As we begin this new year, many of you have made resolutions, many have not. Some are still keeping them, others are not. Some didn’t make any at all, but set intentions instead. There is no one “right” way to start a new year, or a new anything for that…
I See You! I Am Here! For centuries, African Bushmen have greeted each other in this way. When the one becomes aware of his brother or sister coming out of the brush, he exclaims, “I See You!” and then the one approaching rejoices, “I Am Here!” This timeless bearing witness…
In seeking what is essential, we become essential. I have always been amazed how the deepest things are intangible: love, doubt, faith, confusion, peace, wisdom, passion. Where are they? They can’t be held in the hand like fruit or turned in the lap like pages of a sacred text. Yet they…
As long as we sing, the pain of the world cannot claim our lives. Through cancer, through growing up in America, through learning about the innumerable struggles for freedom around the world, all different but the same, through being with the people of South Africa, it has become very clear…
“Integrity is the ability to listen to a place inside oneself that doesn’t change, even though the life that carries it may change.” Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man Much of our journey throughout this book has been about discovering that place inside and cultivating the ability to listen to it, while having compassion…
If all I have is Now, where will I look for Joy? Without hope for the future, without hope that things will change, with no hope of finding what’s been lost, and no hope of restoring the past, with only the risk to crack open all that has hardened about…
“Sometimes I go about with pity for myself and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky.” Ojibway Saying Our crucial task when in pain or despair is not to let the sour feelings spill into everything, so that we stain our sense of the world. Yet we…
“The glory around you is born again each day.” The Muppets version of A Christmas Carol Creation is ongoing. The world begins anew each day. This is the miracle that makes not a sound, but which changes everything, if we can be quiet enough to feel it happen. When we…
When wax and wick work best, light and heat are all that’s left. Like a candle, our wick of spirit is encased in our humanity, and when our spirit is touched, we light up until all we know melts and changes shape for the burn of our experience. Repeatedly, our…
“You didn’t come into this house so I might tear off a piece of your life. Perhaps when you leave, you’ll take something of mine: chestnuts, roses, or a surety of roots.” Pablo Neruda Perhaps the most stubborn thing that keeps us from knowing love is distrust. Certainly, we have…
×
