Lenten Reflection Day 39 (April 1): DELIVERANCE (Psalm 40:5-10).
SONG: Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell: Dueling Banjos (Deliverance 1972): https://youtu.be/p8t8uqEf6_A
POEM: Linda Hogan: The History of Red (excerpt): … A wildness / swam inside our mothers, desire through closed eyes, a new child / wearing the red, wet mask of birth, delivered into this land / already wounded, stolen and burned / beyond reckoning.
QUOTE: JRR Tolkien: Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat…giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
Reflections on going your way, my way, and finding ‘the way’ (themes from Luke)
Question: When do you follow the lead of others, and explore their way, and when do you invite others to join you and try your path, your way?
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears. — Rumi
Music Video:Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts
The Way In — Linda Hogan
Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body. Sometimes the way in is a song. But there are three ways in the world:
dangerous, wounding, and beauty. To enter stone, be water. To rise through hard earth, be plant desiring sunlight, believing in water. To enter fire, be dry. To enter life, be food.
The Road― J.R.R. Tolkien
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
My Way, Your Way
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential. ― Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey
Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. — Don Miguel Ruiz
Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Don’t keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone. ― Alexander Graham Bell
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. ― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Unfortunately, when you insist on doing everything your way, what usually happens is that you repeat someone else’s mistakes. ― Augustine Wetta, Humility Rules: St Benedict’s Twelve-Step Guide to Genuine Self-Esteem
We do not draw people … by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it. — Madeleine L’Engle
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. — Mahatma Gandhi
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. — Walt Disney
Finding the Way
You don’t choose a life … You live one. — The Way (movie) script
In a gentle way, you can shake the world. — Mahatma Gandhi
… we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love
the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God. — Soren Kierkegaard
… the greatest spiritual practice isn’t yoga or praying the hours or
living in intentional poverty, although these are all beautiful in their
own way. The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up. ― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix
The easiest way to be reborn is to live and feel life everyday. ― Munia Khan
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. — Thomas Edison
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. — John Muir
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
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. — Og Mandino
Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey. — Lord Byron
There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way. — Thich Nhat Hanh