July 10,  2021

          INTENTION 

We get angry at times –
usually at someone 

not something -
judging another –
thinking we know their intention -
thinking our perception
of another is another –
if we only paused –
if we really knew why another
is another – so, so different
from whom we think they really are.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

July  10,  2021

Thought for the Day 

“In big cities, beneath the roar of traffic, beneath ‘the rapid pace of change,’ so many faces pass by unnoticed because they have no ‘right’ to be there, no right to be part of the city.  They are the foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly.  These people stand at the edges of our great avenues, in our streets, in deafening anonymity. They become part of an urban landscape that is more and more taken for granted, in our eyes, and especially in our hearts.”

 Pope Francis,

Homily, September

25, 2015

 July  9,  2021

AMBULANCE SCREAMING

 

The scream of an ambulance:
“Get out of my way!” as it keeps
rushing down Main Street.
Is someone dying – injured –
or hurt? They had a stroke –
a heart attack – a fall – and
they got to get to the hospital.
Who’s who here? What happened?
Life: we certainly need others.
 
We were taught to say a “Hail Mary”
when we hear an ambulance
screaming. I do that. But I also say
a prayer of thanks for that rescue
squad – and the hospital staff they
are rushing to – and I quietly wonder,
“What do they do in the middle of
Kansas – when this happens miles
and miles away for everyone?”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

July  9,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

 

“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when.  You can only decide how you’re going to live.”

 

Joan Baez

 July  8,  2021

INFIDELITY:

YOUR  STRANGE  HEART

 
We got to talk.
We have to learn.
We have to understand fire and desire.
We have come up with better questions.
We have to face the unravel of love.
We seek the gaze and grace of another.
We have to learn what death does to each other.
We need jolts – from mistakes and betrayals.
We need re-do’s.
We need to dig into the legacy of affairs.
We hurt others - as well as ourselves.
We need to become honest and loving.
We need to discover the real and the romantic.
We change – but hopefully for the better.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

July  8,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

 

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.”

 

Richard Wright

July 7, 2020

 

 A  GIFT  AT  TIMES 

Isn’t it nice …
Isn’t it neat …
when someone gives
you a gift - when you least
expect one?
A small white thin cardboard box
of specialty cookies –
a bottle of never heard of before wine –
a book of Mary Oliver’s poems –
and a compliment?
And you sit there sipping the wine,
eating two chocolate chip cookies –
reading a poem – but the sort of
sideways compliment – ends up
being the greatest gift you’ve
tasted in a long, long time.
Thank you.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020