Written daily for my colleagues, to encourage a reflective space during the work day, these reflections and prayers will also be posted here from time to time.
“Where-ever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, and then crept into the pale mist.”
Mary Oliver
“Your sacred place is where you can find yourself over and over again.
Joseph Campbell
“I went to the woods because I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when it came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Matthew 13:44 (NIV)
MY PRAYER today is for balance. The balance between being and doing. There are patterns if we look for them. The sun sets before rising again, we breathe in before we exhale. The tide ebbs and flows. We open our eyes to the morning and close them to the night. We are people of action and of rest. In order to act again, we must replace what we have used, refill what is empty, restore what is worn, refresh what has become stale. Today, Wednesday, my day off, I realised late morning when I opened the doors to the warmth, the sun sparkling on the river and shining through the windows, that I had been moving about in absolute silence. There was not a noise anywhere, not a car, or a bird, not even an Air Force plane humming down the road. There was not a breath of wind, it was absolutely still, and so bright. Like Mary Oliver’s poem, I felt a little bit like the old poets in china, climbing through the mountains and stepping out suddenly from the mist, into the blue. Today may we remember to go to that place, where we can find ourselves, and God, once more. Let go of guilt and distractions. We have more to gain than to lose.
Living Tree Poetry 