To See Heaven in a Beautiful Flower

   

           This photo makes me think that flowers grow as if they are worshipping the one
            who made them, I'm one of those flowers.

               William Blake once wrote,  "To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in
                                                                a beautiful flower hold infinity in the palm if your
                                                                hand and eternity in an hour."
                                                                  
                                                                      

God is at Eye Level

 

The natural world offers us so many symbols that speak to our inner life. Creation is a map to a spiritual journey.  Everything outward is symbolic of an inner reality.  I wonder how many thousands of people pass this aspen tree, perceive the signigicance of what is seen, and merely look at it superficially. Can the "eye" in this tree cause one to see more than a mere tree? Can the sight that is faith look through things and beyond to the deepest eternal Reality, which is God? I say yes. Our human consciousness, our daily awareness of reality, lies waiting for the lightning bolt to awake our human perceptions to be truly a tune to all that is.  That is when we see with new "eyes."  

A Different Way of Life

  I've come to realize in this summer "place" and time hanging out laundry on the line is restorative to my soul.  In an era of moving quickly our surroundings become a blur as we fly past to something else.  We pay attention to our cell  phones, speedometers, to-do- lists, emails, and clocks all in an illusion to manage time.  But for me, this time here gives me the opportunity to be able to dry clothes in the fresh mountain air which is a blessed relief from the fast pace life most of us live.  It is a time to reconnect and be in communion with all others that are able to do the same task as I do.  It is  a time of reverence, of slowing down, listening, feeling, connecting, but most of all  prayer.  This prayer comes in the form of being blest to bend down and feel the wet weight of the clothes as the basket creaks as I set it down.  The prayer continues as I gently shake loose the articles of clothing that are entwined. I can smell the dampness mingled with the fresh air as each article is hung.  How blest am I to be able to breath.  I feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders as I pin each piece.  Above all  I can see the laundry as a sacred prayer contained in God's love and presence.  Even the arrangement of the linen plays a sacred song as they twist and wave in the warm breeze.  I look at the wooden clothespins and add a prayer for the trees from which the pins came.  I imagine my thoughts, feelings, and prayers spinning their way to the tops of the trees.  I believe there are times that we are in communion with which often times grants more life than kneeling in prayer.  Maybe for me at this time hanging laundry is the most authentic prayer in reach.

Risk

       " Our destination is never a place,but rather a way of looking at things". 
                                                                               Henry Miller

                       Opening ourselves to the potentials of the universe we enjoy love, and let go
  of the risk of not being able to be a bloom for the Divine. Hope is born while facing the unknown and discovering that one is not alone.                 

A Picture in Which We See

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It is true for I see something of my story in images from many different places. Somehow seeing my emotions reflected in the world around me helps me to know that I am not alone. My story is seen and felt by something larger than myself. Below are some photos that I have taken so far since I have arrived in my summer "place".  I invite you to take a moment to sit with which ever photo draws you.  Notice what the picture stirs within you.      

St. Francis Prayer

Photographed at Our Lady of the Mountains

Estes Park, Colorado

 “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
―    St. Francis of Assisi

Fire In The Sky

The perfect storm came together at 6:30am Saturday morning June 9th, 2012.  The conditions for this storm had all the right properties.  Dry beetle infested trees, high winds, heat, low humidity and the last component from mother nature a lightning strike. As frightening and  dangerous as this fire is there is a feeling of contemplative awe that of wonder, beauty, compassion, suffering and tension that the whole universe holds. Learning to hold this tension between the reality of the moment and the possibility that something better might emerge, is explained by Parker J. Palmer in his book  A Hidden Wholeness.   He says we live in a tragic gap - a gap between the way things are and the way we know they might be.  We know what might be when we choose to live in areas of nature that offers high risk.  Whether that be forested areas, ocean fronts, or the heartland which also can be ravaged by mother nature. He also says in this tension that this small tight fist of a thing called our heart can break open into greater capacity to hold more of our own and the world's suffering, joy, despair and hope. This is so very evident in seeing and reading about the goodness of people when others are faced with tragedy, sadness, and loss. I look to the better things that will emerge from this fire, although I don't know what that will be at this moment, but I do know that God will see to the healing of his people and the restoration of this forest in his time.  I pray for the victims of this tragedy, the safety of the many firefighters working around the clock, and containment so something better can emerge. 

 

High Park fire seen from our deck

    

High Park fire plume Saturday 6/9/2012

 

Rocky Mountain High

      There is a time for being ahead,
       a time for being behind
       a time for being in motion
       a time for being exhausted
       a time for coming "home" to
       the Colorado Rockies, a part of
       my life for so many years, and what
       a blessing it is.

      There is a part of John Denver's song  Rocky Mountain High that resonates in my contemplative heart as I find this place and "home" so absolutely incredible.  The song says "Now he walks in quiet  solitude the forest and the streams/seeking grace in every step he takes/ His sight is turned inside himself to try to understand/ The serenity of the clear blue mountain lake." I find John's words in the grandeur of these mountains, the clouds and light changing from moment to moment, and the smell of juniper, sage, and pine after a sweet mountain rain.  Yet we are here now for this brief moment in time seeing, receiving and being rooted in love that holds us in this life.  Could the serenity John sings about be found in the beauty of a clear blue mountain lake, or the grandeur of a high mountain top, in the oceans, and hillsides, and fields of golden wheat? For me it is being still enough to connect, and present enough to open my mind to the infinite blessings and love that is around us all of the time.  For me this could begin to say SERENITY? 
    

The "Door" Within

                                            

                                                                        Where is the Door?
                                                                        Where is the door to God?
                                                                        In the sound of a barking dog...
                                                                        In the ring of a hammer...
                                                                        In the drop of rain...
                                                                        In the face of everyone,
                                                                        I see...
                                                                        Where is the door
                                                                        to the divine?
                                                                        ...in all that we can behold.
                                                                       
                                                                                 Hafiz
                                                                       
                                                   Within you lies all  the courage your need...
                                               solitude opens all the closed doors
                                                         even those that are nailed shut.
                                                                                                              Nancy Wood
                                                                                  
                                      

One Man's Gratitude

The morning sun was just rising fiery red on a clear blue day that promised heat latter on.  In this bleak,stark landscape of West Texas stands a cross of proportions than that of none other.  Although this phenomenon does not date back to the day of the old  Route 66, which I was traveling that day, it surely is an attraction that definitely is the spirit of the Mother Road. 

Steven Thomas was the structural engineer that designed and built this cross out of a desire to publicly profess his disdain for XXX pornography locations along I-40. His cross is surely a testament to God just in it specifications alone..  The cross stands 190 feet tall, it weighs two and a half million pounds, the base of the cross reaches 3 stories underground, and it took 70 truckloads of concrete to pour the foundation.

In the contemplative'eye' we can experience the world directly and joyfully.  Once the openness of what 'this'or 'I' think about what I see, it is possible to engage with the 'thatness' of objects of perecption. It is then we begin 'deep noticing'. This flash of perception is the experience whether it be pleasant or unpleasant I find so compelling.  It is the desire to resonate and connect to the object we perceive which brings us one with the universe.  In that brief moment, we are transcended to become one with what is. The cross extends this invitation again and again as we seek and find this symbol entwined ever so gently throughout our lives.  This invitation gives us love, humility, compassion, justice, failure, successes and so much more; that I daily have to take up my cross.  As I saw this flash of perception along Route 66 that beautiful morning, the cross resonated an unconditional evenness that does not come from self or others.  Thank you God and Steven Thomas.

The Blessings of a Bench

     Not long ago in a far off distance sat a lonely bench beckoning to me to take a long loving look to see beyond what was sitting there.  For what reason or reasons does this image in the photograph call to me beyond just the physical elements it possesses?  Is it in the dichotomy of the stark contrast between worn and torn, and a place that also supports hope and life?  The dictionary defines "bench" as a place of rest, a place of support,  place for justice.  Might these definitions and this image remind us of the opportunity for God to break through to our imperfections, as well as, lead us to a life where hope, beauty, and growth abound.  Does not our humanness seek a place of rest, support, and possibilities of justice?  I work hard to patch the holes of my heart to conceal any imperfections, (unlike the bench) broken pieces,or sharp edges only to find a flood of surprising richness and beauty that lies within.  Sure, we can sand and paint over the roughness of our lives, but what if we don't?  What if we allow the imperfections and broken bits to show; what if we accept them, even peer into them to see ourselves as a place to hold life and beauty as well as our imperfectness?  And if I stand before you exposed (as the bench does) allowing my weakness and broken bits to show both in my mirror and your eyes, could it be that both of our lives might be enriched?  And by the grace of God the beauty in the glowing moment of bloom, we will clearly see the soft colors that promise us hope and life that so richly is the contrast to the "unsanded" parts of our being.  Could it also be that we will reach a place in which the stark, rough, sharp bits of us are turned into a radiant, loving light filled with beauty beyond our imaginations, and our imperfections will truly be a thing of beauty?