BIRTHDAY BLESSING

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Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be,
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the grey wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown,
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world’s waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart,
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us

IT'S THE CHAINS WE CHOOSE THAT SET US FREE

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The people who live best tie themselves down.

They don’t ask: What cool thing can I do next? They ask: What is my responsibility here?

They respond to some problem or get called out of themselves by a deep love. 

By planting themselves in one neighborhood, one organization or one mission, they earn trust.

They have the freedom to make a lasting difference.

It’s the chains we choose that set us free.

David Brooks

DAILY PRACTICES

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Daily Practices for a Rule of Life

  1. Morning prayers before 6am.

  2. Meaningful conversation with someone by asking good questions.

  3. Good meal where I sat down and savored the food.

  4. Walk a mile with Amos (our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel).

  5. Focused my attention for 2 hours on “deep work” to not put out fires at work all day.

I have found great benefit in creating a “habit tracker” for these 5 Daily Practices. They are listed in my journal along with the days of the week to create a simple chart where I mark an “X” to visually track my daily practice. Weeks I live into these rhythms regularly are noticeably different than weeks I live “out of sync”.

Jared Ray Mackey