We can’t imagine how they did it. Like Francis of Assisi, giving everything away and loving everything. But as the lyrics of a song are lost in its echo, his vow of poverty has been sorely misunderstood. Radically, it was a vow of emptying, of putting aside all that is false and unnecessary. So there is nothing in the way. A Question to Walk With: Describe a pull in you to fill up your life and... Read more
We start out so innocent and then we get hurt. It doesn’t matter how. What makes things worse is that we try to get out of here, to run, to even disappear. Of course, none of that works. Any more than a bird can escape the sky. We might even spend a decade or two hiding in a cloud. But the light will find us and disperse the cloud around our head, around our heart. ... Read more
We run everywhere when it’s only the moments we are stopped that matter. No matter how we are stopped, by pain or beauty, by remembering in the midst of crossing a street in New York who you are and all you’ve done for those you love. No matter if it’s hard to get up. Just stay down a while longer, so you can see all the way through. It’s in the stopped moments that the music hiding... Read more
The days can blur in their cascade of tasks till a pin of light or a grip of pain punctures the relentless noise. Then, the glow under the veil comes through and I remember that I am alive. And in the tremble of tenderness that makes me open like a rose, words like these gratefully fail. All I can do is stop you from whatever you are cleaning or fixing to tell you that life is worth all the heartache.... Read more
Tell me a story, any story. Tell me what happened or what didn’t happen or what you hope will happen. I need signs of life to lift my head. I need some pearl of wind to open my wing. So sing me a song. For yourself, but let me listen. I don’t care if you’re trained or shy or can’t hum a tune. Just sing anything. It will stir my heart. We can do this for each other, can’t we?... Read more
As the winter sun makes every twig shine, I’m leafing through a book of poems gathered from the ages by the poet who recently died. He kept all these voices alive, feeding them ancient fish in a timeless pool. Now, he swims among them. Like any true guide, you leave no trace, the way the sun leaves no trace on the flower about to open. How can I thank you, other than by blooming. A Question to Walk With: Describe... Read more
It was a brief, reflexive moment of nature, gone unnoticed near the beginning, a synapse of respect for other life. A small human hunting on the side of a mountain tripped and fell in a ditch as the herd of rams he was hunting came barreling toward him. But rather than crush him, the rams leapt over the fallen man. On his back in the ditch, he watched their white bellies glide over him. He heard the clomp of their... Read more
This is how it works. I almost die. You’re at my side. It’s hard on you. And so, your friend is at your side. Next month or year, it’s you who falls into the crater. Then, I’m there for you. And my old friend is there for me. This is how a net distributes the weight. How the net of hearts distributes the suffering. Even our dog climbing on my wife’s lap when she cries is part... Read more
The light bobs on the small leaves, so quietly, so thoroughly, that I can feel its ancestor bow along a bend in the Yangtze River a thousand years ago. I sense my counterpart imagining me a thousand years in the future. Like two souls looking through a window they mistake for a mirror, we settle back into ourselves. The chord we strike fills each of us with a sense of Eternity we can’t forget. The Earth... Read more
We are an hour north of Cabo San Lucas and I’m told the surf is slow because the deep is close to shore. These waters have been whispering this truth for a thousand years: if we live in the deep, we will touch the world slowly. This is hard to learn. It has taken me decades. It is the deep and slow that survive, the deep and slow that hold up the land on which... Read more
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