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Reflections

Category: Poetry

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Earth Arising In Us

Ninth Duino Elegy (excerpt) Earth, isn’t this what you want?  To arise in us, invisible? Is it not your dream, to enter us so wholly there’s nothing left outside us to see? What, if not transformation, is your deepest purpose?  Earth, my love, I want that too.  Believe me, no more of your springtimes are needed to win me over – even one flower is more than enough.  Before I was named I belonged to you.  I seek no other law but yours, and know I can trust the death you will bring. -Rainer Maria Rilke from In Praise of

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April 24, 2007

Testimony

Testimony (for my daughters) I want to tell you that the world is still beautiful. I tell you that despite children raped on city streets,  shot down in school rooms, despite the slow poisons seeping from old and hidden sins into our air, soil, water, despite the thinning film that encloses our aching world.  Despite my own terror and despair.   I want you to know that spring is no small thing, that the tender grasses curling like a baby’s fine hairs around  your fingers are a recurring miracle. I want to tell you that the river rocks shine like

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April 22, 2007

The Art of Disappearing

Tomorrow I head off to the Spiritual Directors International Conference being held this year in Vancouver, BC.  I am especially looking forward to my workshops on First Nations cosmology and one on animal companionship and spirituality. When I return Sunday I have two projects I really need to focus some time and energy on, so I am going to take a blogging break until the end of next week just to clear some space for myself. -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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April 11, 2007

Holy Thursday

I was praying this morning about Holy Thurday, about what it means to me that Jesus took bread and broke it, and shared it with his friends.  He said this is my body.  He poured the wine and said this is my blood.  These words have rippled through time and woven us together in a common narrative.  I thought about the ways that sharing of food across cultures and religious traditions has great significance.  Meals become sacred acts.  Breaking bread and pouring wine are sacraments because they immerse us in the nourishment of all that is holy and remind us that any divisions between us

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April 5, 2007

What Keeps You From Being Fully Free?

Passover Then you shall take some of the blood, and put it on the door posts and the lintels of the houses . . . and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. -Exodus 12:7 & 13 They thought they were safe that spring night; when they daubed the doorways with sacrificial blood. To be sure, the angel of death passed them over, but for what? Forty years in the desert without a home, without a bed, following new laws

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April 3, 2007

Flowers Appear on the Earth

For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance. Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!  (Song of Songs 2:11-13) Yesterday was a beautiful morning in Seattle.  I went on a walk with Tune to capture more images of those wondrous cherry trees. As the flowers appeared on the earth I heard the ancient call that keeps

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March 22, 2007

Guardians of Beauty

We are the guardians of His Beauty. We are the protectors Of the Sun. There is only one reason We have followed God into this world: To encourage laughter, freedom, dance And love. Let a noble cry inside of you speak to me Saying, “Hafiz, Don’t just sit there on the moon tonight Doing nothing  – Help unfurl my heart into the Friend’s Mind, Help, Old Man, to heal my wounded wings!” We are the companions of His Beauty We are the guardians Of Truth. Every man, plant and creature in Existence, Every woman, child, vein and note Is a

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March 8, 2007