Untitled

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:13:00 +0800

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

— William Stafford

explore-blog: May 20, 1990: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill...

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:56:00 +0800

explore-blog:

May 20, 1990: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson’s remarkable Kenyon College commencement address on creative integrity.

…

“Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions you’ve learned how to ask yourself.”

beingblog: A big, tough samurai once went to see a little...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:52:00 +0800

beingblog:

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.

“Monk!”

He barked, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience.

“Teach me about heaven and hell!”

The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain,

“Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dumb. You’re dirty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you.”

The samurai got furious. He shook, red in the face, speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword, and prepared to slay the monk.

Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly,

“That’s hell.”

The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell! He put down his sword and fell to his knees, filled with gratitude.

The monk said softly,

“And that’s heaven.”

Excerpted from Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values.

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

"Changing ourselves. Surely that must be what we’re after when we look at pictures and watch movies..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:45:38 +0800

“Changing ourselves. Surely that must be what we’re after when we look at pictures and watch movies and listen to music. It sounds more Californian than it really is. Changing ourselves includes switching on the radio when we’re bored — to change from being someone who’s bored to someone who’s being less bored, or bored in a different way. But of course we would prefer to think that the art we venerate does more than feed us sensations to keep us from the gloom of everyday existence. (Why would I prefer that? What’s wrong with the opposite? I remember someone saying that all human creativity is a desperate attempt to occupy the brief space or endless gap between birth and death.) We would like to think that art remakes us in some way, deepens us, makes us ‘better’ people.”

- Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt van Rijn Remember,...

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:56:00 +0800

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt van Rijn

Remember, He is with us.

Photo

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:39:58 +0800

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:39:00 +0800

"The earth has music for those that listen"

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:28:33 +0800

““The earth has music for those that listen””

- William Shakespeare

Happy Birthday, and RIP.

A Daddy’s Letter to His Little Girl (About Her Future Husband)

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:20:00 +0800

April 17, 2013
(by Kelly M. Flanagan)

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’t need to be keptinterested, because he knows you are interesting:

I don’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stop looking.

I don’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me—as long as he can play with the children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet—as long as he follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.

I don’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I couldn’t care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up every morning and daily elects you to a place of honor in your home and a place of reverence in his heart.

I don’t care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness.

I don’t care if he was raised in this religion or that religion or no religion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred and to know every moment of life, and every moment of life with you, is deeply sacred.

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have the most important thing in common:

You.

Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should have to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.

Your eternally interested guy,

Daddy

———

This post is, of course, dedicated to my daughter, my Cutie-Pie. But I also want to dedicate it beyond her.

I wrote it for my wife, who has courageously held on to her sense of worth and has always held me accountable to being that kind of “boy.”

I wrote it for every grown woman I have met inside and outside of my therapy office—the women who have never known this voice of a Daddy.

And I wrote it for the generation of boys-becoming-men who need to be reminded of what is really important—my little girl finding a loving, lifelong companion is dependent upon at least one of you figuring this out. I’m praying for you.

[http://drkellyflanagan.com/2013/04/17/a-daddys-letter-to-his-little-girl-about-her-future-husband/]

Have you ever wondered, well I have,About how when I say, say,...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:34:00 +0800

Have you ever wondered, well I have,
About how when I say, say, red, for example,
There’s no way of knowing if red
Means the same thing in your head
As red means in my head
When someone says red?

And how if we are travelling
At almost the speed of light,
And we’re holding a light,
That light would still travel away from us
At the full speed of light?

Which seems right in a way,
But I’m trying to say… I’m not sure…
But I’m wondering inside my head,
I’m not just a bit different from some of my friends…
These answers that come into my mind unbidden…
These stories delivered to me fully written…

And when everyone shouts - they seem to like shouting -
The noise in my head is incredibly loud,
And I just wish they’d stop, my dad and my mum,
And the telly and stories would stop just for once.

I’m sorry - I’m not quite explaining it right,
But this noise becomes anger, and the anger is light,
And its burning inside me would usually fade,
But it isn’t today, and the heat and the shouting,
And my heart is pounding, and my eyes are burning,
And suddenly everything, everything is…

Quiet…
Like silence, but not really silent…
Just that still sort of quiet
Like the sound of a page being turned in a book,
Or a pause in a walk in the woods.

Quiet…
Like silence, but not really silent…
Just that nice kind of quiet,
Like the sound when you lie upside down in your bed.
Just the sound of your heart in your head…

And though the people around me,
Their mouths are still moving,
The words they are forming
Cannot reach me anymore.

And it is quiet…
And I am warm…
Like I’ve sailed
Into the eye of the storm…

Quiet by Tim Minchin, from Matilda the Musical

“I pray youtake this weeping heartand all the broken thingthat lies within Your handDistil the...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:39:43 +0800

“I pray you
take this weeping heart
and all the broken thing
that lies within Your hand
Distil the agony
until
from all its hurt
a single drop of sweetness
may remain
changing the substance
of this death in earth
to make all new —
a rising sap
to bring the transformation
of the spring”

— Margaret Torrie

ruineshumaines: Daisy by Ben Torode.

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:24:01 +0800

ruineshumaines:

Daisy by Ben Torode.

reginasworld: Alyson Provax, Time Wasting Experiment

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:22:57 +0800

reginasworld:

Alyson Provax, Time Wasting Experiment

likeafieldmouse: Alyson Provax - Time Wasting Experiment...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:21:00 +0800

likeafieldmouse:

Alyson Provax - Time Wasting Experiment (2011)

close your eyes, and listen.

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:27:00 +0800

close your eyes, and listen.

arpeggia: Norman Parkinson for Vogue, 1971

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:26:59 +0800

arpeggia:

Norman Parkinson for Vogue, 1971

"We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough..."

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:39:49 +0800

“

We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.

Let our scars fall in love.

”

- Galway Kinnell (via middlenameconfused)

likeafieldmouse: Saul Steinberg - Fingerprint Man (1951)

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:03:05 +0800

likeafieldmouse:

Saul Steinberg - Fingerprint Man (1951)

"People see God every day, they just don’t recognize him."

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:24:33 +0800

“People see God every day, they just don’t recognize him.”

- Pearl Bailey

beingblog: “Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 23:52:00 +0800

beingblog:

“Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work — hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss — loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.”

~Jean Vanier from Finding Peace

Photo by George Duncan, cc by-nc-nd 2.0

Hear more of Jean Vanier in L’Arche a Community of Brokenness and Beauty