Very Nice, Very Nice

Hey friends. It's been too long. I've received more than one suggestion to get back on the horse here. This is foundational to some other aspects of life for me, and part of me is lost not having done much processing here. I hope to commit to more of this in the future, more often.

As a return to form, a wonderful avante garde movie from Arthur Lipsett, that I thought was groovy. From 1961. Dig it.

"Warmth and brightness will return, a renewal in the hopes of men."

Celtic Wisdom in Norway...

“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.”

O'Donohue - Anam Cara
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About 5 years ago, I started kicking a hole in my private universe. Some light got in. It’s brought with it so many new words and feelings that I’m just now accessing a way to talk about it. It has bent my soul in a manner that won’t allow me to forget how life used to be, nor overlook the new mysteries of how life is unfolding.

There is no standing still. No going back. I know that truth. I’ve experienced a lot of communal grace in the last year that has kept me taking those steps forward. To continue the process of healing. And for what? What is the what? Driving along the seaside of Norway helps with that contemplative space. All I see is one beautiful, continuing coastline.

As I take it in, I’m attempting to cast a further vision for my life, past present uncertainties.
I have this moment. This day.
This community of friends, lovers, poets and prophets.
A heart that hungers for creative questioning and life collaborating.
I want to know more love. More beauty. More truth. All more fully.
A language that helps reconcile my brokenness, expresses shared longings, and invites further exploration.
I want to be more free with myself.
And I want to learn how to give it away with humility and grace.

Today I AM knowing love, beauty and truth. And the longing doesn’t appear to stop. That’s the reconciliation in this moment. All the love, beauty, truth, and new language to speak of it will never put it to it’s end. So, a compelling vision today looks like engaging with the newfound ache of joy and pain as a perpetual student and teacher…a wounded healer with an undying passion for the alleluia and the amen.

“Everything alive is in movement. This movement we call growth. The most exciting form of growth is not mere physical growth but the inner growth of one’s soul and life. It is here that the holy longing within the heart brings one’s life into motion. The deepest wish of the heart is that this motion does not remain broken or jagged but develops sufficient fluency to become the rhythm of one’s life.”

O'Donohue - Anam Cara

Vacational calling…

I’m just on the other side of 10 days in London, with a day and a half in Paris in the middle of it. I spent a few months there under different circumstances, many years ago, and it was magical returning to experience it this way. There is still shock that it happened. Financially, I wasn’t in the position to do it, but with some thanks to frequent flyer miles, dreams advance. I’ve not had a lot of time to write – or more honestly – I’ve wondered if what has happened to my head and heart were believable to me, let alone to others, that I could sit and write it to you.

On this day, I can still access moments on the trip where I looked at the beauty around me…looked at my hands…listened to myself breathing. I had to make sure it was me, there. Still shaking off fear. Experiencing the wonder of new life. Hope. It wrecks me to think about it too often. Gratitude, tears, a deep exhale…all caught up in a simple remembrance…the sun, a garden, a curry, a headache, a ticket stub, an outstretched hand, a song. A new song.

Every day there seems to be a new welling. And a new assertion. I’m seeing my life and some of the pieces shuffle about in ways that lead to the biggest smiles I’ve had in years…and some of the most healing tears.

I am…we are…prisoners of hope. Those who are bound to belief. This morning, John O’Donohue offered words to these indescribable feelings.

FOR A NEW BEGINNING

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

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I have glimpsed this terrifying and beautiful world, and I want to take it further into my being today.

Dr. Jimmy and Traditional Understanding

Naked As We Came...

For a smile: play, listen, repeat.

Begin again.

The cost of freedom is high today. So high. To be alive is to say I’m going to push against the evil in the world and fight for what is good and true and loving.

To be alive is also to know that fighting is sometimes standing still, and refusing to engage. To not speak to the lies. Let them dissolve in their own foolish time. The stuff of love will stand.

I have an ache today. It's something of a familiar feeling, like one I'm going to settle in with for some time. Grabbing a good grip on something quite heavy and starting to move. Recently, some friends and I arrived at a hard truth that "there may be no significant fundamental change in our lives." The limp, the gash, the bruise, the weight, the burn, the luggage, the hole, the fear. Most of what I can hope for is a community that allows me to put those things out in front of me from time to time and receive some tenderness and mercy.

"The man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God. No man is an island." T. Merton.