Imagine a glass of cold water – feel it. Take a sip, feel the coolness run down your throat. Feel the water enter your body. Feel it pick up the things that you no longer need and cleanse them away from you. What is it washing away?
What do you need to get rid of?
Do not afflict me with a vision so narrow and a heart so small,
That all my greatest hopes could be accomplished within a single lifetime.
Rather, bless me with an unquiet spirit.” -From “A Prayer for Unfinished Business” by Kelly Weisman Asprooth-Jackson
What do you imagine that goes beyond your lifetime?
“I give thanks to the waves upholding me, hail the great winds urging me on, greet the infinite sea before me, sing the sky my sailor’s song: I was born upon the fathoms, never harbor or port have I known. The wide universe is the ocean I travel, and the earth is my blue boat home.” -Peter Mayer, from “Blue Boat Home”
Celebrate Earth Day today.
At the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is the celebration of Eid al-Fitr. It is a day of sweetness and celebration, of charity towards those in need, and of seeking forgiveness for wrongs.
Practice grace and generosity toward others today.
Ah, it’s true.
When our ancestors spoke of heaven,
they were speaking of this moment.
When they went on about nirvana
they imagined a time like this.
When they sang of paradise,
it was this morning they imagined.
A time when all the mysteries of life and death
are blended in a community of praise,
when the bones of ancient lovers
are given flesh again in our own bodies,
teachers of long ago speaking of love and truth
once more in lives so ordinary they are
extraordinary.
Blest is our breath, in and out, quiet,
blest is our sitting, our fidgeting, our movement,
blest is our heartbeat echoing
the pounding alleluias of the distant stars,
blest is the silence that is presence,
not absence. -”In Heaven,” by Marco Belletini
Spend some time in silence today.
