Reflections on starting journeys: themes from baptismal scripture
If you can’t fly, then run,
if you can’t run, then walk,
if you can’t walk, then crawl,
but by all means keep moving.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
BELOVED IS WHERE WE BEGIN — Jan Richardson
If you would enter / into the wilderness,
do not begin / without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing / who you are:
Beloved, named by the One
who has traveled this path / before you.
Do not go / without letting it echo
in your ears, / and if you find
it is hard / to let it into your heart,
do not despair. / That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise / this blessing will free you
from danger, from fear,
from hungeror thirst,
from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.
But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.
I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.
I can tell you that you will know
the strange graces that come to our aid
only on a road / such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort and strength,
that come alongside us / for no other cause
than to lean themselves / toward our ear
and with their / curious insistence / whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
SONGS about STARTING a JOURNEY
- Don’t Stop Believin‘ by Jounrey (pop): https://youtu.be/1k8craCGpgs
- Ghost / I Keep Going to the River by Ellie Henderson (pop): https://youtu.be/tA8AfQaUnXM
- My Fight Song by Rachel Platten (pop): https://youtu.be/xo1VInw-SKc
- The Journey by IFC Worship (Christiian): https://youtu.be/Uawxvj6nUPU
- Hard Love by Just Can’t Breathe (pop) :https://youtu.be/IDWhCaDgd3Y
- Will You Let Me Be Your Servant? piano : https://youtu.be/O-bFuqEiIKw
- Control by Zoe Wees (pop); https://youtu.be/VghvmL0G144
- Someday by OneRepublic (pop): https://youtu.be/vNfgVjZF8_4
- I’m No Longer a Slave to Fear by Zaxch Williams: https://youtu.be/bDnA_coA168
- Start of Something Good by Daughtry (country): :https://youtu.be/WKsyxZWQ_g0
- Start of Something New by Disne (musical): https://youtu.be/gP8xwlUbzE4
- At the Beginning by Anastasia animated film (musical): https://youtu.be/EgqXg9qPefE
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute,
Whatever you can do, or dream you can—begin it;
Boldness has genius, power, magic in it;
Only engage,—and then the mind grows heated;
Begin!—and then the work will be completed.
—Goethe
It’s just as well, my pitcher shattered
I’m free of all that hauling water!
The burden on my head is gone….
A single well, Kabira
And water-bearers many!
Pots of every shape and size
But the water always One.
— ‘Bhala Hua Meri Gagri Phooti’ –song of Kabir.
translated by Rabindranath Tagore 1915, 55-56
Blessing the Baptism — Jan Richardson
As if we could call you
anything other than
beloved
and blessed
drenched as we are
in our love for you
washed as we are
by our delight in you
born anew as we are
by the grace that flows
from the heart of the one
who bore you to us.
STARTING a JOURNEY
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.– Lao Tzu
To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. – Søren Kierkegaard
The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. – Tony Robbins
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance, and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning. – Oprah Winfrey
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson
Tell me, O Swan, your ancient tale.
From what land do you come, O Swan ?
to what shore will you fly ?
Where would you take your rest, O Swan, and what do you seek ?
Even this morning, O Swan, awake, arise follow me !
There is a land where no doubt nor sorrow have rule: where the terror of Death is no more.
There the woods of spring are a-bloom, and the fragrant scent “He is I” is born on the wind:
There the bee of the heart is deeply immersed and desires no other joy.
— Poems of Kabir, translated by Rabindranath Tagore 1915, 55-56
COMMENTARY on BAPTISM
So I hope in this baptismal life ahead of you that when you encounter water – this most common of substances which surrounds land and comprises our bodies…I hope when you drink it in; when you dive deep in a pool of it; when you wade in a stream of it; that even when you wash dishes with it; I hope that you are reminded of the promise of life eternal: a promise that life with God is as close to you as water and bread and wine and human bodies. Because to be Christian is to know that the eternal is always contained in the present. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Water figures in many of Jyoti’s paintings, as too in biblical imagery: the waters that were ‘the face of the deep’ before creation; the waters of the flood, over which the rainbow shone, sign of God’s covenant of peace with all creation; the waters of the Red Sea parting to liberate the fleeing slaves, the ‘children of Israel’; the ‘water of life’ with which Jesus identified himself, both with the alienated woman at the well and during debate in the temple; the waters of baptism – that of Jesus and of those who accept his way. — Jyoti Sahi Art Ashram
Jesus has become part with the waters. His character is innately like that of water. … water seeks out the lowest place. Or, as [St] Francis says in his Hymn to Creation, the waters are humble – they offer life to others and for others – and in themselves are clear, like light. — Jyoti Sahi Art Ashram