it is enough ~mark nepo

If you can’t see what you’re looking for,
see what’s there.

One of the most difficult things for us to accept is that beneath all our dreams and disappointments, we live and breathe in abundance. It is hard when in pain to believe that all we ever need is before us, around us, within us. And yet it is true.

Like leafless trees waiting for morning, something as great and as constant as the Earth holds us up and turns us ever so slowly toward the light. Our task is only to be rooted and patient.

Never was this more painfully true for me than during the aftermath of my first chemo treatment. I was in a Holiday Inn at five in the morning after twenty-four hours of vomiting every twenty minutes. I was slumped on the floor, holding the space of a rib that had been removed three weeks earlier. And my wife—in anger, in panic, in desperation—called out, “Where is God?” And from some unknown place in me, through my pale slouched form, I uttered, “Here…right here.”

The presence of God has never eliminated pain, only made it more bearable. Now, when things don’t go the way I want,

anne lamott on facebook

pathwriter’s note: What a gift Anne Lamott is. I’m so glad her son and her editor talked her into getting on Facebook, because it means she writes posts like this from time to time—and usually just when I need them, like today. 

This is a true story.

I have been doing a bunch of radio interviews to promote the coming paperback edition of Some Assembly Required, and so was in San Francisco recently. There was no street parking to be found, so I parked in an underground garage. I stuck the ticket in my wallet, went and did the interview, came back to the car, and got ready to leave.

But I couldn’t find my ticket. It wasn’t in my wallet. I looked for it there, again and again, but couldn’t find it, so I rifled through my purse. The ticket wasn’t there, either. I took everything out of the purse, put it on the passenger seat, and pawed through it, like a Samuel Becket character.

Sighing loudly, I looked everywhere it could have fallen—the console between the front seats, the ashtray, the floor, the glovebox. Then I got out, exasperated with myself. I am getting so spaced out.

I don’t want to be put in a home yet!

quote du jour ~lamott – my belief is…

My belief is that when you’re telling the truth, you’re close to God. If you say to God, “I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don’t like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You,” that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said. If you told me you had said to God, “It is all hopeless, and I don’t have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand,” it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real—really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.

So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light—I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.

Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.

~Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

quote du jour ~williamson – if our emotional stability…

If our emotional stability is based on what other people do or do not do, then we have no stability. If our emotional stability is based on love that is changeless and unalterable, then we attain the stability of God.

~Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power Of Intimate Relationships

quote du jour ~hugo

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

~Victor Hugo

fast forward

When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.
~Patrick Overton

I read somewhere once that the Universe (or God or whatever you call the divine force) first speaks us in a whisper. If we don’t pay attention, it speaks a little louder, and if we’re still not listening, it ups the volume to a shout—metaphorically speaking, of course. And if we’re not moving fast enough on following the guidance of the divine, sometimes it gives us a little nudge. If we ignore the nudge, we get a big ol’ shove.

Well, it seems the Universe wants me to move a little faster with my big leap than I had in mind. It seems I need to get a move on, so I’ve been presented with a situation that’s requiring me to pretty much drop everything and concentrate on wrapping up the current chapter of my life so that I can move on to the next one. Note: this means saying farewell to “what is” without really knowing “what’s next”…except in a very general sense.

It’s a little scary. No, actually, it’s a lot scary. I really don’t know how I’m going to do what needs to be done in the time that it needs to happen, but I don’t really have much choice. It’s what’s in front of me. And once I do accomplish it? Well, I know the general direction, but the details that will get me from here to there? Don’t have a clue.

The ingredients for this venture? A LOT of faith. Good friends. Deep breaths. Repeating mantras (a LOT) like, “It’s all going to work out. It’s going to be fine. I can do this.” More faith.

Initially, I was a basket case. Today, I’m optimistic but nervous. I still get overwhelmed when I think about what’s in front of me, but at the moment, I’m hanging in there. As I said in an email to a friend: “One foot in front of the other. Deep breaths.” And as a fellow dancer once said to me: “Breathe and sway. Breathe and sway.”

So here I go—breathing and swaying, one foot in front of the other, full speed ahead.

quote du jour ~rumi – be silent…

Be silent.
Only the Hand of God can remove the burdens of your heart.

~Rumi

quote du jour ~eckhart – spirituality is not…

Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.

~Meister Eckhart

traveling mercies ~anne lamott

pathwriter’s note: Anne Lamott has become one of my favorite authors in the last couple of years. I find her honesty and vulnerability, her willingness to lay herself bare—”warts and all”, as the saying goes—breathtaking. (She’s also pretty funny.) Some months back, I was delighted to learn that she is on Facebook (!), and she shared the story below in her New Year’s Eve post. It’s a piece she wrote for Salon.com 15 years ago. I hope you enjoy it, though I’ll warn you that (1) it’s a little long and (2) it contains (as Lamott’s writing often does) some colorful language. I hope neither of those things will keep you from reading and receiving a lovely message.

Broken things have been on my mind as the year lurches to an end, because so much broke and broke down this year in my life, and in the lives of the people I love. Lives broke, hearts broke, health broke, minds broke. On the first Sunday of Advent our preacher, Veronica, said that this is life’s nature, that lives and hearts get broken, those of people we love, those of people we’ll never meet. She said the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward, and that we, who are more or less OK for now, need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people, she said, you bring them juice and graham crackers. And then she went on vacation.

“Traveling mercies,” the old black people at our church said to her when she left. This is what they say when one of us goes off for a while. Traveling mercies: Be safe, notice beauty, enjoy the journey, God is with you.

Besides the big brokennesses in people’s lives this year, I’ve noticed all sorts of really dumb things breaking lately. Since Advent began at the end of November, I’ve had a dozen calls reporting broken cars, water heaters, a window, even a finger. So I was on the lookout for something wonderful to happen, because of this great story I heard recently about dumb things going wrong: Carolyn Myss, who writes about healing, went to Russia a few years ago to give a series of lectures. Every single aspect of getting to Russia that could go poorly, did.

tripping over joy ~hafiz

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.

~Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

i know the way you can get ~hafiz

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love’s
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

~Hafiz

quote du jour ~niequist

I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don’t want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.

~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life