… watching for the brushstrokes of God
Give us holy boldness, Lord: to struggle for justice until we die.
The butterfly has eyes, the chameleon blends in, the turtle has a shell, the bug turns into a stick…nature has many ways to protect those bold enough to venture out.
What gives you the courage to be bold?
I am watching the birds sitting on the wire and wonder, “What do you see?” The beauty of the world before you? The gift of being part of God’s creation? Having a conversation with God about the daily stuff of life? Or simple being?
What do you see with bird’s eyes view?
Abandoned buildings, torn spiderwebs, the world falling apart. The end! Or is it the beginning? A threshold, a vision, a dream... “Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:19
How do we transcend the cycles of violence while still living in them? What do we behold?
One day when Bashó and one of his 10 disciples, Kikaku, were going through a rice field, Kikaku composed a haiku on a red dragonfly that caught his fancy. He showed it to Basho
Take a pair of wings
From a dragonfly, you would
Make a pepper pod.
No, said Bashó. “that is not a haiku. You kill the dragonfly. If you want to compose a haiku and give life to it, you must say:
Add a pair of wings
To a pepper pod, you would
Make a dragonfly.
Kenneth Yasuda, The Japanese Haiku
Adding wings…giving life…A subtle shift changes the whole picture. What does it take in our thinking? In our world today?
“Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart.” Francis of Assisi
How do you find inner peace?
“We are, all of us, engaged in priestly work, the work of transformation. But it may be work that is deemed useless by the standards of the world.” Kathleen Norris
How do we decide what is useful?
With the Eyes of the Heart 