We seldom notice how each day is a holy place / Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens
-John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
This morning, outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head. . .
Everything is holy now
-Peter Mayer, from "Holy Now" on Million Year Mind (click on the link to scroll down and play a clip from this beautiful song)
What has revealed the holiness of this day to you?
Has the sharing of a meal become eucharist?
Has the song of a bird become a scripture verse, a sacred text?
© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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Thanks for a Peter Mayer fix. I can't get enough Blue Boat Home. He's another local, you know.
while breaking bread with my family last night, i looked out the window and saw a very plump robin sitting on a bare maple tree. a holy moment indeed that you just helped me remember. it was a high point of my day yesterday. thank you.
Thanks for the reminder…..my walk with Riley this a.m. was cold, very cold, wind was biting and I needed a heavier jacket. I knew the benefits of the exercise for him and for me but I wanted to turn around so many times. You have reminded me of the walk, soon forgotten when warmed up, that the walk was a sacred one – and of the similarities to my journey in Lent. I expect MindSieve will have something to say about this a.m. walk soon. Thank you as always for your inspiration!
I was counting my birds yesterday, New York City birds, but not so rare at all along five miles of parkland curling alongside the Hudson River, and which is also accompanied by a glorious bike and walking path (my photographic route to the altar of creation). In sacred reverence, I name these feathered friends — there are supposed to be at least 80 species sighted each year in Central Park — but these are the birds I've seen and photographed in lower Manhattan along the Hudson:
mourning doves, rock pigeons, sparrows, canadian geese, brandt geese, mallard ducks,
ring-billed gulls, robins, starlings, American crows, and even an elusive black and white, red-throated woodpecker (name?) on occasion!
I am tired through three weeks and more of broken nights looking after a newborn, which is my job. I lay in the hour before light this morning and let a blackbird's [UK] liquid dawn sonata soothe me back to sleep. Finding small things such as a looking at a magnolia tree in full bloom or the sound of bird song are my sacred moments in the day.
"the eucharist of the ordinary," wow, that's the kind of phrase writers envy. One of the few things I've learned on this journey is that the natural is supernatural enough for me.
Thank you for sharing these beautiful, holy moments. I am really moved by the comments, the plump robin, the sparrows and crows, the blackbird.
Richard, I love your own phrase, "the natural is supernatural enough for me."
Amen.