“A laugh’s the best answer to all that’s strange in life.” (2nd mate Stubb to 1st mate Starbuck in Moby Dick, film 1956)
 This is work that is alive, Effervescent, free, liberated, Gloriously enlightened, true, And great. Do you think it can be attained By people who shut the door And sit quietly with blank minds? -- Liu I-Ming (b.1737)Yeah, actually, I do. You see, the door and the blankness are working very diligently to teach us the mood of effortless engagement without ego. |
ROMEO
68 Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
69And fear'st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
70Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
71 Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
72The world is not thy friend nor the world's law;
73 The world affords no law to make thee rich;
74 Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
(Act 5, Scene1, Romeo and Juliet, wm shakespeare)
Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic church had grown “obsessed” with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics.
In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the church, saying it should be a “home for all” and not a “small chapel” focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings.
... “This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people,” he said. “We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”
(--from New York Times, re. Pope Francis)
"Like anything unwanted, carrying this news feels heavy and burdensome. It feels so much lighter to accept it, turn it over, and breathe fresh air. The sea, the beauty of the land, and the love of my friends in Nova Scotia have nourished me to stand straight, look at reality face to face, and claim my health and wholeness." (His words; 16sept13.)
To face—with open hands—armed, shielded, gas-masked riot police is the greatest form of courage. Non-violence is how you expose the violence of the system, and not seeing as “other” those charged with carrying out physical violence is how you communicate with them directly. (-- Paul Hawken, from "Upsurge")
http://www.tricycle.com/feature/upsurge
AFTER THE DIAGNOSIS
No remembering now
When the apple sapling was blown
Almost out of the ground.
No telling how,
With all the other trees around,
It alone was struck.
It must have been luck,
He thought for years, so close
To the house it grew.
It must have been night.
Change is a thing one sleeps through
When young, and he was young.
If there was a weakness in the earth,
A give he went down on his knees
To find and feel the limits of,
There is no longer.
If there was one random blow from above
The way he’s come to know
From years in this place,
The roots were stronger.
Whatever the case,
He has watched this tree survive
Wind ripping at his roof for nights
On end, heats and blights
That left little else alive.
No remembering now…
A day’s changes mean all to him
And all days come down
To one clear pane
Through which he sees
Among all the other trees
This leaning, clenched, unyielding one
That seems cast
In the form of a blast
That would have killed it,
As if something at the heart of things,
And with the heart of things,
Had willed it.
(--from every riven thing, by Christian Wiman)
