It occurs to me…

Photo taken in Galveston a few weeks back. Text from Thoreau’s Walden.

I have this feeling of deja vu all over again that I sent circulated this one before. If so, here it is again. Photo taken in Galveston a few months back.

From Kate Bowler on a podcast recently listened to:

“I am letting myself off the hook for the feeling that there’s going to be a finished life for me.”

It is, on true reflection, a comical thought, isn’t it, even absurd if you have reached adulthood and “been around the block a time or two” — the thought (much less the expectation) that somehow, some way, all the loose ends are taken care of and everything is wrapped up in a nice, tidy, attractive package, the scissors and tape are put away in their place, and we get to the Post Office  before it closes to drop the package off. Whose life is that?

I like Bowler’s pluck.  No apologies.  Like a voice mail that says: “You’re just gonna have to accept the package as is.  I dropped it off on your doorstep late last night while I was out putting air in my tires because my low air pressure light came on in my car, or maybe it was just because the temperature dropped, anyway, it is in the Whole Foods paper sack my groceries were in last week.  Sorry, one of the handles is unglued, and be careful, there are some fragile items in there.  But anyway, there it is. Enjoy.”

Taken on a recent walk a few blocks from the house.

Today’s piece from Howard Thurman from Meditations of the Heart is entitled “I Seek Room for Peace.” 

“I seek the enlargement of my heart that there may be room for peace.  Already there is room enough for chaos.”

Pulling back and contemplating that, it lands a solid punch.  And there is some schadenfreude in knowing that Thurman and I share a common struggle.  No need to make room for chaos, “already there is room enough for chaos.”  No, what I need to do is make room for peace.  And this comes only by enlarging the heart, not by transplanting it — nothing that radical, but by enlarging it, by opening up that nous, by making a little more room to take something to heart, and doing that over and again, over and again, over and again….. 

Photo recently taken in San Leon, Texas on a fishing trip.

This from Howard Thurman stuck with me this morning:

“I have been letting life grow dingy on my sleeve.”

Skepticism, cynicism, doubt – they all come naturally, at least for me, perhaps even more so in recent history.

Thurman’s remedy:

“I seek this day an active wonder.”

And his prayer:

“Teach me this day to expose to Thy scrutiny, my father, the frayed edges of me aliveness until they are renewed and freshened by they Healing and Thy Love.”

Another of those “mistake” photos, that ended up on my camera. Text from Anthony DeMello.

From Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day, which is over-quoted for good reason:

“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?”

This bookends well with a few lines from my Howard Thurman read for the day from Meditations of the Heart:

“I have been letting life grow dingy on my sleeve. Often it is very easy to take all things for granted. This I do with my friends; often also with the joys that are inherent in much of my living; also with the blessings and graces of life without which much of living would be utterly beyond the springs of my endurance. I ascknowledge the commonplace in my life and my surroundings.

I seek this day an active wonder.”

“I have been letting life grow dingy on my sleeve.” Guilty as charged. But that only leads to Oliver’s question: So, “what is it you plan to do….?”

Photo taken this past week, sunrise in San Leon, Texas. Text from Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart.

Prayers out to those in the path of hurricane Ida.