FOR THE UNKNOWN SELF

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So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.

Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,
Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;
It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

John O’Donohue

ADVENT PRAYERS

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PRAYER FOR WEEK 1: HOPE

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
We are easily distracted by the darkness that comes with unease and anxiety.
Source of light, shine in our lives and in your world with your renewing hope.

PRAYER FOR WEEK 2: PEACE

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
We are easily distracted by the darkness of force and power and we often choose strife and turmoil.
Source of light, shine in our lives and in your world with your everlasting peace.

PRAYER FOR WEEK 3: JOY

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
We are easily distracted by the darkness of doubt and despair.
Source of light, shine in our lives and in your world with your light and life giving joy.

PRAYER FOR WEEK 4: LOVE

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
We are easily distracted by the darkness of isolation and fear.
Source of light, shine in our lives and in your world with your unending love.

PRAYER FOR CHRISTMAS DAY

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. 
We are easily distracted by our old lives and with history and by what has been.
Christ is born among us and our hope is made new.
Source of light, shine in our lives and in your world with your transforming power.

FOR LIGHT

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Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By the surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,
Findjng their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.

When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.

When we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.

And when we search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found world.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

FOR A NEW BEGINNING

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In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us