OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Guests on the Earth
Like the trees, we are visitors, guests on the earth.
– Kim Stafford
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
At Home on a Bed of Fern
He would have a quiet way. He would be a peaceful man. And maybe, when he was a little older, he could make a cedar house somewhere, at a secret place, lie down on a bed of fern there, and live, for a time, alone.
– Kim Stafford, from “Shell Ash at the Midden,” Wind on the Waves: Stories of the Oregon Coast
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
The Raindrop Is the Whole Ocean
Well, a bubble can’t last long, and a raindrop, what’s a raindrop for but to join the throng? Somehow they were aimed for the exact same moment in time, and they got there together. Then they were – what were they? The bubble opened, and was the whole sky, reaching as far as it wished. And the raindrop was the whole ocean, going where it pleased.
– Kim Stafford, from “A Bubble Can’t Last Long,” Wind on the Waves: Stories of the Oregon Coast
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
Sleeping on the Mountain
He had to sleep on the mountain. Loved his friends, but had to sleep somewhere by the trail, under spruce, above the foggy sound of waves. Had to find the trail by feel, without light. Had to say a blessing there.
– Kim Stafford, from “Creatures of the Mountain,” Wind on the Waves: Stories of the Oregon Coast
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
The Joy of Berries
It’s easy to laugh in the blueberry field, staccato plink and plunk as berries plummet into the pail, and you hear children banter in a dozen languages among the green rows.
– Kim Stafford, from “Easy Pickings”
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
Plant a Tree
Shall oil burn the sky? Or can
human wisdom like a sapling
grow taller, greener, more generous?
How can we know what lies ahead?
Plant a tree, and see.
– Kim Stafford, from “2519”
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
The Fruit of a Gentle Life
. . . a life of kind words and gentle
gestures, planting seeds and seeking
peace—where could that lead?
– Kim Stafford, from “Connect the Dots”
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
What Is the Message of the Forest?
While riding our bikes along a path in the forest, the sun spangling through the trees into our eyes, young Guthrie called over his shoulder: “Dad! Maybe the sun through the trees is doing Morse Code telling us the meaning of life!” A little further on, he called back: “But every forest would have a different message. Maybe there are thousands of meanings of life!”
– Kim Stafford, from “Thousands of Meanings of Life”
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
Gratitude for What Is Given
The waves and the wind have a kinship in that cove I’ve not seen anywhere else. There’s a place out on the water I call Salt Taste, because of how the wind whips and water spits around the rocks. The wind spins past the headland, and the waves lurch and boil. Wind and wave is a single principle in that spot. When I smell salt there, I understand. You taste what’s given, and be grateful.
– Kim Stafford, from “Coffee at the Eavesdrop Cafe,” Wind on the Waves: Stories of the Oregon Coast
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register our for online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
To Be a Dancer
If you want to be a dancer,” she said, “If you want to dance with another, you will listen to moving water. You will start with steps, and then learn pure flow.
– Kim Stafford, from “The Play of Moving Water,” Wind on the Waves: Stories of the Oregon Coast
Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center’s will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.” To learn more and/or register for our online retreats and offerings, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page
OPreach 