Want some fun?
Open an additional window in your web browser, copy the link above and paste it into the second browser. The link will take you to a recording by Liam Lawton. It is called Glendalough Theme.
Play the music and read on.
“. . . and so connected.”
Once, so far, since we returned to Sarasota . . . I made a labyrinth on Crescent Beach of Siesta Key. It was easy to create with a drag of my shoes in the sand. I walked it . . . but I don’t think anyone else did. It will be good to make labyrinths on our home beach again and again and again.
One of the things about labyrinths is they are circular.
There is another circular thing that has been going on for long and long here in Sarasota (and lots of other places.)
It, too, provides an opportunity for movement.
It is open to all.
It is a place for letting go . . . and taking hold . . . a place of renewal . . .
You can learn about this other circular thing through a poem I found on the internet . . . and through the pictures I took on Nokomis Beach that follow the poem . . . read on.
Blue sky over Siesta
Feeling good to be home.
We spent the day at the beach yesterday.
It is lovely!
having not yet arrived
Jana Malamud Smith’s new book, An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Mastery, was published by Counterpoint Press in September. Her title is born from a sentence in the novel, Roderick Hudson, by Henry James:
“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of oneself; but the point is not only to get out – you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.”
We learned about Jana in the September issue of “The Sun” in an article she wrote as a variation to the introduction to her book. Jana’s absorbing errand is to write about why life is better for her (and, she believes, for all of us) when we “have a sustaining practice that holds our desire, demands our attention, and requires effort.”
Commercial – Ireland recommendations
We have posted these words of Brendan Kennelly before:
We step into the streets of morning
Walking along the pavements of come what may
Though we live in a world
That thinks of ending
That always seems about to give in
Something that will not acknowledge conclusion
Insists that we forever begin.
Perhaps his words or ours or the pictures we’ve posted have inspired you to begin the plans for an Ireland adventure. If you want some suggestions from our travels that you might like to make part of yours, read on.
God is still speaking
we believe in the ucc . . .
God is still speaking:
thank you Jennifer.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for “grand” . . .
“brilliant” . . . even,
commercials from our trip to Ireland.
may you know tonight that God is still speaking.
may you know tonight that God is still speaking to the tomato pickers from Immokalee.
may you know tonight that God is still speaking to you.
listen for the whisper . . . or the silence . . . or the trumpets . . . or . . .
the limp that led me to God
Phil’s daughter, Jennifer, sent this link.
It is good.
Check it out.
We’re home
Some of you may have remembered to pray the Evening Prayer we suggested each night for this time away.
Patricia and I remembered it often . . .
but . . .
sadly . . .
not always.
Anyway . . .
the prayer goes like this,
for those of you who may have forgotten it:
EVENING PRAYER
Now at the close of this day
we pause
to say thank you
for opening our eyes, ears, hands, and minds
to the ways you are in the world.
Through this night
may your rest be with the weary,
may your solace be with the brokenhearted,
may your healing be with the ill,
may your peace be with the troubled,
may your justice be with the oppressed.
May your comfort and delight be with family and friends everywhere.
Oh yes.
Amen
I’m praying these words tonight as I post this retrospective of photos you may not have seen:
Homeward bound
It is 3:30 am, Portland time.
Up early for our flight to Sarasota (by way of Atlanta, of course) . . .
More from home.
Thank you to all who made this pilgrimage to Ireland, Lake Superior, and Yachats possible, both before the journey and during our days and nights of travel.
Thank you Angela for caring for 2416, and pastoring the folk of St. Andrew.
Wow . . .
The Pacific – 2
Today Patricia and I head back to Portland around noon for an overnight there and an early am flight on Thursday, October 11, for Sarasota (by way, of course, of Atlanta).
I continue to be awed by the majestic beauty we have encountered over these weeks of our lives.
Patrick Kavanagh, in his poem, “To a Child”, wrote these lines:
Child there is a light somewhere
Under a star.
Sometime it will be for you
A window that looks
Inward to God.
The mysterious play of light and shadow has awed me every single day of these many weeks. It has been the light of sun and moon, for sure. But also the beauty, and sometimes aching weariness, in the eyes of family and friend and stranger.
All this long/short while we have been bathed in light and shadow . . . as has the world. Removed, somehow, are we, yet connected more deeply.
For now, it is enough for me to say:
wells-of-wellness 