The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life. 
               ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Go not to the temple to put flowers upon the feet of God, first fill your own house with the fragrance of love. Go not to the temple to light candles before the altar of God, first remove the darkness of sin from your heart. Go not to the temple to bow down your head in prayer, first learn to bow in humility before your fellow men. Go not to the temple to pray on bended knees, first bend down to lift someone who is downtrodden. Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins, first forgive from your heart those who have sinned against you.
                ~Rabindranath Tagore

A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge but merely repeats his lesson to his students, can only load their minds, he cannot quicken them...
               ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Made In the Image of God

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.
                  ~ Thomas Merton

Ancient/Modern Wisdom

"My dear heart, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. If you want peace, don't harbor bad thoughts, do not gossip and don't teach what you do not know."
                  ~ Rumi

Envy - definition

Envy is the consuming desire to have everybody else be as unsuccessful as you are.      Frederick Buechner

The Power of Love

I am touched by the stories of young men and women who have been in L'Arche for three or four years living in a house with [people with intellectual disabilities]. So many affirm that they have been transformed by the people they live with, by their simplicity, their trust....In spite of the difficulties, I can truly bear witness to the power of love that attracts many assistants and anchors them in L'Arche. There is something that reveals to them the fundamental beauty of their humanity.
          Jean Vanier

A Vision

ONE SUMMER DAY I lay upon the grass. I'd sinned, no matter how, and in sin's wake there came a kind of drowsy peace so deep I hadn't even will enough to loathe myself. I had no mind to pray. I scarcely had a mind at all, just eyes to see the green wood overhead, just flesh to feel the sun. A light breeze blew from Wear that tossed the trees, and as I lay there watching them, they formed a face of shadows and of leaves. It was a man's green, leafy face. He gazed at me from high above. And as the branches nodded in the air, he opened up his mouth to speak. No sound came from his lips, but by their shape, I knew it was my name. His was the holiest face I ever saw. My very name turned holy on his tongue. If he had bade me rise and follow to the end of time, I would have gone. If he had bade me die for him, I would have died. When I deserved it least, God gave me most. I think it was the Savior's face itself I saw.
–Frederick Buechner - Originally published in Godric

Thomas Merton's Prayer

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. 
~Thomas Merton

Easy to Believe

It is surely an exercise of faith for us to see Christ in each other. But it is through such exercise that we grow and the joy of our vocation assures us we are on the right path. Certainly, it is easier to believe that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the trees in the wasteland across the street, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park across the way. There are wars and rumors of wars, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, and God’s continuing promise to be with us always, with comfort and joy, if we will only ask.

Dorothy Day 

Merton Wisdom

"To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name." ~ Thomas Merton

Sent from my iPhone

A thought from Thomas Merton

"It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him." ~ Thomas Merton

DREAM GARDEN DREAM

           What kind of seed do I want to plant?
            What kind of garden do I want to grow?
            What kind of fruit do I want to harvest?
            What will I do when the harvest is over?
            Who will I feed and what will I feed them?

            Why plant a garden?
            The world needs a place of sustenance and beauty.
            My garden is not large but it is one more spot of beauty and calm.

            Gardening is an advent activity.
            There is a lot of waiting involved.
            Most of what I do with my garden includes the need for patient waiting.
            A garden does not happen overnight.
            A garden does not happen unless I am actively involved in making it so.

The Garden For Which I Give Thanks

One row for those who are physically hungry
One row for those who hunger spiritually
One row of flowers
One row for seed …
One row to fill our needs whatever they might be
The garden where we all will grow
Into a flourishing community

This I believe:

I believe that the seed of good and evil resides in each of us.
I believe that each of us is capable of committing acts of good and evil depending on which seeds we   nourish. It is for us to choose.
I must work diligently to identify the acts of violence that I participate in knowingly or unknowingly   and take action to make things right with the victims of said violence.
I believe that I should not stand in judgment of anyone.
I must never believe that violence can serve righteousness.
I must never believe that I am incapable of violence.
I must never believe that good is good if it is only for me and mine.
I believe that I will know peace only when I find it at the center of my being.
I believe that I will be an effective peacemaker in the world only to the degree that I know the peace   that is at my center.
I believe in silliness.
I believe in taking “ME” lightly.
I believe in the spirit of play that is holy.
I believe in the holy human spirit.
I believe that this is the spirit of “LIFE”.
pax

How the story transforms the teller | Donald Davis | TEDxCharlottesville

Let Your Light Shine In The Darkness - New Scottish Hymns

CHOOSING MY NAME

CHOOSING MY NAME

It all comes down to how I answer one question.

Who do I want to be when I grow up?

Too many choices,

I can’t decide –

Narrow the options, please.

Is it the lure of material things?

Am I as good as they are?

Will I have to show them?

Hello,

My name is Richard.

My grandfather’s father was Richard.

My father’s father had a brother named Richard.

My father and mother had had a daughter and three boys

And one more named Richard.

Uncle Ben seemed better than Uncle Richard when I was fifteen years old.

VOCATION

Take yourself seriously.

Work as if no one else can do your work.

Infuse your work with an intensity that only you can know the reason for.

Obscurity and gravitas will make you a poet extraordinaire in the eyes of some

And you will die just as the rest of us, little understood and mostly forgotten.

That’s why you had better enjoy what you are doing

while you are doing it.

PILGRIMAGE

A pilgrim is a person who is on a pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred shrine,

an important place, an important memory,

an important truth…

I am one traveler

searching for

a history,

a time,

a story,

a place,

my name.

My Field of Expertise?… I have no field of expertise…All that I have known is me…

How well can one know God?

Looking for Affirmation… Tell me that I am good. I won’t believe it but tell me anyway.

Familial illusion … tightly knit back coverers

Community of individuals … They have backs too.

And then a sudden revelation:

All of those whom I have idolized are as ordinary as I am.

I am somebody,

ORDINARY

and

PLAIN

No Regrets

I had no regrets as we said goodbye.

As we parted, I knew that I had said the words

that needed saying.

 I knew that I had loved with the love that needed loving.

The inevitable parting knew no regrets.

How lovely is your dwelling place

Who Am I? - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!
March 4,1946

Julian of Norwich's Body Prayer

“The fruit and the purpose of prayer is to be one with and like God in all things.”

AWAIT(hands at waist, cupped up to receive): Await God’s presence, not as you
expect, hope, or imagine, but just as it is in this moment.
ALLOW(reach up, hands open): Allow a sense of God’s presence (or not) to come
and be what it is, without meeting your expectations.
ACCEPT(hands at heart, cupped towards body): Accept as a gift whatever comes or
does not come. Accept that you are not in charge. Accept the infinity of God’s
presence, present whether or not you are aware.
ATTEND(hands outstretched, ready to be responsive): Attend to what you are called
to, actions that God invites you to from this stance of openness

Blessing of the New Day

GOD, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before;
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Bless Thou to me mine eye,
May mine eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbor,
May my neighbor bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of Thine eye;
Bless to me my children and my wife,
And bless to me my means and my cattle.
ex Carmina Gadelica, Volume 1, by Alexander Carmichael

Failure

It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
J. K. Rowling

Solitude

Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. In ancient times, purposeful solitude was both palliative and preventative. It was used to heal fatigue and to prevent weariness. It was also used as an oracle, as a way of listening to the inner self to solicit advice and guidance otherwise impossible to hear in the din of daily life.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes