. — Amitabh Bachchan
There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.— Charles Dickens
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. — Buddha
Remember Proverbs 8? Sophia, the Wisdom of God is described at the creation of the world as rejoicing in the inhabited world
and delighting in the human race. I want the day to come when Christians are described not as judgmental but as those who, like the Wisdom of God, rejoice in the world and delight in humanity. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
… if there is only one God, then why would we be surprised that there is a common wisdom coming through every stream? And how can we ever again possibly dismiss any of these traditions as possibly not being of God? I believe that wisdom is where you go before theology, canons, creedal statements, denominations, because holy wisdom enables respect. The mystics of all traditions did not deal in creeds, in denominations and canons. The mystics dealt with enlightenment, insight and wisdom. — Joan Chittister
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. — Immanuel Kant
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. — Francis of Assisi
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
One need not be a mystic or have had a near-death experience to understand this … God … reflects a wisdom found in ancient scriptures, a spiritual vocabulary articulated by biblical heroes, saints, reformers, and the humble poor through the ages. And this impulse toward spiritual intimacy is found not only in the Abrahamic faiths, but in Buddhism, Hinduism, and native religions. … speaks of God with us, God in the stars and sunrise, God as the face of their neighbor, God in the act of justice, or God as the wonder of love. The language of divine nearness is the very heart of vibrant faith. — Diana Butler Bass
Every Single Thing I Know, as of Today — Anne Lamott
“I thought I might take the opportunity to write down every single thing I know, as of today … (excerpt)”
- “Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift…And it [is] filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together.”
- “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
- “There is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of last way, unless you are waiting for an organ. You can’t buy, achieve, or date it.”
- “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides.”
- “Families; hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be.”
- “Food; try to do a little better.”
- “The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and our world. To summon grace, say, ‘Help!’ And then buckle up.”
- “Emerson said that the happiest person on earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot, and look up.”
- “The love of our incredible dogs and cats is the closest most of us will come, on this side of eternity, to knowing the direct love of God; although cats can be so bitter, which is not the god part: the crazy Love is. Also, ‘Figure it out’ is not a good slogan.”
- “Exercise: If you want to have a good life after you have grown a little less young, you must walk almost every day. There is no way around this.”
- “Death; wow. So f-ing hard to bear, when the few people you cannot live without die. You will never get over these losses, and are not supposed to.”