… watching for the brushstrokes of God
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do. Mary Oliver
What does it take to be dazzled?
Sometimes you need the ocean light and colors you’ve never seen before painted through the evening sky.
Sometimes you need your God to be a simple invitation… David Whyte
What invitation do you need?
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” Wendell Berry
When are you free?
Sunsets draw us. Is it their quiet beauty? Their stunning colors? Their peacefulness? Their promise of rest at the end of the day? The permission to let go as the sun dips below the horizon? A spaciousness to breathe and be rejuvenated?
How do sunsets draw you?
On day two of creation God separated earth and sky, creating a horizon. Horizons beckon us beyond ourselves toward a vision. Though visible they stay just beyond our reach, thus beckoning us onward in our journey while staying present to where we are.
What horizon is beckoning you? What imagination does it take for this journey?
Fishing out at sea
watching, waiting, sitting still
the beauty, not the catch
What activities draw us because of their restfulness?
With the Eyes of the Heart 