THE DONKEY

Quote for Today: March 24,  2013

                   THE DONKEY 

When fishes flew and forests walked   

   And figs grew upon thorn,   

Some moment when the moon was blood   

   Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry

   And ears like errant wings,   

The devil’s walking parody   

   On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,

   Of ancient crooked will;

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,   

   I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;

   One far fierce hour and sweet:   

There was a shout about my ears,

   And palms before my feet.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton [1874-1936], from The Collected poems of G. K. Chesteron (Dodd Mead and Company, 1927, The Donkey

PALM SUNDAY

Palm Sunday….

Sometimes we understand it….

Sometimes we don’t understand it.

Why didn’t Jesus simply get out of Jerusalem

and head back home to Nazareth and the carpenter shop

and avoid this horrible week of suffering and mystery?

Palm Sunday ….

Sometimes we understand it.

We know the feeling.

We know the story.

We too have had our Palm Sunday celebrations

and then we took a turn and that leads to a twist and another turn

and we find ourselves in the middle of Good Friday

and we’re making our Way of the Cross to Calvary.

Palm Sunday isn’t too far away from Good Friday.

The first day on the new job,

a great job,

all kinds of congratulations

all the welcomes and best wishes

and then the day we’re fired or cut

and nobody said or says anything.

Heads are down. Eyes looking elsewhere.

The team wins the championship, the trophy.

Palms up. The high fives.

The banquets and the pictures in the paper

And then the following season, disaster.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

We’ve been there.

The day we walked our daughter down the aisle

And then the morning phone call,

“It’s all over dad.

It’s all over.”

“But what about the kids?”

“It’s all over dad.

Sorry.”

The tears, too many beers,

or too much silence or selfishness or blindness.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

We’ve been there.

Life. Mom and dad’s 50^th Wedding Anniversary

and then later, the problems, incontinence, cancer, loneliness, the coffin.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

The days we were riding high and the day we felt like a stupid donkey.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

Thank God Jesus didn’t go the other way.

Thank God Holy Thursday is in between.

He washed our feet.

He fed us with the finest wheat.

And thank God for Easter.

Resurrection.

A new Beginning.

A new Spring.

Easter is always after Good Friday, every time.

Amen.

CIRCLE

Quote for Today: March 23, 2013

"Even the seasons
form a great circle in their changing,
and always come back again
to where they were.
Our life is a circle
from childhood to childhood
and so it is in everything
where power moves.
Our tepees were round
like a nests of birds,
and these were always
set in a circle,
the nation's hoop."

Black Elk [1863-1950]
in Black Elk Speaks, 
Being the Life Story of a Holy Man
of the Oglala Sioux, as told through
John G. Neihardt [1961]

Picture - Native Americans praying in a circle.

CIRCLE  OF  LIFE 

CIRCLE OF LIFE

It’s a circle. It’s a spiral,

It’s a series of scenes:

the new and the old.

It’s life. It’s déjà vu.

I’ve been here before,

but some of this is new

and some of this is old -

and so - I’ve been told to STOP -

to SEE - to SMELL  the flowers;

To LISTEN - to HEAR the music

of the trees, the waters and

the streets. Everything and

everyone is giving me glimpses

of how it all goes, how it all flows.

Winter - death - cold brown leaves

and naked trees - crosses against

the western sky. Spring - resurrection -

budding leaves - on crosses, the trees

bringing new life - seen early morning

against an eastern sky. Lord, I guess

when I don’t see some of this I’m dead. 

So Lord, cry and then scream - 
scream outside my tomb:

“Wake up! Come back to life!"

Andy Costello © Reflections 2013

DRUMS AND FLUTES

Drums and flutes -

the basic sounds

down deep in our bodies.

The drum beat of our heart

sending red blood - rushing red blood

back and forth - up and down through

the flute of our arteries and veins -

down deep and all around and around

sounds in our bodies. It’s connecting us

with all the earth and all the oceans -

the lakes and rivers of our bodies

and our planet and its peoples.

We don’t need a stereoscope,

microscope or telescope to see -

to feel - to listen to the ALL.

Prayer: to close one’s eyes,

to feel one’s pulse - to connect

with one’s body - being with this great

circle called our Mother Earth,

from which we came and

to which we’re going. This is

our story….  Listen! Listen! Listen!

Drums and flutes ….

It’s connecting us day after day,

page after page, sound after sound

beat after beat, story after story

with the story and sounds of everyone.

Andy Costello © Reflections 2013

CIRCLES

Quote for Today - March 22,   2013

"Everything an Indian does
is in a circle,
and that is because
the power of the world
always works in circles, 
and everything tries to be round.
In the old days
when we were a strong
and happy people,
all our power came to us
from the sacred hoop of the nation,
and so long as the hoop
was unbroken the people flourished."

Black Elk [1863-1950] in Black Elk Speaks, 
the Life Story of a Holy Man
of the Ogalala Sioux, as told
through John G. Neihardt [1961]

Painting: "Circle of Life" 

WORK

Quote for Today  - March 21, 2013

"I don't like work - no man does - but I like what is in the work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know."

Joseph Conrad [1857-1924] in The Heart of  Darkness [1902]


Comment: I disagree. There are some jobs that I enjoy - and I've learned from them - usually looking back.  How about you?  Yet Joseph Conrad does raise a question for me: "Which jobs do I learn the most from? Jobs I like or jobs I don't like?