“Keep walking though there is no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what what we do.”
RUMI
For some reason, my brother thinks it’s funny to strut around scantly clad, showing off his muscles. He runs about grunting and growling, hollaring things like, “arggg! I’m a tank!” “YOU KNOW YOU WANT ME!!!” “Grrr, step off women!” We haven’t really figured out what to do with this.
external soundtrack-Johnny Cash
Well, it’s out there for the world to see, hope the critics like it. Check it out and let me know what you think. www.sfccolorado.com
exerpt from Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
“Ash Wednesday came early this year. It is supposed to be about preperation, about consecration, about moving toward Easter… it offers us a chance to break through the distractions that keep us from living the basic Easter message of love, of living in wonder rather than doubt. For some people, it is about fasting….
So there are many ways to honor the day, but as far as I know, there is nothing in Scripture or tradition setting it aside as the day on which to attack one’s child and flagellate (I don’t even know what this word means, Jenny-def??) oneself while the child climbs a tree and shouts down that he can’t decide whether to hang himself or jump, even after it is pointed out nicely that he is only five feet from the ground.
But I guess every family celebrates in its own unique way.”
I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It is a clear and honest picture of life with the grace and clarity of God’s wisdom peppered throughout that is opening my eyes to God’s grace and love in my own far from perfect life. It is such a relief to know that my own halting, faltering steps toward God are accepted and I am loved despite my fumbling, foolish attempt to move closer to him.
“The ashes remind us of the finality of death. Death is God’s no to all human presumption. We are sometimes like the characters in Waiting for Godot. where the only visible redemption is the eventual appearance in Act Two of four or five new leaves on the pitiful tree. On such a stage, how can we cooperate with grace? How can we open ourselves up to it? How can we make room for anything new? And so people also mark themselves with ashes to show that they trust in the alchemy God can work with those ashes-jogging us awake, moving us toward greater attention and openness to love.”
“it’s not what you are, it’s what you like.”
-High Fidelity
