January 19, 2023

UNDERNEATH  IT  ALL

 

Sometimes we just have to do it.
We need to take our chances.
We need to show up and sign up.
We need to love and try to serve.
Okay. Even though underneath it all – 
we’re nervous. We have the shakes.
Love is needed and we don’t think 
love is there, Yet we get up and do it.
We flower.  It's then we finally realize 
what is underneath it all – the real me 
becoming free - the real me loving me.

 

© Reflections, Andy Costello

 January 19, 2023

Quote for Today

"The poet is the priest of the invisible."

Wallace Stevens [1879-1955]

Adagio   [1957]

 January 18, 2023

LOVE  IS  AN  ALWAYS

 

Sometimes love seems so easy  -

especially when we want to sing it -

but when it's tough times – when

it’s rough times, then -  that's when

it's time to really love – to really

to mean the words, when it's time

to really do the words. Amen.

 

© Reflections, Andy Costello 

January 18, 2023

Quote for Today

"Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend." 

John Singer Sargent [1856-1925]

January  17,  2023

Quote for Today

"If someone claps his hand a sound arises. Listen to the sound of the single hand."

Hakuin [1686-1769] 

Attributed to this Japanese monk,

writer and artist, founder 

of modern Japanese Zen

 January 17, 2023

BE CAREFUL

 

Be careful, comments can kill.

Criticisms can cut and wound.

Silence can silence the other person.

We can crush a bug who is

just going out for a morning walk –

just as we too are going out for

our morning walk. The bug only

got to see its first few moments of life –

but we got our chance to dance

a thousand  dances so far – and

we didn’t notice we killed that bug.

How can the world stop the bombing

of the Ukraine – the killing of

the children – whom we never

saw getting into the dance of life –

and they didn’t either?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Reflections, Andy Costello

 

 

 

January 16, 2023

PHONE CALLS

 

It seems to me that every time

I begin to speak to you, you reach

for your cell phone. That usually

stops me from talking to you –

not with a cell phone – but with just

my slightly tightening teeth here in this room.

To be honest – I’ve never called you

and said, “When you do this, it makes

me ask myself, ‘Am I that boring?’"

Now of course I’ve thought about this a bit.

Then I’ve noticed, I do the same thing to you

and others when I’m hearing the same stories

I’ve heard you tell a hundred times.

I guess I figure my stories are better.

So I'm now asking, "Long before cell phones,

did cave men and women –

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle –

Dante, Beatrice, Joan of  Arc -

everyone – that thinks the other

is not listening to them think this

same thing I’m thinking right now?"

© Reflections, Andy Costello