Singing New Songs

Howard Thurman writes in today’s offering about singing new songs. He notes:

“The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out. It has long ago been learned by heart so that now it repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit. It is a good song, measured to a rhythm to which I am bound by ties of habit and timidity of mind. the words belong to old experiences which once sprang fresh as water from a mountain crevice fed by melting snows.”

That is, things get familiar and stale. But Thurman will of course have none of that.

“I will sing a new song. As difficult as it is, I must learn the new song that is capable of meeting the new need. I must fashion new words born out of all the new growth in my life…. I must prepare new melodies that have never been mine before…. Thus, I may rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding.”

What new tune is out there today?

Fire Flowers

Fire Flowers

Howard Thurman writes in Meditations of the Heart of the fire flower.  Doing a little research, the fire flower is, in some areas, one of the plants that tend to follow a burn-off, an early bloomer in a forest area decimated by fire.  “To spring into life with color and freshness where fire has burned and heat has laid waste – this is the quality and grace of the fire flower.”  But Thurman is not a botanist.  His interest in the fire flower relates to people, and he calls out those  “fire flowers” in humanity, those “men and women who seem always to have the right word, the saving gesture, the simple deed that makes the barren place beautiful, the burned-over area to spring into life with color and freshness.” 

We all know those people.  We’ve had them bloom in our lives – perhaps not perennially, not even annually, perhaps just from time to time, perhaps they bloomed for us just once.  The offer of help from a stranger, the smile of a child in the midst of a long day, a note from a friend, a stranger letting you into the seemingly endless line of traffic.  Perhaps some of us even are fire flowers, at least sometimes, in the lives of others.  Even cacti bloom.

Thurman closes on this:

“What a gift of God, what a grace of life to be blessed with the magic of the fire flower!”

New Arrivals Daily

Nudged this morning back to Rumi’s The Guest House as translated by Coleman Barks, and drawn to the opening lines:

“This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.”

Indeed: “Every morning a new arrival.”

Viewed in that light, it seems a little silly to think I can rely blindly on experience with the former arrivals, yesterday’s departures. 

Text and Photo Sunday

This one has always seemed a bit mean spirited to me, but it has been sitting in my “ready to go” folder for a long time. I decided it was time to release it into the universe. And besides, we all run across “those people” from time to time, and, hopefully infrequently, are one of them. So here goes:

Points, Ladders, Walls

This morning from Howard Thurman:

“Perhaps I am doing what I am doing just to prove a point – spending a lifetime to prove a point that is not worth proving at all.”

This makes me think of the significance of purpose.  It is so easy to become focused on accomplishing what is being done that we lose sight of the “why” – why it is being done.  Which points me back to one of my favorites – as you climb the ladder of success, make sure it is leaning on the correct wall.

Math

I heard this from Kate Bowler recently on a podcast and it has stuck with me —

“Our lives are always for something even if the math isn’t quite obvious to anyone else but yourself.”

What occurred to me in contemplating this is that “the math” is sometimes obvious to me, not others, but that on occasion “the math” is obvious to others, not me. Which is, I suppose, what good friends and critics are for.