Yesterday I sat awhile in the sunshine. It was an icebox out there in the backyard, and yet the sun felt warm on my face. I put a pause on my day and went out to sit with it.
Today the clouds came back and by afternoon the snow was falling again. Tonight it falls still.
I’ve been thinking about joy in these days of hard, scary headlines. Joy as a response to the good and the beautiful. Life is well known to be overwhelming, disappointing, frustrating, anxiety-driven, just plain hard. Meanwhile good and beautiful things are all around, but easily passed by or superseded by pain, anger, confusion.
It seems that, for whatever reasons, it often takes intentionality to walk with eyes to see and ears to hear the good and the beautiful. It takes noticing and naming. Sometimes it takes a pause to let the sun shine on your face. There, in the presence of beauty and good, is grace.
And in recognizing grace, there is joy.
On this St. Patrick’s Day, I reach for my favorite Irish poet and his book, titled exactly right for this very time: To Bless the Space Between Us.
I went looking to see if there was any online file to hear John O’Donohue read this particular poem himself, but couldn’t find any. You can hear him here though, which I highly recommend. And also here, reciting my favorite of his. But first – for today…..
For Equilibrium
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.
As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.
Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.
As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.
As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.
As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
To hear in the depths the laughter of God.
As time remains free of all that it frames….
May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of God.
Even in these days.
Amen.
living into the light