Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self.
This is the man that I want to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy.
– Thomas Merton
acceptance
acceptance
The important thing is to make the best use of one’s possessions and capabilities—there are still plenty left—and to accept the limits of the situation, by which I mean not giving way to feelings of resentment and discontent.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Happy New Year
Vin Santo
that New Year’s Eve
we stood on the hill
above the vineyard
watching fireworks
rise above the lake
from Pieve to Anghiari
later in the stillness
of the barn the cat chasing
our shadows on the wall
a moment so full
if today we could talk
we’d agree we had no better
earlier at the bar in Caprese
Michelangelo we couldn’t decide
what to drink to the new year
vin santo an old man said
holding up his glass
certo vin santo
Photo: Casa Singerna, Caprese Michelangelo, IT – January 2005 – J. Dewaters
gratitude
Three years ago – a little more than 1 month sober – I was in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. I was pretty sure I could fool the people there into thinking I was ok, get out, and do the job right the next time.
This morning at one of my favorite AA meetings, I saw a woman I met at that hospital. She caught my eye and we smiled at each other across the room. We spoke for a few moments after the meeting and hugged.
She looked healthy, happy and I could see that she thought the same about me.
I have not forgotten all that I did in the past. I did all that, yes. Today, my addictions do not define me.
Gratitude.
Thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank God.
In Tenebris by Ford Madox Ford
All within is warm,
Here without it’s very cold,
Now the year is grown so old
And the dead leaves swarm.
In your heart is light,
Here without it’s very dark,
When shall I hear the lark?
When see aright?
Oh, for a moment’s space!
Draw the clinging curtains wide
Whilst I wait and yearn outside
Let the light fall on my face.
(Photo: Portland, Maine – 12.25.2019)
in the fury of the moment…
that enormous emptiness
in recollection of 12.22.2016 and in grateful recovery 12.22.2019
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
long, deep, and lovely
For some reason, we tend to localize evil in our bodies more than in our mind, heart and spirit. We are terribly ashamed of our embodiment, and our shame is invariably located in addictive things like drinking, drugs, sex, overeating and body image. Maybe that is why God had to become a body in Jesus! God needed to tell us it was good to be a human body. That is central and pivotal to the Christmas message.
I’m surely for a proper sexual morality, but Jesus never once says this is the core issue. They tend to be sins of weakness or addiction, more than malice or power. In fact, Jesus says that the “prostitutes are getting into the kingdom of God” before some of us who have made easy bedfellows with power, prestige and possessions (Matthew 21:31). These are the attitudes that numb the heart, allow us to make very egocentric judgments and dull our general spiritual perception. For some reason, much of Christian history has chosen not to see this, and we have localized evil in other places than Jesus did. It is the sins of our mind and heart (see Matthew 5:20–48) that make the Big Picture almost impossible to see. This teaching is hidden in plain sight, but once we see it in text after text, we cannot any longer unsee it. Mary seems to have seen long, deep and lovely.
– Richard Rohr, ofm
I just want to hold you…
So many hearts I find
broke like yours and mine
torn by what we’ve done
and can’t undo…
I just want to hold you
won’t you let me hold you…
Edge of Atlantic 