Godlight

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”

                                                                                                                                 C.S. Lewis

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the grip of darkness is broken

the wretched gray is gone

frigid winds are stilled

and in the moment of dawn

gold streams from the heavens

spilling through the trees

kissing the grass

turning the snow to diamonds

and the world sparkle bright

love in a sunrise

“Godlight”

In the woods

The insatiably hungry

“The psyche cannot tolerate a vacuum of love. In the severely abused or deprived child, pain, dis-ease, and violence rush in to fill the void. In the average person in our culture, who has been only "normally" deprived of touch, anxiety and an insatiable hunger for possessions replace the missing eros. The child lacking a sense of welcome, joyous belonging, gratuitous security, will learn to hoard the limited supply of affection. According to the law of psychic compensation, not being held leads to holding on, grasping, addiction, possessiveness. Gradually, things replace people as a source of pleasure and security. When the gift of belonging with is denied, the child learns that love means belonging to. To the degree we are arrested at this stage of development, the needy child will dominate our motivations. Other people and things (and there is fundamentally no difference) will be seen as existing solely for the purpose of "my" survival and satisfaction. "Mine" will become the most important word.”

                                                                                                                                                                ― Sam Keen,

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what does it take to make a life?

what enables one person to go through life

connected

reasonably content

what is the difference between the joyous family gathered

in the rather run down house filled with run down furniture

and the rather brittle group that stares at each other over the finely set table?

what is the difference between those

who walk  through life comfortable in their own skin

happy with what they do, who they are, what they have

at peace,

and those who walk through life

always worried

never settled

always wanting, needing more

it may not be too simplistic to say that the difference is love

that sense of being loved, being enough

that sense that you matter to others ( and of course to God)

I pray this day for the insatiably hungry

those who are missing that sense of being loved

and who will always, endlessly, be seeking

I pray for all the needy children of this world

no matter what their age

or wealth

or title

I pray for the little ones

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Editorial not

I expect this means that I am praying for most politicians

For people such as the Koch Brothers

For ministers

And all who feel they have to earn their acceptance

My prayer is simple

And it is my prayer for myself

May they learn to settle into the warm Presence of the Sacred

A Haiku, and more, for Thanksgiving

“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.”

― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

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A Haiku for Thanksgiving

how does thanks emerge

by waiting for gifts received

or living gratefully

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O Sacred one

let me on this day of thanks

choose to be a person who lives with gratitude

may I be both thankful

and expectant

“We plough the fields, and scatter the good seed on the land;

But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand:

He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,

The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain.

All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above,

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord

For all His love.

He only is the maker of all things near and far;

He paints the wayside flower, He lights the evening star;

The winds and waves obey Him, by Him the birds are fed;

Much more to us, His children, He gives our daily bread.

We thank Thee, then, O Father, for all things bright and good,

The seed time and the harvest, our life, our health, and food;

No gifts have we to offer, for all Thy love imparts,

But that which Thou desirest, our humble, thankful hearts.”

                                                                                From Godspell