To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. When we do it knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, destructively, it is a desecration.
– Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land
Workers at Chrissy Field in hazmat suits cleaning up after the oil spill in the SF Bay after the Cosco Busan had hit the Golden Gate Bridge. Certainly, it wasn’t willful, but it was negligent and mindless. Let us treat nature mindfully with loving care. *by the way, if you look closely, you can see the faint outline of the Golden Gate Bridge, hidden by the fog.
The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
-Terry Tempest Williams from Talking to God: Portrait of a World at Prayer (anthology)
There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe. The horizontal threads are in space. The vertical threads are in time. At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual, and every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net, but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.
One of the many origami paper cranes from our prayer service in San Rafael in 2012
The Dominican Sisters of Peace shared with us the following prayer for the International Day of Peace
Gentle Spirit, Breathe in us the wind of truth, wisdom and righteousness. May your Presence inspire us to create labyrinths of peace. Compassionate One, Make our hearts burn with love, honoring all peoples and creation. Bless all nations, every family and community while we seek to work for justice and unity. Prince of Peace, Lead us to ways of healing and reconciliation we pray with those who suffer and struggle. Bless us with your reconciling love that knows no boundaries as we seek to live in community, justice and peace. So be it.
Whether we are suffering at present or have suffered in the past, there is no reason to be unhappy. If we can remedy it, then why be unhappy? And if we cannot, there’s no use in being unhappy about it – it’s just one more thing to be unhappy about, which serves no purpose at all.
We are departing for the skies. Who has a mind for sightseeing?
-Rumi
This is truly the color of the sky at the Dublin Airport. There’s a little dodging of the foreground and a ND filter applied. Only it was an arrival, not a departure. Amazing!
OPreach 