"God was there before our arrival"

Our first task in approaching another people

another culture

another religion

is to take off our shoes for the place we are approaching is holy.

Else we may find ourselves treading on another's dream.

More serious still, we may forget...

that God was there before our arrival.

Kenneth Cragg has been a major figure in Christian-Muslin Conversations

13th Century Persian Prayer

Some nights stay up 'til dawn as the moon sometimes does for the sun.

Be a full bucket, pulled up the dark way of a well then lifted out into the light.

Something opens our wings, something makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us, we taste only sacredness.

Quote from This Dust Of Words - the story of Elizabeth Wiltsee

We saw the film This Dust Of Words tonight - the last film in a series of social/justice films that our parish has been screening. 

A quote that stuck with me was "Coincidence is an incidence in which God chooses to remain anonymous".

http://www.thisdustofwords.com/secondary/synopsis.html

From Thomas Merton

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image.  Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."

The Inner History of A Day

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

 

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

 

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

 

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

 

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

 

John O'Donohue

To Be Carried...

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.

 

~ John O'Donohue~