A Blessing of Solitude

A friend asked me this morning if he could borrow the book Anam Cara by John Donohue and while perusing the pages for places i've marked, I came across this poem...(i was also moved by another line in the book "to be born is to be chosen")..

May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here, that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening.
May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride, and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue, page 125

More Miner...

These are Miner's

little feet,

decorated

with his parents' wedding rings

...absolutely delicious!

Miner Coberg

This is Miner Coberg, son of my nephew Michael and his wife Bonnie. I sent this to a friend a few weeks ago who commented, "what eyes of Christ".......

The Human Condition

"Life is Difficult.

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visted upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share."
M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

It's Been 6 Months

yes, it's been 6 months since i posted anything on this site.......good grief.....i just read the few previous posts and realized i'm not that person anymore. actually i'm not the same person i was when i started this sentence! we are always in the process of change, arent' we?

since that last post i've started the discernment process at St. Paul's in Port Townsend, and i've joined the Vestry....one of the other things i do every day is send out quotes and prayers and i've decided to start putting them on here.........today's is the Lord's Prayer from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer. Gene Holly used it at yesterday morning's Healing service with Eucharist.....it's lovely:

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope
and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power, that is love, now and forever. Amen.

Goodbye to Summer

On my way home yesterday i sat on the Kingston/Edmonds ferry reading my book when i looked up and saw a woman and her child standing outside on the deck, enjoying the sunshine. I felt compelled to put the book away (rarity) and take the stairs to the top of the boat.....so glad i did.......it was a perfect summer day - sunshine, little wind and calm water...i tend to be a bit melancholy at this point in the season - i want to savor the last bit of summer but i don't want it to leave. i don't want change, even though i love autumn. Maybe it's because there was so little summer to be had this year for us Northwesterners........but whatever the reason i'm glad i crawled out of my head where i spend way too much of my time for that half hour of heaven onboard the walla walla!

Dominus Vobiscum

In the catholic church of my youth the mass was always celebrated in Latin. I can still recall some of the phrases used by the priest who had his back to us. "Kyrie Eleison" and "In nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus Sancti. Amen." are two that i remember but the most familiar would be "dominus vobiscum" to which we would reply, "et cum spiritu tuo"...as a kid i thought we were saying etcum spirit 2-2-0!!!! ("the lord be with you" & "and also with you")...

So why am i writing about this? because i long for fresh views of what these prayers mean that we find in the liturgy. As a child they were rote and spoken in a dead language but in my new home of the Episcopal church the collect is read by the celebrant before the readings of the day. I recently picked up a book of collect prayers in a used bookstore and was amazed by how beautiful they were and read that "collective prayer is an inclusive event". I'm still learning what that might mean but i found it interesting that there is more than one translation for the exchange that occurs before the collect. In the catholic church which used latin, DOMINUS VOBISCUM did sound a bit like a spell out of a harry potter book! Besides "the Lord be with you" which connotes something that will happen in the future i discovered that it can be translated as "the Lord IS with you" or better yet "the Lord is HERE, His Spirit is with us." And i need to know that God is here, right now, in this place...and when the celebrant ends with "let us pray" before the reading of the collect i will be thinking "collective prayer"...we're all in this together!