Good Morning

The Earth travels fast, and life with it, moves rapidly to make what has been our life. The day begins and before we can even wipe our eyes to greet the day it is time for the afternoon sun to fade into sky. If the morning is our first glimpse of the day, the hours can be long and measured, as though we have a blank canvas drawn out in the sky inviting us to share in creating something new and great. It is a chance to live with the uncertainty ahead.

New beginnings are always upon us, not just on January the 1st.  Even as new beginnings take hold of our lives, endings are wrapping up all we once knew in one moment of collision and transformation. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good night.  Do we have any greeting for those of us awake in those hours between dusk and dawn? Is it any wonder that as I let the my mind wander forward or backward, my life is still there wherever I left it? If I continued along with my life one experience followed by another, I'd be more understanding of the change that is always happening around me. Try as I may to keep up, I may as well live with what I can do with what is here. Just as light and shadow dance through the trees swaying in the wind, I inhale to take in what is fully present, the full reality of here and now. Its power comes from the interconnection of the elements of life's lyric echoed in a chorus of birdsong and commute. Repeat. This day is like yesterday, but it is today, creating its own verse in the midst of the metered pattern of life and death.

The path of life ahead is fraught with mystery. We may try to understand what will happen entirely with science, religion, philosophy, or an interpretation of history that is like today. Taking from these to form some of our picture of today,  the only sign of what we do tomorrow is what we do today. Life doesn't take place overnight; living does. Living while taking in the dynamic force of movement comforting us with the constant charge that flows freely as life again takes shape from what has been.

And so as I stood by the bedside of a dying man, massaging his shoulders, holding his hand, I looked into his face and saw his beauty. His life culminating in seasons of laughter and wonder, conversation and delight that formed him that day. These were the moments that I never saw take place, but was able to witness in the color in his cheeks and the vibrancy of character. In memory of our moments of listening, I hear the heartbeat of life creating the rhythm of the dancing that takes us all to experience.

          

    

These photos take me back to where I have been and saw that it was important to be where I was.  They are periods of standing in a place to witness the world around me which left me feeling my connection to it. Such places moved me with the rushing current of life has left me present to the unexpected that is always forming. I am ready to be a part of it. I am as ready as I'll ever be.

Cosmic Sunshine

Sunshine opens my eyes as view a sunrise. The daytime leaves me with a strikingly different view of the galaxy than the night where the stars and moon color the distances beyond comprehension. Stopped in my tracks by the fast movement in life, I don't have to stop it to enjoy it. I can ride with it, surfing time, as visions of color permeate my consciousness. There it is, the larger picture that is so vast that I am humbled by the changing scenes that flash by with the flicker of a wing and a leap of a trio of deer.

Can I open my senses in the same way that I open my eyes? To open the reality that for a second is before my eyes I need not capture it, but be with it, as it is here. In memory of all the that is now the past that allowed this one to be born, I live.

Smiles That Change the World

"I say why all the loneliness and why all the fear,  if it's up to me there'll be none of that here."
Joe Crookston

A smile offers a little bit of sunshine that is not only lasting, it can very often begin or create a connection that can spread to all of us. When words cannot be found for appreciation, comfort, delight, pleasure, excitement, and often hope, a smile can be the expression of our feelings for such moments. It is in gladness the present becomes real, and the present becomes our life forming experience that changes our lives; often for the better. Like a birdsong evokes the first breath of dawn, a smile can be that instant where darkness starts to fade into the light.

It is this mystery that cannot be held, even for a moment. Like water running through our hands, we have the moment to create something that is for the moment. Smiles offer a consoling, knowing welcome, an agreement in unison, or a sign that the fearful have seen a light at the end of the tunnel. Even when despair lingers and confusion swirls into our minds or causes chaos in our lives, a smile is that breath of fresh air that becomes understanding. Understanding that there is more than all this sorrow, loneliness and fear.

Joe Crookston sings from his soul, evoking his desire to leave a better world for the generations that will inherit what we leave behind. He doesn't want what he has seen others or maybe even himself face. That's why he sings and asks why we have all the anger and greed that are the seeds of war and poverty. The injustice that tear us apart rather than bring us together can begun to be reconciled with a smile, with a seed of hope from a hand of welcome and embrace.

Yesterday in becoming better acquainted with one of my neighbors, I felt his warmth not from his words, but from the combination of words of friendship and the gentleness of his smile. Once affected by a smile, we are never the same, we feel it in the roots of our heart as we know our lives matter that we too can take the smile we received, and offer it to another as night becomes day and the moment becomes ours briefly to create a way of healing out of this fear and into jubilation and peace.

The sunlight of dawn reflecting off the water as its light spreads everywhere; like a smile spreads hope.

Outstretched Hands

What we touch often with our hands, we feel, and what we feel gives us our experiences of life. We open our hands to embrace our neighbor who is grieving or our family who is celebrating. We extend a hand of welcome to the stranger who seems out of place. We create and build our lives with our hands. Most of all, our hands are often our connection to the surface and depth beyond what we directly sense immediately.

When we cannot walk barefoot, or do not want to, we sense our touch with the way we use our hands and if we do not have the use of our hands, we compensate with how we hold onto what we need. Our hands can create or destroy and the choice is ours in understanding which we will do. Hands are often a symbol for community when they hold an outstretched hand of another person in their midst or for building community through our relationships and our work to make the world a more livable place.  The dance of life is led and followed as it ebbs and flows through the nights and days we form and create in beauty and wonder.

I was inspired to write this post by what I saw in a compassionate action that could not have been done if we did not value the role our hands have in shaping life. In caring for another person in a more difficult place in life, a friend was able to provide dignity and a sense of cleanliness and beauty to a woman who needed a bath. While doing this, she soothed this woman's skin and provided love and care with gentleness and patience that transformed life for both women. This act in hospice care is simple, yet very important to giving and providing life-filled moments. We can beautify our world by holding our hurting sisters and brothers, picking flowers and brightening a dark day, welcoming a new friend into our midst, tell a story that will change lives, and shape our days one minute at a time as our hands direct the path we choose to live.

Flowers picked to fill the room with color.