Time to Exhale

"Humanity is at a critical point in the material civilization ... to prevent our civilization from running headlong into an abrupt and spectacular end, we must at least stop inhaling. We have reached our lung capacity. In order to continue this grand cycle of life, we must soon begin to exhale. After that we can breathe in again. The choice is before us. For the very survival of humanity, we need to collectively let our breath out."

--Ilchi Lee, Peaceology

Tender Affection

"[Francis] was moved by the same tender affection toward fish, too, when they were caught, and he had the chance, he threw them back into the water, commanding them to be careful lest they be caught again. Once when he was sitting in a boat near a port in the lake of Rieti, a certain fisherman, who had caught a big fish ... offered it kindly to him. He accepted it joyfully and kindly and began to call it brother; then placing it in the water outside the boat, he began devoutly to bless the name of the Lord. And while he continued in prayer for some time, the fish played in the water beside the boat and did not go away from the place where it had been put until his prayer was finished and the holy man of God gave it permission to leave."

--Thomas of Celano

(As found in We Thank You, God, for These: Blessings and Prayers for Family Pets, by Anthony F. Chiffolo and Rayner W. Hesse, Jr.)

"The Call"

"The Call"
by George Herbert

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:

Such a Way, as gives us breath:

Such a Truth, as ends all strife:

Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:

Such a Light, as shows a feast:

Such a Feast, as mends in length:

Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:

Such a Joy, as none can move:

Such a Love, as none can part:

Such a Heart, as joys in love.

Creatures of Light

You are a creature of light.

From light have you come,

to light shall you go,

and surrounding you through every step

is the light of your infinite being.

--Richard Bach

"How it is sometimes..."

"Dust"

a poem by Dorianne Laux

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor--
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn't elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That's how it is sometimes--
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.

Interrelatedness

"All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (Warren, Mervyn A.; Taylor, Gardner C. (2008). King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. InterVarsity Press. p. 174.)

"Either you look at the universe as a very poor creation out of which no one can make anything or you look at your own life and your own part in the universe as infinitely rich, full of inexhaustible interest, opening out into infinite further possibilities for study and contemplation and interest and praise. Beyond all and in all is God."

--Thomas Merton (A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life, p. 111)

The incarnate Word is with us,

is still speaking, is present

always, yet leaves no sign

but everything that is.

--Wendell Berry (Given: Poems )

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church--

I keep it, staying at Home--

With a bobolink for a Chorister--

And an Orchard, for a Dome--

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.

--Emily Dickinson (236, The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W.
Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999))

An Excerpt from the Works of Aldo Leopold

[....] We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy; how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable side-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

(Leopold, Aldo: A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There, 1948, Oxford University Press, New York, 1987, pp. 129-132. )