Tag Archives: John O’Donohue

Earth Beauty, Ever Ancient, Ever New

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For the Beauty of the earth, Ever ancient, ever new …

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It’s International Earth Day … and I recall an answer I have given to people:

There are many things in my life that I would not have chosen, but there is still much beauty in this world.

 

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The most universal gift is the beauty all around us. In my travels I have never come to a place bereft of beauty. Even though garbage littered, the dusty less than desirable path on the way to my grandchildren’s school in N Africa … it had been named the secret garden. After a spatter of rain, it burst forth with yellow blossoms … Dump turned flower garden! The eyes of children opened mine to see beauty in the midst of ugly.

Everyone has stuff, something that could be better … a deviation not chosen, and the heart grows weary with constant struggle. John O’Donohue, an Irish poet/theologian has written about beauty:

Much of the stress and emptiness that haunts us can be traced back to our lack of attention to beauty. Internally, the mind becomes coarse and dull if it remains unvisited by images and thoughts which hold the radiance of beauty. … Beauty offers us an invitation to order, coherence and unity.

IMG_2879Although my home province Manitoba claims the prairie crocus as its provincial flower, I saw very few wild ones there … but here in Alberta, perhaps with more uncultivated soil, they are more prevalent. I have been admiring them since Easter Monday … they are my current heroes. While snow lingers they push through dead grasses and debris of winter to breathe hope into the soul. The fragile flower displays an inner strength  adding its blue lavender beauty to the landscape, the first delights of spring.  Other wild flowers soon follow suit.

To behold beauty dignifies your life; it heals you and calls you out beyond the smallness of your own self-limitations to experience new horizons. To experience beauty is to have your life enlarged.   John O’Donohue

This is the 45th international Earth Day … a reason to celebrate. Get out and enjoy the beauty, dig in the dirt, pick up some garbage, be barefoot, look for signs of spring, go for a walk. Smile.apollo8-earthrise

Earth rises above the lunar horizon against the backdrop of deep space on Dec. 24, 1968. the image, snapped by astronaut Bill Anders during the first manned mission to the moon, evokes both a sense of solitude and intimacy. From livescience.

Beauty The Invisible Embrace,  by John O’Donohue, HarperCollins, 2005

 

Hope is the Daily Choice

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Hope is a Choice … Again and again

The holiest of all holidays are thosememorial

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart,

The secret anniversaries of the heart …

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The longer I live, the more I realize how unsettled life becomes. I don’t know if being settled is the divine plan for life. I think the plan is more likely for us to be disturbed. Disturbed into action, forced exploration.

It would be easier to find a comfortable place to settle, but life has a way of unsettling, of pushing me out of my comfort zone. Note to self—comfort is important in underwear and shoes! I need firm foundations and footwear to navigate the Life journey.

Ten years ago, this was the funeral day of my son and daughter. This day does not bear the emotional weight of the day of the accident, but March 5 always tugs my heart. It was also the same day of my father’s funeral, fourteen years earlier. And the words spoken that day as the woman in black knelt beside two caskets about to be swallowed by the earth. the graveside service concluded … she was the last to leave–this woman dressed in black turned out to be me, between gaping twin holes, pieces of her heart in caskets. And she whispered to the ground, to the air, to the emptiness, to the darkness she forced the words out of her mouth …

We do not grieve as those without hope … But would that hope carry her? She prayed it would. And I am here to tell you that she has fought for that hope, been graced by it and continues on the journey. Hope comes in different forms, in small glimpses, a sunrise, a flower in asphalt, a baby’s smile. Struggle is often hope’s companion.  It also arrives as a gift, and if hope is a gift, there must also be a giver of it. Gifts are meant to be opened and shared,  not to collect dust on a heart shelf. Hope carries many people through dark days.

Words that have challenged and encouraged me this past month, from the book of Blessings by John O’Donohue. To Bless the Space Between Us: From A Morning Offering

May my mind come alive todayIMG_2632

To the invisible geography

That invites me to new frontiers,

To break the dead shell of yesterdays,

To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.

A song by Phil Wickham – dedicated to many others who look forward to a reunion in Heaven:

Heaven Song, by Phil Wickham, album—Heaven & Earth, released 2009.

with lyrics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLulbmdbLg

Heaven Song /same song with images:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U-hOMunpWo

Artist: Phil Wickham Album: Heaven & Earth Released: 2009