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This week I am offering "Light" the product of God's love for everything that grows openly, unconstrained, enabling growth with fullness and delight. Below the pictures I put in a letter I sent to a friend who, when we met and talked a few weeks ago quoted Leonard Cohen - one of the great poets and songwriters of the age. Please take some time to read the letter and the poetry that follows below the first two photos so the light offered by others can enter.
This week I am offering "Light" the product of God's love for everything that grows openly, unconstrained, enabling growth with fullness and delight. Below the pictures I put in a letter I sent to a friend who, when we met and talked a few weeks ago quoted Leonard Cohen - one of the great poets and songwriters of the age. Please take some time to read the letter and the poetry that follows below the first two photos so the light offered by others can enter.
"There's a crack, a crack in everything,
that's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen
Look for the Light, there's always an opening
When the Light enters and we face and embrace it,
wondrous flowers will be offered in gratitude
for our turning to the direction where God can be seen
--------------------
- A recent letter to a friend -
Dear (my friend) ________ ,
I was thinking
about the Cohen quote, "There's a
crack, a crack in everything – that's how the light gets in." My
thoughts are that to see this "Light' one must get inside everything – or
at least make a start and get inside one thing, open the heart's eyes, and let
the Light of God's Spirit infuse one's being at God's speed, not ours.
Lazarus, in the total darkness of the tomb first heard the voices at the
entrance, then saw the light at the stone was rolled away, but it was not the
light of day he saw but the Divine Light shining through the eyes of Jesus. I
believe this to be so - how often have we been illuminated by the Spirit's
Radiance as it shone through the presence of another, or was carried on the
wings of another's speech, or from the pages of a book, or from a piece of
music that lights up our very core.
To see the crack
from the outside is simply an observation of a flaw. To get the Gift we go
inside – everything. Yet, the paradox is that we can see the crack in another's
armor and their ever present Light will come through from their interior. To
see growth in someone I may be working with, an illumination of some sort, is
also to see The Light. It all depends on sight, opening the eyes of the heart.
So, the outside can also be the inside.
Here are two poems
by David Whyte;
- THE OPENING OF EYES -
That
day I saw beneath dark clouds
the
passing light over the water
and
I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I
knew then, as I had before
life
is no passing memory of what has been
nor
the remaining pages in a great book
waiting
to be read.
It
is the opening of eyes long closed.
It
is the vision of far off things
seen
for the silence they hold.
It
is the heart after years
of
secret conversing
speaking
out loud in the clear air.
It
is Moses in the desert
fallen
to his knees before the lit bush.
It
is the man throwing away his shoes
as
if to enter heaven
and
finding himself astonished,
opened
at last,
fallen
in love with solid ground.
David Whyte
- Loaves and Fishes -
This
is not
the
age of information.
This
is not
the
age of information.
Forget
the news,
and
the radio,
and
the blurred screen.
This
is the time
of
loaves
and
fishes.
People
are hungry
and
one good word is bread
for
a thousand.
-- David Whyte
(And from myself, something of a resurrection
story.)
-
Seeing The Light –
Into
the light, out of the cold darkness of long winter's reach,
Spring
rushes in, quickly, as it does every turn of the circle.
The
seasons are God's Promises coming around again –
The
Teaching is made visible, death of the old brings the life of the new.
The
beech trees outside our door are Spring's work in action,
Speeding
to life the buds holding the brown leaves
That
never left during the past months of cold, ice and snow, now fall,
As
new life dislodges the long dead to the grounds grave below.
Emerging
as the growth of the new leaves of Spring,
Life
is nourished by the decay of what has already died.
What
appeared to be lifeless, is far from total demise,
All
the wisdom in still useful cells, is the food offering new growth.
God
only says, "Yes."
My
pleas for answers go unanswered;
What
I already knew, the circle of my life,
Has
for many years been visible to these eyes –
Spring
to Summer, to Fall, to Winter –
And,
Spring again.
Losing
memory of Spring when deep into the short days of Winter,
God,
realizing the nature of my disbelief, my loss of hope –
Fulfills
the promises made that need not be repeated,
New
Spring will arrive even if I am called Home in Winter.
Winter's
last breath, as will be mine,
Is
always followed by New Life,
A
different Spring for a different day.
We
will all know this truth eventually.
Peace and serenity my friend, in and with The Light.
Bill
--------------------------------------------------
Though the night holds its terrors,
and fitful dreams enter everywhere -
the Light continues to find its way in,
The Always Present Sun of Hope
----------------------------
And a little humor:
- Falling in love for the first time -
Peace and serenity until next week,
Bill Lagerstrom
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