Lived Experience Forum

[Dimity]

Hello @Delicatessen @Appleblossom @pinklollipop15 and all interested

I loved your New Year post 

@Delicatessen and thought it would be great to be able to recall and revisit it during the year and maybe add to it occasionally.

So here's the Peace Prayer of St Francis of Assisi again.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Thanks for the CAC link @Appleblossom https://cac.org/daily-meditations/

 I haven't subscribed as there's usually a lot to unpack but a couple of weeks ago I ordered a Rohr book. I occasionally look at what Laurence Freeman (of WCCM) or Bill and Kristi Gaultiere have to say.

In 2023 I'd like to set aside more time to dip into Emergence Magazine articles and podcasts on spiritual ecology. https://emergencemagazine.org/ which isn't Christian but universal and honours nature, the environment, and indigenous cultures.

Cheers, Dimity.

[Dimity]

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

[Owlunar]

That's beautiful @Dimity 

Thanks for sharing - I really appreciate those comments - they give me a lot to reflect upon

Owlunar