Parinama

“A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope.” H oward Thurman, Theologian, teacher, mystic “[T]he only thing they needed was hope. Not that pie in the sky stuff, not a preference for optimism over pessimism, but rather “an orientation of the spirit.” The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of abusive power. That kind of hope makes one strong.” Bryan Stevenson, Mercy Where does hope come from?  What does it feel like in the body? How does our language for hope change its experience of what is possible? When I come up short on hope, and this happens more often than I care to admit, I think of my grandparents, their lives of poverty, struggle, small and great joys.  I am instructed in gratitude. There were the migrations and making a life in a foreign land with a foreign tongue, the doing without food, clothes, love, t...

  “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ― Thomas Merton It is the nature of stone To be satisfied. It is the nature of water To want to be somewhere else. - The Leaf and The Cloud, Mary Oliver ********************* What part of me is like stone? What part is like water? I have both in me, the stone, the water, both life giving, destructive, renewing.  Stone confines me in impossible and difficult situations impeding progress, movement, imagination.  I am stuck, unable to foresee a way forward, to find a new necessary rhythm to life, to get up off the couch.  The stone masks fear as protection. At the same time, the stone in me gives me a stick-to-it-ness, mettle to persistent when facing uncertainty. My stone sometimes smooth like silk, sometimes rough with green and golden...

No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. Mathew 9 Life calls our soul into growth.  The impulse to grow is the new wine flowing into our bodies, minds, psyche’s, the expanding fermentation pushing us into the bigger perspective of things. The old vessels can no longer hold us in, hold us together.  As the inner evolving self expands, we bleed into and through the tears in the old wine skins, brittle leather.  This feels like not knowing who we are anymore, what our purpose and direction in life is, where we will find love and support. We need to grow a new skin to hold the bigger self but this takes some time, some allowing, and some engagement with what is unfolding.   The transform...

A collect is an ancient form of prayer believed to first have been written around 1,000 by the anonymous author of the mystical text “Cloud of Unknowing.”  A modern version of that Collect reads: "O God, to you all hearts are open, all desires are known, and from you no secrets are hidden. Purify the thoughts of my heart by the outpouring of your Holy Spirit, that I may perfectly love you and worthily praise you." As Padraig O’Tuama teaches in his book, “Being Here:  Prayers of Curiosity, Justice, and Love,, there are five aspects to the Collect (pronounced in the Anglican way with the emphasis on the first syllable as in COLlect not as we typically say with the emphasis on the second as in coll ECT).  The prayer starts with naming who it is the prayer is directed towards, God, the mystery, the ground, the rain followed by what O’Tuama calls the “unfolding” of that name with a little more context about who it is we are praying to. Next, comes the statement of one’s one an...