imagining a new life

 

“This is one of the sacred duties of imagination: honourably to imagine your self.

The shortest distance in the world is the one between you and yourself.

The space in question is tiny.

Yet what goes on in this little space determines nearly everything about the kind of person you are and about the kind of life you are living.

Normally, the priority in our culture is to function and do what is expected of us.

So many people feel deep dissatisfaction and an acute longing for a more real life, a life that allows their souls to come to expression and to awaken;

a life where they could discover a different resonance, one which echoes their heartfelt dreams and longing.

For their short while on earth, most people long to have the fullest life they can.

No one wants to remain a prisoner in an unlived life.

This was the intention of Jesus: ‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.’

Of the many callings in the world, the invitation to the adventure of an awakened and full life is the most exhilarating.

This is the dream of every heart.

Yet most of us are lost or caught in forms of life that exile us from the life we dream of.

Most people long to step onto the path of creative change that would awaken their lives to beauty and passion,

deepen their contentment and allow their lives to make a difference.”

John O’Donohue, from his book, Beauty, The Invisible Embrace

control your hoard!

According to Frost and Steketee’s Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things,

Hoarders need to convince themselves of 3 things in order to let go of stuff:

1) to know that the item won’t be wasted

2) to know that it goes to a good home

3) to know that the opportunity the item promised is over

Now which of those do we have any real control over?

No wonder we keep so much stuff!

It takes so much energy to make the decision to get rid

of something when we feel such responsibility toward it.

But with practice it can happen.

photo from here

monday prayer

Prayer for Monday

Keep us, O God,

from all pettiness.

Let us be large in thought,

in word, in deed.

Let us be done

with fault-finding

and leave off all self-seeking.

May we put away all pretense

and meet each other face to face,

without self-pity

and without prejudice.

Grant that we may realize that

it is the little things of life that

create differences, that in the

big things of life we are as one.

And, O God,

let us not forget to be kind.

- Mary Stewart

from Prayers for a Peaceful World

Let Peace Fill my Heart

Benetvision.org

art by Rob Reynolds is from here

change happens by love

"When you love something you wish it goodness;

when you hate something, you wish to annihilate it.

Change happens not by hatred but by love.

Change happens when you understand what you want to change so deeply

 that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest.

When you begin to inhabit your body from the inside...

any other option except taking care of it is unthinkable."

Geneen Roth - Women, Food, and God, p. 121

the mystery of manure

An Excerpt from The Lively Garden Prayer Book by William Cleary

The Lively Garden Prayer Book is a little book that pays tribute to the "Green Spirit God."

Here, for example, is nature's way of practicing transformation.

====================================================

"Among the deeper mysteries of life is the mystery of manure,

how awful it smells,

how disgusting it looks,

how repulsive it feels —

yet how delicious it is to our vegetable cousins in the garden:

the tomatoes, the corn, the carrots.

"We put manure right into their bed.

They not only welcome it, but they take it in,

and through the life powers within them,

absorb its very substance into their individual beings,

transforming its smelly and disgusting substance miraculously into

bright shining red tomatoes,

yellow luscious corn,

sweet wholesome carrots.

"Miraculously, that execrable manure has now turned into something humans can eat:

nourishing, sweet-smelling food, delicious to the mouth and life-giving to every part of our bodies —

a magic we might expect to find only in mythical Eden."

photos of our vegetable patch