OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Finding Beauty
Beauty is before me.
Beauty is behind me.
Beauty is below me.
Beauty is above me.
I walk in beauty.
– Navajo Prayer
Getting Perspective
I’ve learned to time things so that I am driving with a beautiful sunset off to the west as I drive home. It calms me. It gives me perspective. I think, “There is a hideous traffic jam in front of me. There are trucks on either side of me. This is a mess and I can’t believe any good will ever come of it. But look at that phenomenal sunset! Look at those clouds. Look at the reflection on the mountains. Look at how it makes the snow sparkle on the mountains.” It puts things in context.
JoAnn Valenti
Are We Going Out or Going In?
It was not like taking the veil, no solemn abjuration of the world, I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay till sundown for going out I found that I was really going in.
– John Muir
Weekly Photo Challenge: One Shot, Two Ways
There was a song that sprang to mind when I saw this challenge. It was popular in the sixties, and sung by Judy Collins.
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, but still somehow
It’s clouds illusions I recall.
I really don’t know clouds at all.
Isn’t that the truth of it? What or whom we think we know, no matter how well we’ve studied and investigated, we find out we are only at the beginning of discovery. And more is of the ephemeral nature of clouds than we have any idea!
Celebrating Nature through the Lens
From the time I first picked up a camera, I have celebrated nature through my lens. And nature has responded by teaching me some extraordinary lessons.
– Dewitt Jones
Come Into the Light
Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.
– William Wordsworth
Nature Is Our Teacher
Nature is [our] teacher.
She unfolds her treasures to [our] search,
unseals [the] eye, illumes {the] mind,
and purifies [the] heart;
an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds
of [nature’s] existence.
– Alfred Billings Street
Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreshadow
What we are today foreshadows what we will be in the future. According to Carl Jung,
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
For some reason, we human being struggle with that, We often try to be other than who we truly are. I noticed while on retreat last week as I plucked the wild blackberries that grew everywhere, how lovely they were as tender pink flowers. And I saw their promise as unripe green and red berries. Finally, when they got to their fat black lusciousness, they tasted so sweet. The berries (or pre-berries that foreshadowed them) were satisfied to be in whatever state they were in there becoming. May we become who we truly are as gracefully (and as tastefully) as they.
Culturing Your Garden
Silence is the garden of meditation.
– Ali, Maxims of Ali
Where Is Your Altar?
Everywhere, wherever you may find yourself, you can set up an altar to God in your mind by means of prayer.
– The Way of a Pilgrim, author unknown
OPreach 