God Asked For Charity

God came to my house and asked for charity.

And I fell on my knees and cried,
"Beloved, what may I give?

"Just love,"

God said.

"Just love."

- Saint Francis of Assisi -

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

- Wendell Berry - 

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

Hope

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.  
It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.  
It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.  
It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.  
 
- Lisel Mueller -

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

The Treasure We Look For Is Hidden

Patience is a hard discipline.
It is not just waiting
until something happens over which we have no control:
    the arrival of the bus,
    the end of the rain,
    the return of a friend,
    the resolution of a conflict.

Patience is not a waiting passivity
until someone else does something.
Patience asks us
    to live the moment to the fullest,
    to be completely present to the moment,
    to taste the here and now,
    to be where we are.

When we are impatient
we try to get away from where we are.
We behave as if the real thing will happen
    tomorrow,
    later and
    somewhere else.

Let’s be patient and trust
that the treasure we look for is hidden
in the ground on which we stand.

- Henri Nouwen - 

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance—

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on,
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

- Rainer Maria Wilke -

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

At Dusk

I am a trace of You in the world,

and everything is like a door.

Let us all trace that trace of You,

and through all things go to You.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel -

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com

Mysteries, Yes!

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous 

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the 

mouths of the lambs. 

How rivers and stones are forever 

in allegiance with gravity 

while we ourselves dream of rising. 

How two hands touch and the bonds 

will never be broken. 

How people come, from delight or the 

scars of damage, 

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those 

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say 

"Look!" and laugh in astonishment, 

and bow their heads.

- Mary Oliver -

Artist: Maureen L White, www.urbanpasturesart.com