Those moments are as powerful as the frail flame of a candle that can light an entire dark room. Judith Garrett Garrison and Scott Sheperd Be not perplexed, Be not afraid, Everything passes, God does not change. Patience wins all things. He who has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. Teresa of Hurting, they came to him, Healed, they followed him. Grateful, they gave to him what they had and what they were. Blessed, they became a blessing and went out to all the in his name. Those who are hurt and healed grateful and blessed still move among us in his name. Ann Feeling strong and strongly feeling. Being glad and glad of being. Care for need and needing caring. Sharing self and selfless sharing. Full of spirit spirit filling. Will is warm and warmly willing. Give joy enjoy the giving. Life is love and love is living. Joseph Byron Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. Native American saying Silence exists in me. There are no words for the loss I feel. The only sound I hear is the song of your caring. Judith Garrett Garrison and Scott Sheperd The soul’s home is not the body- the body craves and decays. And the soul’s home is not a church, a house, a room— they hold only empty space. The soul-home is a tone, vibrations of emotion sustained. A poem can a soul—so can a painting or a song. And a soul will sing on invisible strings, on resonant chords of a love that simply accompanies. Gale Swiontkowski I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see. Nicholas Woltertorff Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what to do it. Kathleen Casey Theisen We can’t pray that God will make our free of problems; this won’t happen, and it is probably just as well… But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. They discover that they have more strength, more courage than they ever knew themselves to have.
smile, open your eyes, love and go on. David Harkins All that we love deeply, becomes a part of us Helen Keller I’ve discovered that every new thing I do is like a little grain of sand. I add one grain of sand to another. It’s beginning to feel as if at some point they will form one big block of granite that I can stand on. Elizabeth Harper Neeld The colors of my life are bountiful and bold, The purple glow of indigo, the gleam of green and gold, The splendor of the sunrise, the dazzle of a flame, The glory of a rainbow, I’d put ‘em all to shame. No quiet browns and grays, I’ll take my days instead, And fill them till they overflow with rose and cherry red! And should this sunlit world grow dark one day, The colors of my life will leave a shining light to show the way!” from the Musical “Barnum” Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through the eye of the needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. W.S. Merwin Ah, Grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog who to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you into the house and give you your own corner, a worn mat to lie on, your own dish. You I don’t know you’ve been living under my porch. You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the to warn off intruders, to consider my your own and me your person and yourself my own dog. Denise Levertov Finally on my way to yes I bump into all the places where I said no to my life all the untended wounds the red and purple scars those hieroglyphs of pain carved into my skin, my bones, those coded messages that send me down the wrong street again and again
cadence of that will not give up the Let it be we will expect little but the beating of our heart, stubborn in its repeating rhythm that will not cease to sound. Let it be we will still ourselves enough to hear what may yet come to echo; as if in the breath, another breathing; as if in the heartbeat, another Let it be we will not try to fathom what to meet us in the stillness but simply open to the approach of a mystery we hardly dared to dream. Jan Richardson May the God who listens to our hearts and enters into our pain bless us and all who are in need with the comfort and quiet of His gentle presence, now and always. Amen. Marchiene Vroon Rienstra May soul that touches mine— Be it the slightest contact— God therefrom some good; Some little grace; one kindly thought; One aspiration yet unfelt; One bit of courage For the darkening sky; One gleam of faith To brave the thickening ills of life; One glimpse of brighter skies Beyond the gathering mists— To make this life worthwhile And heaven a surer heritage. George Eliot Blessing for Grief When you lose someone you love, Your life becomes strange, The ground beneath you gets fragile, Your thoughts make your eyes unsure; And some dead echo drags your voice down Where words have no confidence. Your heart has grown heavy with loss; And though this loss has wounded others too, No one knows what has been taken from you
Somewhere it has ended with the gun the knife the fist. Somewhere it has ended with the slammed door the shattered hope. Somewhere it has with the utter quiet that follows the news from the phone the television the hospital room. Somewhere it has ended with a tenderness that will break your heart. But, listen, this blessing means to be anything but morose. It has not come to cause despair. It is simply here because there is nothing a blessing is better suited for than an ending, nothing that cries out more for a blessing than when a world is falling apart. This blessing will not fix you will not mend you will not give you false comfort; it will not talk to you about one door opening when another one closes. It will simply sit itself beside you among the shards and gently turn your face toward the direction from which the light will come, gathering itself about you as the world begins again. ~ Jan Richardson I believe in the sun even if it isn’t shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when he is silent. WWII Refugee PRAYER PRACTICES Using your Imagination Some people find the imagination a useful tool in prayer. Picture Jesus healing people, and then see him walking towards you, looking at you with deep compassion, and stretching out his hands toward you. You could imagine that Jesus takes both your hands in his. Feel the warmth; the love; the sense of security, come what may. There is a Celtic encircling prayer which you could say as you image this: I my hands in yours, Lord, I place my hands in yours.