A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and…. hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself.
There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.
The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot, and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. ~C.S. Lewis from The Magician’s Nephew
And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. ~Raymond Carver “Late Fragment”
Beautiful things and varied shapes appeal to [the eyes], vivid and well-matched colors attract; but let not these captivate my soul. Rather let God ravish it; he made these things exceedingly good, to be sure, but he is my good, not they. ~St. Augustine
All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Every time I open my eyes and listen for the voices of the morning, I am reminded how precious is this moment, how intense is each breath and each heartbeat.
We are created for this. We are, everyone of us, beloved. We are meant to wonder breathless at this, without ceasing.
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Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”
They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?”
Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. John 8:12-20
I see your world in light that shines behind me, Lit by a sun whose rays I cannot see, The smallest gleam of light still seems to find me Or find the child who’s hiding deep inside me.
I see your light reflected in the water, Or kindled suddenly in someone’s eyes, It shimmers through the living leaves of summer, Or spills from silver veins in leaden skies,
It gathers in the candles at our vespers It concentrates in tiny drops of dew At times it sings for joy, at times it whispers, But all the time it calls me back to you.
I follow you upstream through this dark night My saviour, source, and spring, my life and light. ~Malcolm Guite “I am the Light of the World”
Those who do not yet share our faith can share our wonder at the beauty and comfort of light in the darkness, from the stars in the heavens to the candlelight at a service or over a shared meal. ~Malcolm Guite “The Light of the World is For Everyone”
Darkness is not where we will dwell forever. We are hushed in fear and hungry for Light. Jesus promises to feed us from Himself.
We are promised this in the Word: and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light… Revelation 22:5.
Somewhere between the Word in the beginning and the Word that becomes flesh and the Word thriving as Spirit in our hearts and hands, there is the sacred silent Light of God come to earth
a threshold of quiet stillness as we stand poised to cross into the Light brought by His Word; He is a flint struck to our wick in our eagerness to abolish the Darkness with the eternal glow of His illuminating Word.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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What shall I say, because talk I must? That I have found a cure for the sick? I have found no cure for the sick but this crooked flower which only to look upon all men are cured. This is that flower for which all men sing secretly their hymns of praise! This is that sacred flower! ~William Carlos Williams from “The Yellow Flower”
The nail of each big toe was the horn of a goat. Thick as a thumb and curved, it projected down over the tip of the toe to the underside. With each step, the nail would scrape painfully against the ground and be pressed into his flesh. There was dried blood on each big toe.
It took an hour to do each big toe. The nails were too thick even for my nail cutters. They had to be chewed away little by little, then flattened out with the rasp, washed each toe, dried him off, and put his shoes and socks back on. He stood up and took a few steps, like someone who is testing the fit of a new pair of shoes.
“How is it?” “It don’t hurt,” he said, and gave me a smile that I shall keep in my safety deposit box at the bank until the day I die.
I never go to the library on Wednesday afternoon without my nail clippers in my briefcase. You just never know. ~Richard Selzer from “Toenails” from Letters to a Young Doctor
I know for a while again the health of self-forgetfulness, looking out at the sky through a notch in the valleyside, the black woods wintry on the hills, small clouds at sunset passing across. And I know that this is one of the thresholds between Earth and Heaven, from which even I may step forth and be free. – Wendell Berry from “Sabbath Poems”
Whenever I lose perspective about what I was trained to do and who I am meant to serve, when I wallow in the mud of self-importance rather than in the health of self-forgetfulness~
On those clinic days when I would wash out a plug of wax from a deaf ear and miraculously restore hearing or remove a painful thorn in a festering thumb or clip someone’s crippling toenails so they can step forth in freedom or I simply sit still as someone cries out their heart’s pain
I would cling to that crooked flower of healing and forgiveness I was handed over fifty years ago, sharing its sacred sweetness with another.
I was given these tools for a reason, and try to still use them.
You just never know.
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The mare roamed soft about the slope, Her rump was like a dancing girl’s. Gentle beneath the apple trees She pulled the grass and shook the flies, Her forelocks hung in tawny curls, She had a woman’s limpid eyes, A woman’s patient stare that grieves. And when she moved among the trees, The dappled trees, her look was shy, She hid her nakedness in leaves. A delicate though weighted dance She stepped while flocks of finches flew From tree to tree and shot the leaves With songs of golden twittering; How admirable her tender stance. And then the apple trees were new, And she was new, and we were new, And in the barns the stallions stamped And shook the hills with trumpeting. ~Ruth Stone, “The Orchard” from What Love Comes To
Only one retired Haflinger mare remains on our farm now, her small herd diminishing one at a time as they passed from old age. She now is thirty herself, living her remaining days with two geldings in their twenties.
Over four decades, we have kept over a dozen mares born on this land, where they served us well, birthing us their foals and working when asked. In their retirement, they deserved this easy life on pasture for as long as their legs and feet could carry them up and down the slopes of our hilly farm – they more and more resembled our ancient crooked crippled orchard trees, some of which have toppled in the winter winds..
We are close to the end of our horse-keeping days; hard decisions must be made at some point and I don’t feel quite prepared to determine when they are no longer enjoying their time under the sun and I am too frail to care for them as they deserve.
I don’t want them or me to topple over like an old hollow tree in the wind.
I listen for their nickers as I come into the barn each morning and gauge their eagerness to be set free to the fields. The other day, as the sky was gray with a passing rain shower, the geldings went outside happily. As I let our mare out to pasture, she stopped on her way through the gate and turned around, poised to head back to the barn rather than get wet.
I looked her in the eyes and understood exactly how she was feeling.
Perhaps I have identified a bit too much with the stiffness as my aging mares move, their need for frequent napping times in the field, swishing at flies while they dream of younger days of flirting with stallions, nursing babies, having suppler joints and the occasional wild gallop at twilight.
I sing a sad lullaby to myself as I work about the barn with slow deliberation, knowing there is a somber sorrow to life change. The years pass, never to return, leaving those limpid eyes, flowing manes and tails in their wake.
Ah, yes, I have had all the pretty little horses…
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I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life.’ I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou
…think of all the things you’ve learned over the years— the hard and the holy, the mysteries that will always remain mysterious, the clean edges of truth, the soft edges of every kindness given or received, the way trouble and wonder will continue to show up, sometimes leaving us beached and breathless with uncontainable joy or unutterable sorrow. I think of all the times I was knocked to my knees by a beautiful and brilliant flash of the completely obvious. ~Carrie Newcomer from A Gathering of Spirits
I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point. I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came. I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch. ~Julie Kasdorf– “What I Learned from my Mother”
Five years ago today, I wrapped up 45 years of uninterrupted medical training and doctoring.
Even while bearing three children and going through a few surgeries myself, I was not away from patient care for more than twenty consecutive days at any one time. This was primarily out of my concern that, even after a few weeks, I would forget all that I’d ever known.
Indeed, half of what I learned in medical school and residency nearly fifty years ago has evolved, thanks to new discoveries and clarifying research. I worried if I actually stepped away from doctoring for an extended time, then return to see patients again, I would be masquerading as a physician rather than be the real thing.
I couldn’t fathom a day when I could actually investigate a medical dilemma by typing a few words in a search engine on a computer screen. Instead, I researched through opening my encyclopedic collection of reference textbooks along with huge notebooks of “Scientific American Updates,” a monthly process of throwing out old articles to be replaced by newly discovered data. That is how I kept learning before the computer replaced books and pen and paper…
If being truly honest, even now, those who spend their professional lives providing medical care to others always share this concern: if a patient only knew how much we don’t know and will never know, despite everything we DO know, there would really be no trust left for us at all.
With so much rapidly changing medical information at everyone’s fingertips and computer screens, who needs a trained physician when there are so many other resources – many sketchy and opportunistic – for seeking health care advice?
Yet, I am convinced most patients really do want doctors to share the best information they have available at any point in time rather than rely on the latest internet algorithm and so-called “experts.”
I know over forty years of clinical experience gave me an eye and an ear for the subtle signs and symptoms that no googled website or AI app or virtual doc-in-the-box can discern: the avoidance of eye contact, the tremble of the lip as they spoke, the barely palpable rash, the hardly discernible extra heart sound, the fullness over an ovary, the slight squeak in a lung base. These are things I was privileged to see and hear, about which I made decisions together with my patients.
The work I did over four decades was a reflection of a continual learning process; out of my natural caution, I was honest when I didn’t know what the diagnosis was, nor the best treatment, but committed to doing my best to find out.
Continual learning – what I was trained to do for thousands of days and many more thousands of patients during my professional life, while passing a comprehensive certification examination every few years to prove my study and changing fund of knowledge.
Since retiring, the help I offer no longer means writing a prescription for a medication, or performing a minor surgery. I have to simply offer up me for what it’s worth, without a stethoscope.
Now I aim to be the best mom and grandma and friend I can be. I can press my hand into another’s, hug when needed, smile and listen and nod and sometimes weep when someone has something they need to say. No advanced degree or certification required.
Someday, hopefully not too soon, I will die happy knowing I chose this with my life: still learning and still caring.
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And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear, Myself I stood in the storm of the bird–cherry tree. It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self–shattering power, And it was all aimed at me.
What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth? What is being? What is truth?
Blossoms rupture and rapture the air, All hover and hammer, Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot. It is now. It is not. ~Osip Mandelstam “And I Was Alive” (translated by Christian Wiman) from Stolen Air
Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me. One Calvinist notion deeply implanted in me is that there are two sides to your encounter with the world. You don’t simply perceive something that is statically present, but in fact there is a visionary quality to all experience. It means something because it is addressed to YOU. ~Marilynne Robinson from The Paris Review 2008
We mostly live through routine and ordinary days, unconscious of many treasures and abundance laid before us.
In fact, these are addressed to us as pure gift – postmarked to our address, fully paid, no postage due.
Daily I search the soil of my life, this farm, this faith to find what in me still yearns to grow, to blossom, to fruit, in order to be harvested to share with others.
Such sweetness undoes our inevitable decay.
I am so grateful for the tie that binds me to those who visit this page, hoping what I share makes a difference in your ordinary, but still so precious, day.
The gift of ordinary time is now. Its numinosity is aimed at each one of us.
Poem by Dana Gioia
Echo of the clocktower, footstep in the alleyway, sweep of the wind sifting the leaves. Jeweller of the spiderweb, connoisseur of autumn’s opulence, blade of lightning harvesting the sky.
Keeper of the small gate, choreographer of entrances and exits, midnight whisper traveling the wires. Seducer, healer, deity or thief, I will see you soon enough— in the shadow of the rainfall, in the brief violet darkening a sunset—
but until then I pray watch over him as a mountain guards its covert ore and the harsh falcon its flightless young.
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They went each to their own house but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midstthey said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” John 7:53 – John 8:11
[The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53.]
The adulterous woman is brought alone by the Jewish authorities for judgement, to be humiliated by serving as a test case for Jesus. This incident was not so much about justice as it was about seeing how Jesus would react to her situation.
His response is not what they expected.
He stoops to the ground, taking his time, avoiding their gaze, writing something (inscrutable to the reader) in the dirt. He then stands to look them in the eye to state what is necessary before acting out the law’s justice: only those who have not sinned will be first to cast the stone at a sinner.
Then he kneels again to trace His finger through the dirt — outlining each person’s sin? naming names? buying time for things to calm down? keeping them guessing? just doodling?
The authorities, knowing their own burden of sin, the oldest of them initially, turn to leave one by one. Soon only the accused woman and Jesus remain.
As St. Augustine writes about this powerful gospel story: “relicti sunt duo, misera et misericordia” which translates to “two were left: misery and mercy.” She, standing in the misery of her sin; He, standing in the glory of His mercy.
No longer condemned while He takes it all on Himself. No stones to throw; free to go; sin no more.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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…The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and change our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end. ~Lisel Mueller from “Monet Refuses the Operation” from Second Language
Monet’s corner of a lily pond (1918-1919)
“Heaven pulls earth into its arms…”
We all see things differently, don’t we? What seems ordinary to one is extraordinarily memorable to another.
How might I help others to see the world as I do? How might I learn to adjust my focus to see things as you do?
The world is in flux; my delight and dismay flows from moment to moment, from object to absence, from light to darkness, from color to muted.
Perhaps the blur from Monet’s cataracts also impedes my vision, creating a deeper understanding, as I use my imagination to fill in what I can’t quite discern.
My heart and mind expands exponentially to claim this world and all that beauty has to offer, while heaven – all this while – pulls me into its arms.
In heaven, my focus will be clear. All will be extraordinarily ordinary.
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A hundred thousand birds salute the day:– One solitary bird salutes the night: Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away, And tunes our weary watches to delight; It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say, To know and sing them, and to set them right; Until we feel once more that May is May, And hope some buds may bloom without a blight. This solitary bird outweighs, outvies, The hundred thousand merry-making birds Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise Would we but follow when they bid us rise, Would we but set their notes of praise to words And launch our hearts up with them to the skies. ~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”
Every day is perfect, if when you wake, you hear birds in the garden, in the yard. Birds
up and down, ushering in one more day in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds on telephone lines, light posts. Birds
twit, twittering on trees hailing fellow birds with a nod of beak—gray kingbird;
top-hatted, streamertail tuxedoed, doctor bird— busy-bodied hummingbird
tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras punch-drunk in love. Birds preening for, chatting up other birds—
the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song on the lawn, in a dance of birds an all-day-long conference of bird;
red-headed woodpecker —drummer boy, or girl bird in this daily symphony of birds
—an orchestra on Shaker Way in serenade of each perfect day with birds— from the very first mockingbird
heralding, in solo warble one more day, filled with birds— brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:
Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird. You lift me up bird. You sing the day beautiful, bird. ~Ann-Margaret Lim “Birdsong of Shaker Way”
Birds afloat in air’s current, sacred breath? No, not breath of God, it seems, but God the air enveloping the whole globe of being. It’s we who breathe, in, out, in, the sacred, leaves astir, our wings rising, ruffled—but only saints take flight… But storm or still, numb or poised in attention, we inhale, exhale, inhale, encompassed, encompassed. ~Denise Levertov from “In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being”from The Stream and the Sapphire
As if reluctant to let go the setting sun last night, one lone bird still sang a twilight song, long after the others fell asleep, their heads tucked neatly under their wings.
This lone bird had not yet finished the day, breathing in and out its plaintive melody, articulating what my own thoughts could not say.
And before a hint of light this June morning, I am swept from my dreams at 4:30 AM by a full chorus singing from the same tree, no longer a lone voice, but hundreds.
Although my day is launched early by warbling songs, I cannot forget twilight’s one reluctant bird who fought back the impending darkness using only its voice.
I too resist the darkness with what I write here, if only I can keep it at bay: inhaling, exhaling, encompassed in holy Breath.
I want to sing out light and love to Light: encompassed by no darkness here.
I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I see the river flowing water running by I’d like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything
I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins
I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light I know the silence as the world begins to wake I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks
He doesn’t know the world at all Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out. He doesn’t know what birds know best Nor what I sing about, Nor what I sing about, Nor what sing about: That the world is full of loveliness.
When dew-drops sparkle in the grass And earth is aflood with morning light. light A blackbird sings upon a bush To greet the dawning after night, the dawning after night, the dawning after night. Then I know how fine it is to live.
Hey, try to open your heart to beauty; Go to the woods someday And weave a wreath of memory there. Then if tears obscure your way You’ll know how wonderful it is To be alive. ~Paul Read
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O! my heart now feels so cheerful as I go with footsteps light In the daily toil of my dear home; And I’ll tell to you the secret that now makes my life so bright— There’s a flower at my window in full bloom.
It is radiant in the sunshine, and so cheerful after rain; And it wafts upon the air its sweet perfume. It is very, very lovely! May its beauties never wane— This dear flower at my window in full bloom.
Nature has so clothed it in such glorious array, And it does so cheer our home, and hearts illume; Its dear mem’ry I will cherish though the flower fade away— This dear flower at my window in full bloom.
Oft I gaze upon this flower with its blossoms pure and white. And I think as I behold its gay costume, While through life we all are passing may our lives be always bright Like this flower at my window in full bloom. ~Lucian Watkins“The Flower at My Window”from Voices of Solitude
Details of the life of poet Lucian Watkins are few: a black man born in 1879 in Virginia, educated as a teacher, a writer and poet, then served as a U.S. Army Sergeant during WWI in the Philippines and France, dying of an unknown illness in Fort McHenry hospital in 1921.
He leaves behind only a handful of poems, including the one above.
Among the sparse information available about Lucian are three letters written by him. This was a young man who earnestly wanted to have both a writing career and a “bread-winning vocation.” He describes feeling compelled to compose poetry, no matter what else he accomplishes.
The obvious challenges he faced – –as a black man looking for a suitable place to live in Illinois so he can attend a college where there are no other people of color nearby, –as a veteran of a most horrific war, –as a creative mind trying to find a way to make a living.
He writes passionately about the aspirational purity of a white flower outside his window. Its bright radiance represents what he longs for in his own life.
From his letter to President Bissell of Bissell Colleges in Effingham, Illinois in 1919 after President Bissell is unable to assist in finding him a place to live, having suggested that the war veteran might consider “doing light housekeeping” – essentially live as a servant in a white household:
“About this matter of a boarding place. While I had hoped to obtain board with a member of my own race in Effingham, I had not thought it imperative that I should do so. I feel sure that there is enough Christianity in Effingham to provide that a brother-stranger in their midst shall not die of hunger.
What would Jesus do?
It seems that some places in the south they rise more readily to our American ideal of democracy than in the North and Middle-West. ‘The Richmond Planet’ of Richmond, Va., states that ‘right here in Richmond, the capital of the late Confederacy, colored soldiers are welcomed to aristocratic Westhampton, and with no sigh of racial discrimination or antipathy to their being there.’
What is the matter with Illinois?
I am not sure as to what your question involves. We shall talk it over when I arrive. There must be a way that is just and that will be good for all concerned. Very respectfully, signed Lucian B. Watkins“
**This man was not only a poet. He was a statesman.**
And a few months later, to the Editor of Crisis Magazine, the publication for the NAACP:
I have tried my best to forget poetry since being here – this with the hope I could the better prepare for a sure-enough bread-winning vocation. But the spell is on me again. With me, this thing is a madness. I hope you understand me, as it is really a painful matter that I have never expressed to anyone before. I have always felt that people can never know as to what this fever means.
Had I the world to give, I would give it freely for my ability to concentrate my mental and physical forces on real money-earning work as I seem compelled to do in the making of a quatrain. Now unless I can get away from this verse-making obsession, I must fail in everything, because success as a poet means very little, in a material way, even for those who are called masters in the art.
I hope you will pardon me for this much of your time I have taken.
Though Lucian Watkins’ life was cut short by an unknown illness, and his portfolio of poetry is small, he is nonetheless a gift to generations of future poets and readers.
This black artist did not let the inevitable rainfall in his life discourage his world view; he himself is radiant with illumination, showing a budding cheerfulness. His work reminds us:
Something as simple as observing a resilient flower outside our window can help heal painful hurts and fulfill our deepest longing.
Something as basic as seeing life through different perspectives or lenses can make all the difference in how we feel about our existence.
In his writing, Lucian Watkins draws a thin line between joy and sorrow, embracing joy in a simple white flower in full bloom — before it, as will we all, fades away.
From this low-lying valley; Oh, how sweet And cool and calm and great is life, I ween, There on yon mountain-throne—that sun-gold crest!
From this uplifted, mighty mountain-seat: How bright and still and warm and soft and green Seems yon low lily-vale of peace and rest! ~Lucian Watkins “Two Points of View”
Flower gleam and glow let your power shine make the Clock reverse bring back what once was mine What once was mine Heal what has been hurt change the fate’s design Save what has been lost bring back what once was mine what once was mine ~Healing Song from Tangled
