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Flying AA1330 on A321S. Need Another Day.

September 11, 2019 by 28 Comments

First flight out of Dallas. 6:36 a.m. on-time departure.

Foot traffic unusually light at DFW, as are the lines at Security and at the Gate.

Ah yes, September 11. And, the morning of September 11th.

Pilot gets on the intercom, and announces that we’re flying on an Airbus A321S. 168,000 pounds, 450 mph at cruising altitude.

Plane unusually quiet. More seats empty than usual for this flight.

Pilot dims the lights in the cabin.

Cabin is silent as the plane taxis up to the runway.

It’s dark in the cabin, my seat mate snoozes. Me? Restless. Churning.

[Read more…]

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Sunday Morning

July 15, 2018 by 15 Comments

HELP ME I murmur
as if I knew
to whom I speak
or what I’m asking for…

~ M.C. Richards, from “Morning Prayer” in Opening our Moral Eye

 

Photo: paramore.livejournal (via Nini Poppins)

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Sunday Morning

March 4, 2018 by 28 Comments

Lord, make a factory of peace,
Make more hope,
Hate, the least.
Make war as small as a speck of sand
And terrorism a wick on a candle that burns to ashes.
And make love and peace as big as a skyscraper.
And hope like a mountain that’s 1,000 feet tall.
And make the volume of friendship be so loud
It shakes the ground.

~ Alex House, “The Volume of Friendship.”  Alex House lives in Upton, Massachusetts. He wrote this poem in Sunday school on Feb. 16, 2003, when he was 8 years old

Notes:

  • Inspired by: Tim Kreider – “Go Ahead, Millenials, Destroy us” – “As with all historic tipping points, it seems inevitable in retrospect: Of course it was the young people, the actual victims of the slaughter, who have finally begun to turn the tide against guns in this country. Kids don’t have money and can’t vote, and until now burying a few dozen a year has apparently been a price that lots of Americans were willing to pay to hold onto the props of their pathetic role-playing fantasies. But they forgot what adults always forget: that our children grow up, and remember everything, and forgive nothing. […]  My message, as an aging Gen X-er to millennials and those coming after them, is: Go get us. Take us down…Rid the world of all our outmoded opinions, vestigial prejudices and rotten institutions…the moribund and vampiric two-party system, the savage theology of capitalism — rip it all to the ground. I for one can’t wait till we’re gone. I just wish I could live to see the world without us.
  • Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all Channels
  • Photo:  Chris A with The.Magician (via see more)
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Sunday Morning

November 12, 2017 by 32 Comments

A few days ago I spent a couple of minutes in St. Mary’s Basilica—it was a weekday—where perhaps a dozen people were kneeling in prayer.

Every now and then someone’s cell phone rang.

Horizontal communication refused to surrender, it kept on battling its vertical counterpart.

~ Adam Zagajewski, Slight Exaggeration: An Essay

Notes:

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Sunday Morning

June 5, 2016 by 23 Comments

You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else.

What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”

I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.

~ Wendell Berry,  Hannah Coulter

Notes:

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Sunday Morning

September 27, 2015 by 4 Comments

cloudless-blue-sky

The nearest I’d come to feeling
anything like God
was the plain blue cloudless sky
and a certain silence,
but how do you pray to that?

~ Janet Fitch, White Oleander

Notes: Quote: The Chateau of My Heart. Photo: So, Now What?

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Walking Cross-Town. Heal the wounds. Heal the wounds from the ground up.

September 24, 2015 by 22 Comments

pope-francis-1

“Pray for me.”

Soft spoken and gentle, he leans into a man and his child amid the throng on the streets of DC.

He repeats.

“Please pray for me.”

I ponder that for a moment.  And, I keep walking.

Barricades are coming up. Husky NYPD officers are manning their stations. NYPD Commissioner Bratton quipped that the pontiff will have “6,000 guardian angels watching him.” He means “Six thousand police officers, 1,173 police cars, 818 tons of concrete barriers and 39 miles of metal and wood barricades are what is needed to help protect Pope Francis on his visit to NYC.”

6000 Guardian Angels. 818 tons of concrete. 39 miles of metal and wood barricades.

I walk.

The flock is amassing.

Man with Gramophone stands in front of Madison Square Garden warning of Armageddon. [Read more…]

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But, not yet have I reached that bright life or that white happiness – not yet.

March 1, 2015 by 40 Comments

bell-church-monk-russia-kosnichev

Men and women of faith who pray – that is, who come to a certain assigned place, at definite times, and are not abashed to go down on their knees – will not tarry for the cup of coffee or the news break or the end of the movie when the moment arrives. The habit, then, has become their life. What some might call the restrictions of the daily office they find to be an opportunity to foster the inner life. The hours are appointed and named; they are the Lord’s. Life’s fretfulness is transcended. The different and the novel are sweet, but regularity and repetition are also teachers. Divine attentiveness cannot be kept casually, or visited only in season, like Venice and Switzerland. Or, perhaps it can, but then how attentive is it? And if you have no ceremony, no habits, which may be opulent or may be simple but are exact and rigorous and familiar, how can you reach toward the actuality of faith, or even a moral life, except vaguely? The patterns of our lives reveal us. Our habits measure us. Our battles with our habits speak of dreams yet to become real. I would like to be like the fox, earnest in devotion and humor both, or the brave, compliant pond shutting its heavy door for the long winter. But, not yet have I reached that bright life or that white happiness – not yet.

~ Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Art: Oldsamovar (Art by Alexanderliech Kosnichev)

 

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Kneel for prayer. Why?

September 7, 2014 by 16 Comments

photography,portrait,black and white

Why must people kneel down to pray?
If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do.
I’d go out into a great big field all alone or
in the deep, deep woods and
I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky
that looks as if there was no end to its blueness.
And then I’d just feel a prayer.

— L.M. Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1875-1942) was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays. Most of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island, Canada, and places in the Canadian province became literary landmarks. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935.

Her mother died of tuberculosis when Lucy was 21 months old. Stricken with grief over his wife’s death, Hugh John Montgomery gave custody over to Montgomery’s maternal grandparents.  She was raised by them in a strict and unforgiving manner. Montgomery’s early life was very lonely. Despite having relations nearby, much of her childhood was spent alone. Montgomery credits this time of her life, in which she created many imaginary friends and worlds to cope with her loneliness, as what developed her creative mind.

Notes: Photograph – bigdaddyk. Poem Source – The Sensual Starfish. Bio: Wiki.

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In our hearts we still pray for sons and daughters

May 26, 2014 by 20 Comments

Allman Brown and Liz Lawrence are London based singer-songwriters who have collaborated for Sons and Daughters.  

And I’ll build a fire, you fetch the water and I’ll lay the table
and in our hearts, we still pray for sons and daughters
and all those evenings out in the garden, where we went
These quiet hours turning to years

And I, I’ll wrap myself around your heart I’ll be the walls of his heart
And I, I’ll keep light on, to call you back home…

Notes:

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Only Us – – Small, Solitary

February 25, 2014 by 15 Comments

House of Cards - Kevin Spacey

There’s no solace
above or below.
Only us —
small,
solitary,
striving,
battling one another.
I pray to myself,
for myself.

~ House of Cards, 1×12.

Source: facies-destruens

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Same

July 25, 2013 by 30 Comments

footprints-monk-prayer

Same.
Same. Time up each day.
Same. I-95 route to work.
Same. Desk. Chair. Computer.
Same. Head down. Back to back. 12 hours.
Same. 1-95 Route home.
Same. Time to bed.
Same.

Tomorrow:
Try. Take a different route to work.
Try. Take a walk. Leave phone behind.
Try. Call a friend. Catch up.
Try. Find a space. A moment. A breath.
Try.

Image Credit: Telegraph.co.uk – Photo of Footprints are carved into the floorboards by monk who has prayed at the same spot for 20 years

Related Posts: Driving Series

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Sunday Morning: Holi. Festival of Colors.

September 2, 2012 by 19 Comments

“If you notice the instances under which people gather in large groups, in coliseums, in stadiums – it usually has to do with contention, competition, rivalry, partisanship.  The Festival of Colors stands out from those events because there is none of that competition or rivalry or sectarianism.  People are gathered together just about celebrating our own spirituality and creator from whom we come…He’s present within his name.  Whenever you are chanting any bona fide name of God, God is dancing on the tip of your tongue.  Life becomes simple.  Life becomes streamlined and pared down – – to love of God and love of one’s fellow living beings…We’re all basically the same. There’s unity in diversity.  Underneath all that, there is a natural outpouring of love.”

Holi. Festival of Colors. 2012 from Good Line on Vimeo.

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Eat. Pray. Work. Love.

June 5, 2012 by 8 Comments

eat pray work love

Tanmay Vora @ QAspire wrote an excellent post titled: 8 Life Lessons From Yoga Workshop where he shares 8 lessons from a renowned spiritual teacher and a Yogi.  Here’s 2 excerpts:

Discipline is a pre-requisite for greatness….Yoga is about persistent practice. Whatever we decide to do, we need to do it everyday. Religiously. Regularly. Systematically. Thoughtfully. Discipline beats resistance we encounter while attempting difficult stuff.

Eat. Pray. Work. Love. In one of the sessions, our teacher asked us to recite the following words: “Eat half, Double the intake of water, exercise three times more, laugh four times more (remain happy), work five times more and pray ten times more”. It is a simple, yet very powerful advice for health and happiness.

Hit this link 8 Life Lessons From Yoga Workshop to read the entire post.

Source:  Thank you Michael Wade @ Execupundit for pointing me to the post.

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