are you awake?

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake." Thoreau

Posts to help awaken your May day:
Blisschick
Abbey of the Arts
Anchors & Masts

happy anniversary to us!

22 years of marriage. let the celebration begin (continue)!!
see ya later.

sometimes they do surprise us!

Yesterday I came home to find this lovely photo printed out and laying on the kitchen counter. It is a photo I have not seen before now. For those of you who might need a little context, the dog is my beloved, Curry, who left this earthly plain last Labor Day. The sweet face next to his is my teenage daughter who most often communicates in one syllable responses these days.

I wonder what she is trying to say now? Sometimes they do surprise us!

Pop on over to lucy creates to see today's Poetry Party entry. Peace.

sacraments and flowing water

“We are asked to pour ourselves out, trusting that in this act we will be refilled.” Christine Valters Paintner

“The universal call to holiness is an invitation to be ourselves. It’s also an invitation to remember the sacramentality of every day life.” James Martin, SJ

Pouring out. Seeing all things as sacraments. These themes swirl and spin around my mind challenging me to continue to reach for the unknown. I do not know what will fill me, but I know that in order to be refilled, I must make space by pouring out. I stop and consider the times I have emptied myself out of obligation rather than love. When it has been duty rather than sacrament. The “filling” looks quite different – resentment and loneliness instead of peace and sanctity.

Where are the places I dam my flow of love? Where do I allow old hurts to get in the way and feel myself building dams rather than letting the springs flow? Where is God in all of this? Am I so self-sufficient that I tell God to get lost? How ludicrous is that – the impossibility of even trying to lose God since God surrounds me in the very air I breathe?

Sacraments and flowing water. God is calling me to be more fluid. Fluid with acts of self – allowing love to fill in the cracks and crevasses rather than building a dam or trying to patch them with illusions. Seeing life as daily sacrament.

Yesterday was a Sacred Sunday – filled with small acts of kindness. And, in those acts – providing a ride, preparing a meal, folding laundry, listening to others, reading a manuscript – I was indeed refilled. I listened to the call to be fluid. In this unplanned response, the crevasses were washed clear and I was reminded of the truth that resides within.

photo © h3images