Whether we travel a block away or a continent over, to go anywhere on Earth is to arrive as a guest in a place touched by God. What would it look like to travel as tourists while finding satisfaction in the things that should matter most to us as pilgrims, principally love of neighbor? – Ezra Craker, Sojourners Magazine
if you don't read anything else this month below, read my toast to the woman I met in Taizé named Maria (pictured above in the bottom center and right photos): https://celebrate-2day.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-toast-to-maria.html
As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, may your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills. When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance, may your imagination continue to evoke horizons.
- John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
Yet though the music of the heart may grow faint, there
is in each of us an unprotected place that beauty can always reach out and
touch. When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing
among the silence of the mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness take us over… When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth… the heart of vision is shaped by the state of the soul. When the soul is alive
to beauty, we begin to see life in a fresh and vital way…When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and sanctuary. - John O’Donohue, Beauty:
The Invisible Embrace
When our eyes are
graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who
see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been
dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines
what we come to see. ― John O'Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
May I have the
courage today to live
the life that I would love, to postpone my
dream no longer but do at last
what I came here for and waste my
heart on fear no more. – John
O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
May you be blessed with good friends. May you learn to be a good friend to yourself. May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness. May this change you. May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you. May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging. May you treasure your friends. May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey. -John O’ Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
May you
recognize in your life the presence, power and light
of your soul. May you realize
that you are never alone… May you have
respect for your own individuality and difference. May you realize
that the shape of your soul is unique, that
you have a special destiny here, that behind the facade of your life there is
something beautiful and eternal happening. May you learn
to see yourself with the same
delight, pride, and
expectation with which God
sees you in every moment.
-John O’
Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
How lucky I am to have something that
makes saying goodbye so hard. -Winnie the Pooh
