We live in a very complex world. We don’t know who we are, we don’t understand how our brain and our body function, we don’t know who’s guiding us, who is guiding the universe (in other words, who is running things)—we don’t know any of that. But through prayer we might come to a state of knowing—not so much knowledge as knowing. An unknown knowing.
Moon against Earth’s atmosphere by an Expedition 26 astronaut aboard the International Space Station. Thank you, kateoplis.
The invisible and imponderable is the sole fact.
He saw that all the struggles of life were incessant, laborious, painful, that nothing was done quickly, without labor, that it had to undergo a thousand fondlings, revisings, moldings, addings, removings, graftings, tearings, correctings, smoothings, rebuildings, reconsiderings, nailings, tackings, chippings, hammerings, hoistings, connectings—all the poor fumbling uncertain incompletions of human endeavor. they went on forever and were forever incomplete, far from perfect, refined, or smooth, full of terrible memories of failure and fears of failure, yet, in the way of things, somehow noble, complete, and shining in the end…
Brassaï, Cathedral, sometime in the 30s. From melisaki.
Ansel Adams, Saint Francis Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, 1950. From melisaki.
St. John of the Cross compares man to a window through which the light of God is shining.
If the windowpane is clean of every stain, it is completely transparent,
we do not see it at all: it is “empty” and nothing is seen but the light.
But if a man bears in himself the stains of spiritual egotism and
preoccupation with his illusory and exterior self,
even in “good things,”
then the windowpane itself is clearly seen by reason of the stains that are on it.
Hence if a man can be rid of the stains and dust produced within him
by his fixation upon what is good and bad in reference to himself, he will be transformed in God and will be “one with God.”
~ Thomas Merton from Zen and the Birds of Appetite. By way of the extraordinary collection at The Beauty We Love.
Jock Sturges: Nikki, Montalivet, France, 1998. Courtesy of melisaki.
We’re in a free fall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast. And always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. But all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective … Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes.
For fear you will be alone
you do so many things
that aren’t you at all.
—Richard Brautigan
Thank you, goodpoetry & awritersruminations
