The Summer Day - Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I happened to be standing - Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the possum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Bits & pieces

1. What are you grateful for?

2. What are you proudest of?

3. What’s been the happiest moment of your life so far?

4. What’s been the hardest moment of your life, and how did you get through it?

5. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?

6. How would you describe yourself as a child? Were you happy?

7. Who has been kindest to you?

8. How do you want to be remembered?

9. If your great great grandchildren could listen to this years from now: is there any wisdom you’d want to pass on to them? What would you want them to know?

10. If you could honor one person in your life — living or dead — by listening to their story, who would that be, what would you ask them and why?

(lifted from http://ideas.ted.com/10-questions-to-ask-your-family-aroun…/)

Close encounters of the unusual kind

Got into a cab a few nights ago and the elderly lady driver started talking to me about her life and her loving relationship with her husband/boyfriend. Then she mentioned that two years ago, she almost wanted to do something stupid and her husband said he would also follow her. I asked her what happened etc - long conversation, at the end of which when I alighted, I gently reminded her to take care and treasure all that she has now. Life is precious.
Lesson: Take buses more often. Can save money, too.

Was at a bus-stop tonight and this lady started talking to me, asking me how to let it go if someone has hurt her badly or if someone in her family has placed a charm on her? I asked her "oh dear, what do you mean? What happened?" A much shorter conversation this time, because when the fifth bus pulled up at the bus stop, she stood up suddenly and said "that's my bus".
Lesson: Can afford to take cabs on some nights.

Big lesson: Lord, thank you for trusting me to offer comfort and encouragement to strangers. Every encounter is a divine appointment. Amen.

The Light of the world

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." - Theodore Roethke
What do your roots comprise, I wonder?

There's nothing worth more that would ever come close,
No thing can compare, You're our living Hope,
Your presence, Lord.
I've tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves,
When my heart becomes free and my shame is undone,
Your presence, Lord.
(Holy Spirit, Jesus Culture with Martin Smith)

Taking hold of God's promises:
- Faith
- Obedience
- Courage and readiness
- Timing
- Discipline
- Remembering God

The year of the Lord's favour

A Jubilee year for Singapore

Thankfulness and gratitude

“Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.” 

“God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.”  

“‎"The real measure of our wealth is how much we should be worth if we lost all our money.” 

“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”  

- John Henry Jowett