HELLO, I SAY

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Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom of prayer and we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit. But I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping that I’m being listened to.

There, I greet God in my own disorder. I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus.

I recognize and greet my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body. I greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I do not know about the day. I greet my own small world and I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day.

I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day, and hope that I can hear some stories, and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead. I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than the God I greet.

Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast.

Hello.

Padraig O'Tuama

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

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“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson

FOR THE DYING

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May death come gently toward you,
Leaving you time to make your way
Through the cold embrace of fear
To the place of inner tranquillity.

May death arrive only after a long life
To find you at home among your own
With every comfort and care you require.

May your leave-taking be gracious,
Enabling you to hold dignity
Through awkwardness and illness.

May you see the reflection
Of your life's kindness and beauty
In all the tears that fall for you.

As your eyes focus on each face,
May your soul take its imprint,
Drawing each image within
As companions for the journey.

May you find for each one you love
A different locket of jeweled words
To be worn around the heart
To warm your absence.

May someone who knows and loves
The complex village of your heart
Be there to echo you back to yourself
And create a sure word-raft
To carry you to the further shore.

May your spirit feel
The surge of true delight
When the veil of the visible
Is raised, and you glimpse again
The living faces
Of departed family and friends.

May there be some beautiful surprise
Waiting for you inside death,
Something you never knew or felt,
Which with one simple touch,

Absolves you of all loneliness and loss,
As you quicken within the embrace
For which your soul was eternally made.

May your heart be speechless
At the sight of the truth
Of all belief had hoped,
Your heart breathless
In the light and lightness
Where each and everything
Is at last its true self

Within that serene belonging
That dwells beside us
On the other side
Of what we see.

John O’Donohue

FOR CELEBRATION

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Now is the time to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encourages you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us

FOR A LEADER

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May you have the grace and wisdom
To act kindly, learning
To distinguish between what is
Personal and what is not.

May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you never put yourself at the center of things. 

May you act not from arrogance but out of service.

May you work on yourself, 
Building up and refining the ways of your mind.

May those who work for you know
You see and respect them. 

May you learn to cultivate the art of presence 
In order engage with those who meet you. 

When someone fails or disappoints you,
May the graciousness with which you engage
Be the stairway to renewal and refinement. 

May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So that you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw its enrichment from the old,  
And you never become a functionary. 

May you know the wisdom of deep listening,
The healing of wholesome words,
The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,
The decorum of held dignity,
The springtime edge of the bleak question. 

May you have a mind that loves frontiers, 
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond the view of the regular eye. 

May you have good friends
To mirror your blind spots. 

May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us

I BELIEVE IN GHOSTS

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Where the young Ohio
takes its southern turn
under the bridge of steel and stone at the old rusted dock, you returned.

A freight train rumbled by, headed northwest.

We sang and smoked and dreamed
as other brothers had done before.
You talked. I listened.
The morning dew lied as the sun soared.

And I was with you, this time around.

You taught me how to study the water
and all the things you know;
how to cast, retrieve, which jig for which fish to see what moves below.

As a coal barge dried slowly downstream.

Through the wooded hills behind the house
under the leafy canopy, we trekked.
Past the old ambulance that sits among the trees
birdsong and twigs were the only sounds we came to expect.

A cool breeze hinted at Septemberʼs coming.

Walking sticks turned to swords
trees to enemies and hats to helmets. Then, from the back porch, momʼs voice “boys, time to come home” she tells us.

And the woods became woods again.

In your translucent way,
you paused under those ancient oaks
beams of sun made their way through the leaves and through you. You smirked as if to tell another joke.

Even the birds stopped singing.

With your eyes
half there, half here
you threw your head back and laughed at something you shouldnʼt wrapped me in your bear-like arms and drew me near.

And off you went.

Lightly I strolled back to the road your playful voice still sang clearly “You get a line. Iʼll get a pole...”
And joy and cheer overwhelmed me.

And still does.

John Daniel Reed

DO NOT ASK YOUR CHILDREN TO STRIVE

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Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

William Martin
The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

LOGOS

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Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
And the felt ferocity of that love
And the felt necessity of that love
The fish explode into many.
Imagine him speaking,
And don’t worry about what is reality,
Or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
Spoken with love.

Mary Oliver