A poem by Dawna Markova - I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart 
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
Dawna Markova, author of I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion.

The Measure of the Preacher's Life

Sunday comes,
and then Sunday comes again,
and the next Sunday will come in the same measure of time.

Sometimes I hear the promise in this.
Not today. 
Today it sounds like the curses
Hurled at the backs of Adam and Eve
as they fled Eden.

From an article by William Easum "When People Would Rather Be Nice than Be Christian"  -
People who would rather be nice than Christian do not love enough. 
They do not have enough compassion. 
Instead, they are afraid of hurting someone or of being hurt. 
But fear is the opposite of love: "Perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18).

Split leaf philadendrom

My neighbor told me it was time to bring the plants in.  So I finally re-potted the split leaf philadendrom that loves being outside in the summer.  It gets so big and happy all summer long, sitting in the garden.  It had completely outgrown its pot.  So I put it in a bigger one and brought it in.  Winter is hard on it.  It loses leaves.  It shrinks.  It hates winter, just like I do.
This is my grandmother's plant.  It lived on the back porch in Texas.  My mother took it when grandmother died.  And gave it to me.  It is about the only plant I try to keep alive.  And so far, I have succeeded.  But when it is sitting in my living room, sometimes it whispers to me, "Why can't we live in Nicaragua?  I would fit right in there, under a lemon tree in your courtyard.  I don't belong here at all."  Yeah, I whisper back.  Me neither.

now the eyes of my eyes are opened

Yesterday, I visited a woman
who was too busy dying to talk to me. 
Beside her bed was a book of poetry. 
I riffed the pages' edge to find a place
where the book opened easily,
and so I came upon this poem,
which spoke most clearly:

i thank You God for most this amazing day
By e e cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Overheard on FaceBook

Part of a conversation:

I open my mouth and sometimes it makes people hate me.
I keep my mouth shut and sometimes it makes me hate myself.

Maybe that would make a good prayer of confession.

It makes me think about what I say and fail to say.  There are lots of times I keep my mouth shut when I have an opinion or observation that I know would not be welcomed.  And if I thought it was just cowardice over what others would think, I couldn't live with myself.  But I tell myself that my concern - the thing that stops me from speaking my mind - is that I care about the other person, and the possibility of a relationship with them, and the peace of the community we both share.   My opinion is rarely as valuable as any of that.  And, to be honest, I don't have a very good track record of knowing when speaking up is and is not helpful.  If I err (which I do) I'd rather err on the side of silence. 

Before I forget - a poem I like.

Forgetfulness
By Billy Collins


The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted  
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins, “Forgetfulness” from Questions About Angels. Copyright © 1999 by Billy Collins. Reprinted with the permission of University of Pittsburgh Press