OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Let Go
If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren’t afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can’t achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place.
When you handle the master carpenter’s tools,
chances are that you’ll cut yourself.
– Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonders forever.
– Jacque Yves Cousteau
Be a Wildflower
May your life be like a wildflower,
growing freely in the beaut
and joy of each day.
– Native American Proverb
So How Do You See It?
It’s a beautiful world to see,
Or it’s dismal in every zone,
The thing it must be in its gloom or its gleam
Depends on yourself alone.
– Anonymous
Wisdom from Basho
The temple bell
stops ringing
but the sound keeps
coming
out of the flowers
– Basho
Let the Beauty We Love Be what We Do
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
– Rumi
Wonders – Always before my Eyes
I’ve read all the books but one
Only remains sacred: this
Volume of wonders, open
Always before my eyes.
– Kathleen Raine
Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
– Ansel Adams
Be At Peace
Be tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.
– Natalie Goldberg
For Dappled Things
Today I share an image of Sister Adele Rowland, OP, one of our sisters. She was famous for her work in photography, particularly Photo Montage. This particular image was created in 1978, long before the advent of Photoshop; she did her creative work in the darkroom, with film, and with slides. I am including an article about her from The Petaluma Post. This particular image is entitled For Dappled Things; Sister surely had Gerard Manly Hopkins poem in mind when she created it.
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple
upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow,
and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle
and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled
(who kows how?”
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers – forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise [God].
– Gerard Manley Hopkins
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