Thoughts: Imagine the unimaginable
Thoughts: Memory, and more
Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.
JOHN O’DONOHUE
Excerpt from, ‘On the Death of the Beloved,’ from his books,
Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store
Galway Bay, County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill
Thoughts: Go where they see you & want you around
My dad told me a variation on this…love it:
A father said to his daughter “You have graduated with honors, here is a Jeep I bought many years ago. It is pretty old now. But before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them I want to sell it and see how much they offer you for it.”
The daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father and said, “They offered me $1,000 because they said it looks pretty worn out.” The father said, now “Take it to the pawn shop.”
The daughter went to the pawn shop, returned to her father and said,”The pawn shop offered only $100 because it is an old Jeep.” The father asked his daughter to go to a Jeep club now and show them the Jeep.
The daughter then took the Jeep to the club, returned and told her father,” Some people in the club offered $100,000 for it because “it’s an iconic Jeep and sought by many collectors.”
Now the father said this to his daughter, “The right place values you the right way,” If you are not valued, do not be angry, it means you are in the wrong place. Those who know your value are those who appreciate you….. Never stay in a place where no one sees your value.”
Original source: Unknown
Writings: Letting go, with Thay
Letting go
Hearing the bell,
I am able to let go all my afflictions,
My heart is calm, my sorrows ended,
I am not longer boound to anything.
I learn to listen to my suffering and the suffering of another person.
When understanding is born in me, compassion is also born.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Writings: Love where you’re at
Even when you see nothing but love
Love where you’re at
Even when you see nothing put pain
Love where you’re at
When you’re not sure where to start
When you’re not sure when to finish
Love where you’re at
Over the hill is greener grass
Up in the sky are clearer skies
Deep in the water are visions seen & unseen
Love where you’re at
Love where you’re at, then get to work
What you share will help heal
And the healing spreads along with all that you share
– Brother Ian
Photo by Brother Ian
Are the leaves turning gold at the end of the summer,
or are they the glorious beginning of autumn?
As the leaves teach us how beautiful it can be to let go,
or maybe how hard that can be –
love where you’re at.
Remembering: Seamus Heaney reminds me of hope…can you see it? feel it? taste it?
It was 1989, and time to come up with a name for my just-born son. In an move I’ve never regretted, we named him Seamus (Shay for short), and though we agreed we weren’t naming him after anyone specific, it was cool that his name echoed this fellow from Ireland, who passed away in 2016.
During that period 32 years ago, folks asked us, baldly, how can you bring a kid into this world? It’s all so dark, so hopeless, so unforgiving, they said. I think this poem by Heaney answers the question far better than I did at that time. As I look at the tracks my sons both are leaving, as well as the ones they trace out as they make their paths, I believe in miracles, and the chance for hope & history to rhyme.
from “The Cure at Troy ” by Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.
The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.
History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
– Seamus Heaney
Thoughts: Mysteries, yes …by Mary Oliver
Mysteries, Yes
by Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Art by Sylvie Demers
Thoughts: Puddle love
Puddle love.
My friend Ellen is doing her teaching practicum at a pre-school…I asked her what interesting happened today.
She said she told a kid today that it wasn’t a great idea to drink out of a puddle. She brought years of biology (germs!), geology (mud!), anthropology (the other kids don’t seem to want to drink…this!), sociology (this isn’t something people in our culture usually do, you know!) to the discussion.
He listened, then spoke.
The kid brought his first-hand experience to the discussion (it tastes gross, but I was thirsty!) and was thus persuaded to go inside for a drink.
Win-win-win.
About Brother Ian
Over the centuries, Brother Ian has been collecting stories & information & discourses for the purpose of elevating the human condition as needed, dissecting it when necessary, and building the case for hope.
In the spirit of noting that organized crime, organized baseball, organized labour, and organized religion tend to engender controversy & occasional discord, I promise to be neither organized or critical of those who are.