MindSpinner

It is not the span of days that makes a lifetime enough; certain moments, do, instead. At such moments we can say, even if I die now, I will have lived this, seen this, known this. I have lived.

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Conceiving God in our own image is the error we tend to make all the time, and claim texts to support us, call them holy and proclaim them infallible, deifying interpretation. But a text cannot contain God. Words may point to truth, but they can’t actually contain it. The vessel of the divine is the spirit, not words on a page.

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Isn’t it wonderful to leave a part of ourselves in gardens? Near my mother’s home, it is possible to drive a jeep up old logging roads deeply rutted by rains, past coves where roses still grow toward summer light that sifts through canopies of leaves, in places where cabins have fallen into rotten logs and their chimneys behind them, into rubble. Someone lifetimes ago planted those roses there. Plant a daffodil or a daylily, and you touch a place forever; you become an instrument in the hand of the artist gardener God, like a bird carrying a seed.

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A beachcomber walks the shore at dawn, watching morning light break across waves from horizon to horizon. His footprints stretch behind him, etched in wet sand. Yet, even with all of eternity endlessly rocking and divinity showering light all around, he pauses to see beauty in a single shell, washed indifferently upon the shore. He picks it up, dips it in a wave to let the sea cleanse it of clinging sand, and holds it up to light. Then he puts it in his pocket, knowing that he will carry it there for all time.

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Love is a miracle that happens to friendship. Friendship is a tent of shelter and a place of welcome for the soul.

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Triumphant living isn’t a set of circumstances; it’s a state of mind that sees good and lets light in, transforms what needs transforming, and uses all things to a purpose.

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You’re stronger for what you go through, and more than that, you know yourself to be stronger. You learn that your inner resources and your faith are adequate to sustain you during adversity. That knowledge itself is strength.

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The tiniest things can have goodness in them; when you find something that does, return to it and draw strength. I have an entire garden because there is a restorative joy for me in working out of doors for an hour or a day, digging and tending. I discovered this sustenance when my days were darkest and emptiest and I was quite alone.

This I do know. Alone, we are forced to find the wellsprings of our own souls in order not to die of thirst.

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