Dance of Love

The essence of life - art in the everyday

2012-01-22T05:25:00.003-08:00

Gratitude for sunlight

2011-09-12T03:51:00.001-07:00

2011-09-06T06:21:00.001-07:00

2011-06-20T05:05:00.001-07:00

Giving up or pushing through?

2011-06-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

There is a time for laughing and a time for dying... a time for fighting for something, and a time for giving up - is there? When we really want something, what is the best path if we are denied that thing? Do we keep fighting for it in the belief that we will get it? Or do we accept that the door is closed and give thanks for the other opportunities that await us? I have a friend who never takes no for an answer, never gives up, and I admire his courage and strength. But once when I fought for years for something I thought I passionately wanted, the fight caused me great pain, and when I finally had to say "I can't", I lost my dream. Did I give up too soon? I have asked myself this a thousand times. Or did I fight for too long? Perhaps this is what caused me the greatest grief. How do we know when 'no' God's way of allowing us to turn to him in trust, dependent on what we cannot understand, and when is it an obstacle we must push through in order to truly reach our dreams?
The only thing I think I know is that whatever we do, we must do in faith and with thanks. Perhaps if we do so, both ways will bring us deeper into the heart of joy. There is no right or wrong, there is only faith - and love. Faith that we are held, and that it is love that holds us.

2011-05-17T02:38:00.000-07:00

The Common Cold

2011-05-17T02:21:00.000-07:00

God bless those who suffer from the common cold
Nature has entered into them
Has led them aside and gently lain them low
To contemplate life from the wayside.....

So says Michael Leunig, Australian poet, cartoonist, social commentator, and revealer of truth, in the Prayer Tree (Harper Collins, 1990) The cold that I suffer from today is a gift, reminding me to "consider human frailty... to receive the deep and dreamy messages of fever...", as Leunig goes on to say. How readily I give thanks for the things I like and resent the things I do not. If I expect from life only happiness given on my terms, then I will be disappointed - have been so disappointed. But if I see life as a journey, as an experience of learning and growing, and all of life as a gift, then I can only dance, can only trace the shining with my fingertips, can only follow the steps in this twirl of joy as one who is loved.