Riches make most people greedy, and so are like caravans lurching down the road to perdition. Any possession that increases the sin of selfishness or does nothing to confirm one’s wish to renounce what one has is nothing but a drawback in disguise.
– Jatakamala 5.5 & 15
Month: October 2019
Flamenco
shame & guilt
Jesus was concerned with the healing of human shame and human guilt. He was always taking away people’s shame, always taking away their low self-esteem, and reintroducing them to the village, the temple, the priesthood, and their families. He was healing relationships even more than just healing bodies. And now many would say that we (the Church/Christians) have ended up being the chief purveyors of guilt and shame, instead of healing it and transforming it into life and light. We have decided, for some reason, that it is better to remind people of their unworthiness and brokenness, instead of their potential to be temples of the Holy Spirit. It became taught and learned helplessness in far too many cases. – Richard Rohr, OFM
Just honor fully what you meet each day and you will find it drenched with grace and divinity.
when the wind stopped…
#1063 – after the wind, day 2
the wind
#1062 – after the wind
Christianity stands or falls
Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear … Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Buttoned Up
“Whoever has no house by now will not build.” – Rilke
so many houses
all buttoned up
mid-October
late afternoon
kitchen lights on
silence in the barn
each tool hung
on its proper peg
I know these people
I’ve never met
every autumn I long
to be them but
I’ve walked away
from every home
I’ve ever owned
lights off tools forgotten
dark and exposed
winter in the wind
Edge of Atlantic 