tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8589349553313069982024-03-13T07:20:01.766-04:00Consider the LiliesThoughts from a Life of Musing, Praying, Writing, and TeachingKimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13564606268367781659noreply@blogger.comBlogger559125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-77188294389678028952019-08-14T19:08:00.002-04:002019-08-14T19:08:26.978-04:00A New Field for the LiliesThis blog has moved and all content can now be found <a href="https://considerlilies.blog/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. Do stop by!Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-13310700672959451882019-08-08T09:28:00.000-04:002019-08-08T09:28:33.249-04:00Never, not Ever, Boring<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">I woke up singing ‘Galileo’ by the Indigo Girls. This was followed by eating my breakfast alongside our seemingly despairing cat (read: SNOW JOB...) and brushing her into into peace once again. I dressed, cleaned up after a family staying downstairs, and went out to go for a walk through the Public Gardens. Passing the bus stop, I greeted Anna who attends many of the same poetry events I do. I looped an outer block around the fence line of the Gardens first and encountered a man who is also a regular around-town walker. I’ve only ever seen him in the company of a decorated wooden staff and wondered about what he did with it, I wonder no longer. He was using the end and flipping up litter with the grace and practice of a drum major...one who marches to music I suspect not many others may notice. “Thank you!” I called to him... receiving the most beautiful smile in return. While doing a circuit of the dahlia beds, I met a woman from nearby Sackville who was following nearly exactly in my footsteps. She and I ended up in a fairly lengthy rich conversation about the multi-layered joy of the dahlias and the Gardens in general. We spoke of mathematics and colour, of photography and seasons and history, of urban design and the peace found in nature. My mind was clearly on as much of a wander as my feet because I proceeded to leave the Gardens and follow a couple right on into Thumpers...which would have been fine if I too wanted to get my haircut. I didn’t. Down I went a couple of doors and into Humani-T to work for a bit on correspondence that included looking at a document about a podcast I have begun hosting. I ordered my flat white and went to the washroom. When I came out, the barista—one of two that I’d taught to juggle with apples a couple of weeks ago—had brought my drink to what he thought was my table. There were keys on the table...which weren’t mine. The woman at the next table over said—I don’t know...a guy was there, he left, and he hasn’t been back. I brought the keys up to the counter. The man attached to the keys was at a different table. I came back and chatted with the woman at the next table over...she works in a local children’s bookstore and we see one another around the downtown area.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">It continues to fill me with gratitude that a day can begin this way... Colourful, peopled, productive, unexpected...Each aspect highlighting or making manifest an aspect of God... God who is never, ever, boring.</span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-24278856690787818632019-08-06T16:25:00.004-04:002019-08-06T20:32:48.886-04:00Another Galaxy in the Universe...RIP Toni Morrison<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">Toni Morrison </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Avenir-Heavy;"><b>18 February, 1931-5 August, 2019</b></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">We die. That may be the meaning of life. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">—Toni Morrison—</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">Thank you for your language. The measure you shared is an everlasting gift.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt;">There is another star added to the galaxy, or perhaps even more so, another galaxy added to the universe. The Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison has died. The above quotation of hers is a favourite and it sparked this reflection...</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>And whether that measure be short or long, I pray it may it be dense with language...with languages.</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The language of inclusion...sweeping vistas of hope and broad benches of welcome at tables laden with enough...if we share. </i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The language of freedom that speaks of the right to leave that person, place, or situation which is unsafe and settle in a new place to begin anew; Syllables of freedom that write the poetry of reality’s expression—whether hip hop, slam, or sonnet, novel, short story, or tweet. The language of each being made in the image and likeness of God.</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The language of dignity that honours the questions and curiosities, the asymmetrical, the quirky, the different, and the not understood; The language of patience and of peaceable disagreement.</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The language of beauty, of art and creativity. The language that knows the value of silence, study, space, and contemplation. The language of the inside and of insight...of science and music, sculpture, dance, archeology, math, the language that knows the saving power of a story well-told.</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The language of love. Of love, of love, of love. Love that is a difficult honour and the language that is glazed in strength and fired in the light no darkness can overcome. The language that speaks of the good for those in love; that describes the good for the community because they are in love; The language of love that recognizes joy and can sit the night with unfathomable mystery because it never forgets how to imagine sunrise.</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>Let my language be dense, let it be rich, and let me share the wealth of my Word while I still have my breath...spending it all with as much elegant simplicity as possible.</i></span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-20408492791754807732019-07-25T20:31:00.000-04:002019-07-25T20:31:48.534-04:00Tea with Nina Simone<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 11.3px;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">There is a sound...a sound that opens my being and inhabits my bones for a while...and when that sound...meets a mood...and that mood meets a way to write...the lines fall out a certain way...like a picture of what I feel. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">“Nina Simone” by Stanley Chow</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">Tea with Nina Simone</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Singer woman with a lived-in voice,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">how I ache to climb the steps of those piano keys,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">bending into the curve of your voice and</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">riding upside on the slide of your top note wail.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Mm. From there, that view, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">oh I’d throw my arms open and </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">dive in dancing, I would...</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Confident that air would catch </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">beneath the canopy of my soul.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I will sigh when the song</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">is done, I will. Sigh</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">and sip my tea steaming</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">on the coaster beside me.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">eyes closed and heart still swaying </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">inside that waterfall </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">of sound and liquid soul.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Kimberly M. King, RSCJ</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-58910234402974366942019-07-18T14:39:00.001-04:002019-07-18T14:39:17.422-04:00What Others Notice<div style="font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">A couple from Ireland stopped in front of where I was seated on a bench, having lunch in the shade at the Public Gardens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">“That looks absolutely amazing…,” they said to me of my meal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I looked up at them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">“Honestly, it is…Every single thing about it is divine. The juice, the colour, the taste, the texture, the context…(I laughed) I am so enjoying the pleasure of my lunch…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">“It’s why we felt like we could stop,” said the wife.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">“?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">“You looked like you were so happy, simply eating a beautiful plum.”</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-15879990871029804202019-07-17T12:13:00.000-04:002019-07-17T12:13:02.184-04:00Vacation in my Backpack<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><b>I Carry Vacation with Me</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">My brain needs space to rest and roam; my heart needs room to feel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">A book in hand is a key to a place where ‘away’ becomes the real.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Wizards, mansions, and moors and trains; detectives, urchins and spies,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">this and that and now and then and here and there, all fly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">With a turn of the page, the tuck of a chin, a settling into the chair,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I am elsewhere for a while, I am breathing different air.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">So should you see me gazing off and not quite where I appear,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I’ve gone inside this elsewhere place…I’ll be back in a bit, right here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">When you find me, wherever you find me, may it seem when you cast a look</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that I am refreshed for the journey I’ve taken with the passport of a book.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Kimberly M. King, RSCJ</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-22605494296793457662019-07-10T19:35:00.001-04:002019-07-10T20:12:13.112-04:00The Gardens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Heavy; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold;">Halifax Public Gardens</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">It’s textures that captivate me, and colours.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">And nature’s infinite compassion </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">for me still having this idea</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">that not so secretly pleases my spirit: </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">if I look long enough, could let go</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">just so, I’d be on the inside and know</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">the interiority of a stone, the expansiveness</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">of blue, and the shiny tingle of perfection</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">when light and shape and Beingness align.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">People </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">tend to mind if the eye dwells too long </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">on a line or a curve,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">on a sway or on a softness.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">Other wild elements invite me to stillness,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">to a looseness of mind and grandeur of heart</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">that sees the tracery holding panes of divinity </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">in the molecules that call to me </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">in the raw spectacle of a garden.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">Beauty in the simplest; radiant complexity.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">Harmonies to make me weep and contrasts</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">that leave me breathless and believing still</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">that being caught-up in wonder is </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">an ache of the senses and accessible glory.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">It is good for the soul</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">to have a place to wander free,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">to behold and be permitted</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">the revelation of awe.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 14pt;">Kimberly M. King, RSCJ</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-33683837094580590352019-07-06T12:45:00.000-04:002019-07-06T18:26:28.301-04:00Buechner and the Beach<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.7px;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Over the years, I keep returning to two quotations... One by Walt Whitman--<i>Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large and I contain multitudes</i>. And this one by Frederick Buechner. Both speak of letting fullness dwell within; of letting what is most real dwell within. And that living with fullness, living with the inner multitudes--our own and those of others, is living a life that knows something of the depth, the honor, the difficulty, of what it is to love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><b>A visit to Lawrencetown Beach</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">—Frederick Buechner</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">The news and a walk afford</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">half-assurance of this truth:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Bombs, borders, detentions,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">inhumanity, insufficiency, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">desperation, aching humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">The other portion,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that is our work of discovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">To believe a shell can hold the sea if I hold her to my ear;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that time has birthed geodes and fossils and you and me;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that simple is both elegant and enough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">And don’t be afraid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Of either. Beautiful or terrible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">And how could I,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">here with you, not alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">With the sky and the tides and open horizon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">With apples and strawberries</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">and clean cold water for lunch;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">with laughter and music and a road with a view;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">with the lived truth that weighs in pockets: Beautiful and Terrible; </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">and with unafraid hearts that have heard the ocean tumble across the stones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Have heard her tumble and found her sublime.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Have felt the grit and the smooth she leaves</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">and tasted her on the wind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Courageously alive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">—Kimberly M. King, RSCJ </span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-84712721218635866992019-06-21T11:01:00.001-04:002019-06-21T11:32:13.829-04:00Photos in Words (Mostly...)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-left: 5.7px;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">19 June, 2019</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">...</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">In the heady coffee-cinnamon humidity of No. 9 Coffeeshop. Paul Simon overhead. Your colours were a brief and glorious glimpse of flair this morning. The peach gradient on the horizon, rather spectacular. And the clouds and trees upon the water—as though they needed a reflection to adjust night </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">flattened branches or to fresh fluff their vapor in preparation for the new day. And thank you for the company of the woman to my right who also has a book and seems quietly pleased for the caffeinated, sweet spiced, stillness we share.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">20 June, 2019</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">... </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">7:50 AM Public Gardens on a bench at the Summer Street side point of a triangle using the large gazebo and Horticulture Hall as the other two points. Something I have noticed: People stop to talk to the ducks who search out their breakfast in the dew-cool grasses. And, I am one of them. I am interested in the fact that these wobbly diners choose to walk beneath the benches and not around them. So it was again this morning when two females brushed by my ankle with only a slight rolling crunch of pea gravel beneath their paddlers and the gentle-edged mur-mur-mur-mur of each one offering aloud her private morning commentary without expectation of a response from the other. The first one turned to look at me—She had a curly blade of grass across her beak. Condensation had stuck it there like a handlebar moustache. I thought to mention it to her as she tilted her head in assessment of my presence. Apparently I posed no threat and she was content with her adornment because the two of them waddled out a place for themselves in the grass directly across from me. When I stood to leave, I thanked them for their company.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: bold;">21 June, 2019</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">...</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Pouring rain...thought ‘Ugh,´ if I don´t leave the house now, I´ll never go out today... So off I went on a circuit of the Gardens and then into one of my favorite haunts. I walk in to witness two of the baristas teaching themselves how to juggle with sweet potatoes. Me: If you have apples it’s easier... The two of them: You can juggle?? WAIT, Here! And they toss me three apples. The next fifteen minutes or so are filled with laughter and a lesson on the basic principles of juggling. And then I sat down and did some work... The world is full of fresh hells and is unraveling at so many seams...yet, there is still joy to be noted and </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">simple good fun to be had while working to make it better for more. </span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-925045915529651382019-06-20T11:33:00.000-04:002019-06-20T11:33:45.284-04:00The Divine Octave <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Several mornings of my recent retreat were spent on a wharf in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. I was drawn there for the spacious quiet, for the water, the horizon, the creak of the pilings and cries of the birds, and, honestly, the comfortable chairs close enough to the edge to prop up my short legs and with arms wide enough for a notebook. The sun was warm, the boat traffic local, the peace expansive… It was a satisfying perch. The pleasing “protractor gone mad” angles of the boats, their masts, and their rigging; the angles of the wharf itself, the size and bright colours of the chairs, the warmth in which I was steeping…it all served to both ground and free me. This was helped along by the book I was reading—Saudade by Anik See. So far, each one of these beautifully bound essays has reminded me of the smooth pocket-stones I carry with me. Weighty, present, solid, company. Each one has a story to go with it, each one has its place. Just as my hand is sometimes drawn to hold a particular one of the stones at a given moment, I selected a particular essay to read one of the mornings at the wharf. Little could I have known ahead of time the ache of beauty and aha and YES! that would tumble my heart like ocean water burnishing sea glass. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">The essay, “Squeezing a Spiral into a Square Hole,” has to do with proportion, design, what is organically pleasing, and the artistry of that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The easiest way to picture the golden section in nature is to imagine the cross-section of a nautilus shell, growing outward neatly; beautifully in proportion to the previous later of spiral. It is this relationship that is ever appealing to us, wither in the form of the human body or in musical scales, or in the relationship of text to a page. Bringhurst’s discussion of the golden section is crucial to the understanding of design, and why certain things work and others don’t. In other words, if double-square books (i.e. books whose width-length proportion us 1:2) look good to you, it’s probably because the relationship of proportion is the same relationship as found between the notes of a simple octave: a primary ‘visual chord’ has been created, according to Bringhurst.</i> Anik See, “Squeezing a Spiral into a Square Hole” </span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-decoration: underline;">Saudade</span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">, P. 67-8</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">A ‘primary visual chord!’ How I delight in the mixing of the senses there! And, how easy to translate that into primary flavour chords in cooking; primary rhythmic chords created through sentence structure; primary aural chords in line break choices when writing poetry…. Again and again, the call to pay attention. To be absolutely present and keenly aware of the effect desired, the effect achieved… yet, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>In choosing the proportions of type and spacing, as well as the proportions of the page, a harmony should be suggestive, not obvious.</i> Anik See, “Squeezing a Spiral into a Square Hole” </span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-decoration: underline;">Saudade</span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">, P. 69</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Again, so broadly applicable. I think there’s a reason limericks are only five lines long. They can be wonderful nuggets of humour and yet are also exceedingly obvious in rhythm and rhyme scheme. Milk and mashed potatoes harmonize obviously. Paprika and balsamic vinegar in right relationship—who’d have guessed?? Yet, beautiful flavour emerges from that dance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">The key…the struggle…the fun of the process…is the right relationship piece of artistic creation…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>A good design will mix math and spontaneity, exactness and free-hand proportions, because the eye needs to be directed, but it also needs to have room to wander so it doesn’t feel manipulated or stuck.</i> Anik See, “Squeezing a Spiral into a Square Hole,” </span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-decoration: underline;">Saudade</span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">, P. 69</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">So too the ear, the tastebuds…and it occurred to me out there on the wharf…so too the heart, the Spirit…</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 21.6px;">And Glory, doesn’t God provide for that…the golden section that is the spiralling out of life, of gift, of experience, wonder, awe, challenge, Love, pain, suffering, discovery, revelation, giving, receiving, dying, rising…. And sometimes we need to find ourselves somewhere other than where we usually are to notice, to take that in…to again tune our senses to the divine octave at play in creation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">This came to me just before I put the bookmark in, packed my bag, rose from the bright green chair on the wharf and noticed that there was a jellyfish in the water…. I can’t tell you for exactly how long I knelt there, captivated, watching it pulse, scrunch, move…pulse, scrunch, move…rest…rest…rest…pulse, scrunch, move… making music I could see and making it with calculation and grace alike...with no discernible direction and undeniable purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>The precision has to slip away so that what matters most is the text or image on the page. It is exactly like jazz. It bops and squeals and roils and you play or listen and beam, but you never, ever, ask how it’s done. That knowledge—that part of the process is long past and you are entirely satisfied just being there to put your fingers on it, to listen, or look, or read: to appreciate it.</i> Anik See, “Squeezing a Spiral into a Square Hole” </span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-decoration: underline;">Saudade</span><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">, P. 71-2</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-indent: 21.6px;">And I thought about the Psalmist who wrote of the Inescapable God… What I know is that you made me, you are with me, you encircle me, no matter where, no matter what, you Are…the holy and mysterious golden proportion of Love…and that knowledge is beautiful and just a bit overwhelming. And I am grateful.</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-92136825769622978872019-06-17T17:19:00.000-04:002019-06-17T17:19:19.702-04:00Sanctuary<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">We come as we are—no hiding, no acting, no fear. We come with our materialism, our pride, our petty grievances against our neighbours, our hypocritical disdain for those judgmental people in the church next door. We come with our fear of death, our desperation to be loved, our troubled marriages, our persistent doubts, our preoccupation with status and image. We come with our addictions—to substances, to work, to affirmation, to control, to food. we come with our differences; be they political, theological, racial, or socioeconomic. We come in search of sanctuary, a safe place to shed the masks and exhale.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Rachel Held Evans, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-decoration: underline;">Searching for Sunday</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">, p. 71</span></div>
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<b>Sanctuary</b></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Sanctuary of place and person-</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">neither containing, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">neither constraining,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">All embracing:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">A refuge of perspective</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">on infinite You.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">A new slant of light,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">a peripheral humming</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">toward which I bend in bright fascination</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">of always and everywhere You;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">of the tousled and wild diversity</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that is You;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You who named each one,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">who claims each one,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">who loves and loves again and loves still.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You who knows each contour, texture,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">and elemental specificity of creation</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">and calls it all good.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You, whose beckon and draw</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">is the metronome by which</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I rest and journey.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You, the moon and sun alike—</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You, whose shadow</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">is both cross and wing.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Sanctuary people, sanctuary spaces:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">both respite and threshold</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">from the journey and between forgetting and remembering</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that you named us Beloved;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that all you made is Blessed;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">that this is enough, and we are not alone.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Kimberly M. King, RSCJ</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-14601911323777384792019-06-07T11:01:00.001-04:002019-06-07T11:01:46.269-04:00...or on the pavements grey...<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Here in Halifax, and elsewhere, it has been a grey stretch of time, these last months. Grey and rain; grey and fog; grey and something between rain and fog; Grey.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1oXhx5N9bI/XPp73jaorsI/AAAAAAAAByE/su4lNFNowAsE4d7e0zFC1wm8TkKsEjRwgCLcBGAs/s1600/c%2525h8g8beSiepPHOym4qVKA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1oXhx5N9bI/XPp73jaorsI/AAAAAAAAByE/su4lNFNowAsE4d7e0zFC1wm8TkKsEjRwgCLcBGAs/s320/c%2525h8g8beSiepPHOym4qVKA.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Yet still the Public Gardens green and bloom in technicolor because that is what trees, flowers, and plants are called to do. And in fact, the grey watery light helps those colours stand out in greater relief. I believe that an awareness of that, the salvation of that, has been important these weeks, locally and more widely afield. In this world that is such a mess globally…a little grey-light dampness helps highlight even the smallest shoot or bud or action or person that holds the startling promise of contrast, beauty, life, Spirit. Trees, bulbs, seeds, acting out of their fullness of purpose, make that manifest. Humans too…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">The difference being that we need to choose it: choose to act out of that fullness of purpose. And it seems to me, as a person of faith, that purpose is Love. Which looks like decency; justice; compassion; solidarity; honesty; respect; openness; and more… toward God, toward Earth, toward one another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I was thinking about that this morning as I left the house in the droplet thick half-light to walk through the Public Gardens. I thanked the trees for my breath; I thanked them for the shelter they provide; and for their steadfast solidity. I admired the rose vine’s gentle embrace of the light pole and the way that the begonias held onto fine mist, leaving each petal laden with prismatic jewels. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P79xjP6kxYQ/XPp73TelNNI/AAAAAAAAByA/AyEYeS8pSjcEpWToHkyvB1WLeIl2hsaqgCEwYBhgL/s1600/3X4d7%2525zQQZS4Iib7jsPiIA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P79xjP6kxYQ/XPp73TelNNI/AAAAAAAAByA/AyEYeS8pSjcEpWToHkyvB1WLeIl2hsaqgCEwYBhgL/s320/3X4d7%2525zQQZS4Iib7jsPiIA.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">And as I walked I gave thanks for the people I know and those I haven’t yet met who wake up in this world and decide that even a few slogging steps forward toward something other than the current miasma is, in fact, forward, and that making a positive difference is possible…and can look like a world-wide movement or a smile to a stranger…can be radical protest or scratching the ears of a dog who decided to sit on your feet.</span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-52852325696968294652019-06-02T10:09:00.000-04:002019-06-02T10:09:35.288-04:00Neither a Failure nor Uninformative: Or, anybody seen a Mousse?<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> The role of repetition in prayer is long standing across different traditions. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Sometimes it is a repetitive action or movement, sometimes it is linguistic. Mantras, rosaries, sets of yoga poses...all assist both in focusing and in letting go... The act of repetitive behavior itself has a role in that way. Any prayer that happens while we are participating in that act may or may not bear the desired...or even tangible, recognizable...fruit. The good is sometimes simply in the practice. We are calmer and more engaged because we have participated in something that allows us to lift away a bit, loosen the bonds, and recalibrate. The practice takes us to a place of freedom. How that place is decorated is unique to each of us... And can’t people around us tell when we’ve spent time there?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Decorative touches for me include pens and paper, books, sometimes bowls, an apron, and a clear countertop. While ambling in that particular arena this evening, I made a lovely batch of chocolate...mortar. The unrealized intention was mousse. And yet, my time was not wasted nor did my efforts fail. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Never had I pictured exactly how much 7 ounces of rock hard chocolate is until the time came to chop it. It was more than I imagined...and as it turns out, deconstructing it was one of the most meditative thing I’ve done in a good while! The rocking of the knife, the shaving off of chocolate curls, the two handed scoop of the airy accumulating pile to put it in the makeshift double boiler...both wonderfully repetitive and decidedly satisfying. The amount to chop meant that I could take my time...adjust the ways I did it...I could pay attention...enjoy the process and the purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I also whisked egg whites into mountain tops. By hand. The determination to get there kept me going, as did the stages along the way...liquid whites to bubbles forming...to foamy...to droopy peaks...to summit worthy. All along the way, I had questions about the method, about the efficacy of one way of doing this over another, about how much and which particulars of the process were ultimately the most important... The answer I learned? All of it. The paying attention was what mattered.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I did not wake up thinking about nor have I recently seen, a mousse. I recently read a memoir about a pastry chef in Paris, the chapters had recipes as illustrations, and there was a tucked away box of baking chocolate in the cupboard, unearthed in a search for something else. I have been keen of late to master different basic recipes and here was an opportunity! Twenty minutes until I was looking at goodness in a bowl! Except, funny thing... the recipe was wrong. The prescribed formula had me add water to melting chocolate. 5 tablespoons of water based liquid, to be precise. Which caused the chocolate to seize up and yield a bowl of bricklayer’s paradise. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Disappointing for sure, but not a failure nor uninformative. When I doubt my own instinct or am bound solely to a specific formula and there is no room for either further consult or adaptation, it could be problematic. And the same when I put paper above people with knowledge based on the doing of a thing—to her credit, a friend did try and suggest that based on her experience I might want to look into another recipe; and a different friend said Remember the movie, Like Water for Chocolate? There’s a reason it’s called that!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Regardless, it was an evening of time spent loosely. Of time put into activity that allowed me to relax, smooth out interior wrinkles, let go, open, and focus.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Not unlike the best fruit of prayer.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I will return to that place, for sure, and bring what I learned along the way. And I might yet see mousse in the refrigerator. Or not. It’s the attention given and the doing of the thing that yields the most long-term discernible results.</span><br />
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-58716208661815031332019-05-31T12:08:00.003-04:002019-05-31T12:08:47.265-04:00In the Sea-Damp Fog<br />
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What was intended as a quick errand to drop mail into the postbox turned into a lovely thick amble down the main shopping street near here and then up a side street to Citadel Hill; and along there until reaching the northeast corner entrance to the Public Gardens. I turned in and, as happens sometimes, I had the loveliest sensation of being among friends…and by that I mean the magnolias and the pond with her drooping willows, the azaleas nearly unable to restrain their excitement at what was coming for them, the dandelions turned asterisks that had danced their finale in last night’s ovation of rain. The crows with infinitesimal prismatic droplets of water strewn upon their blackness. It looked as though the moon, the stars, and the night sky had taken on an avian countenance. Contemplative galaxies in flight.</div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">I got that feeling (and if I am honest, still get that feeling) when reading as a child too…All I had to do was open the book and all was alive and waiting for my company, my curiosity, my senses and imagination.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;"> </span></div>
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The half-light rolling tight <o:p></o:p></div>
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embrace of sea-damp fog <o:p></o:p></div>
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reminds me of childhood table-tents<o:p></o:p></div>
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where the old double sheet was weighted<o:p></o:p></div>
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with a bright red edition of the Britannica; <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was fond of choosing the volumes <o:p></o:p></div>
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that covered a span of letters; somehow that made <o:p></o:p></div>
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more room underneath for the magic act <o:p></o:p></div>
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of disappearing <o:p></o:p></div>
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for a while.<o:p></o:p></div>
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—Kimberly M. King, RSCJ—<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-50401852690101558422019-05-29T13:01:00.001-04:002019-05-29T13:01:30.974-04:00The Mystical Technicolor Landscape of God<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Avenir Next Regular", sans-serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3in;">
It’s funny the unexpected things that can happen before noon in a day…You can wake up singing show tunes (which I did this morning); You can shoof-shoof-shoof the flappy ears of a puppy, brush a cat, and lay witness to a duck on a wander…all in the middle of a city, all within twenty minutes, each in three different places; and, you can have a conversation with a woman who will be ordained an Anglican priest that leads you both to look at beauty, discernment, and the Wizard of Oz in a whole new way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m hard pressed to remember why one of us said “We’re not in Kansas anymore…” while in the middle of an initial conversation welcoming her to the Spirituality Centre. This sparked the memory I have of the sweeping winter vista from upstairs at the Farmer’s Market. How you can look out over the beauty of grayscale and move one’s eyes through the wall of the market building and then pass into the Market where suddenly everything blooms into technicolor and textural glory. The table where I usually perch is right along that wall…right where the crossover happens from cold clear-edged units of neutral tones alongside each other into the humid wonder of sensory saturation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The black and white tonal world is much clearer…like Kansas was for Dorothy. Rules and roles laid out with clarity; little to doubt or question; One can move through and know that This is not That; and They are of There whereas We are of Here; Right is clear from Wrong and so the puzzle fits together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That works for some people. The clarity is comforting, if potentially limiting. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For those who are able to pass through the tornado, or wall, or sometimes, the normative social convention, technicolor awaits with its splendour and its confusion, both. There is where we meet those people we might not otherwise; On the journey we take together, we learn to be vulnerable, scared, and strong together, to watch out for each other, to grow in self-knowledge and grace. It loosens us without untethering us…allows us to see beyond the limits of our sight.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That technicolor place is the territory of the mystics and creatives; the curious and the daring; the soul-traveller, star-walker; the what-iffers and those who give themselves over to the call to Love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I believe we are made in the technicolor image of God, wondrous, confusing, full, of the senses, of glory, of edges that blur into expanses of welcome where there is room for all who seek a road that leads onward, together, toward Home. Toward home. Wiser for the journey, kinder for those we have met, bolder for the adventure, more grounded in hope, more courageous because we know that we are not alone and that amazing things can happen when we give ourselves to possibility rather than limitation, when we open outward even when afraid. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And then we shall be marvelling, and yes, likely struggling, together, in the landscape of the heart of God.</div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-30620015751636385692019-05-26T21:02:00.001-04:002019-05-26T21:05:47.588-04:00Post-Feast of Saint Madeleine Sophie, 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">This past Saturday was the celebration of the Feast of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. I choose to believe she understands why I did not get out anything ahead of time this year. It was a crazy full May... I hope she would have delighted in how I did spend her Feast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">It began at the Farmer’s Market, down at the harbour...</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>Am at the market and it is stunning in here today. Full sun, blessed sun, warm, rainbow-casting sun...there are rainbows everywhere this morning—not sure why and why not important. I am delighting in their tumble and cascade over the stairs in the centre, over the cement “aisles,” and, especially smile-raising, bending around the contours of the radishes laid out like brickwork—stem to root, every other, at Acres of Peace. Augh! How the sunlight heals and cheers the soul and how it highlights texture and colour. The aesthetic aspect of being here is not to be underestimated at any time or season, but Augh, when the vegetables are fresh-bright and the morning is yet young and the sunlight is wrapping each one in kindly light that wants nothing more than to fill each bend, contour, knot, root, plane, crumb, and curve, with beauty and organic celebration of identity... I can’t help but wonder whether the sun does that for us too, in some way.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y2Jv3sT9wF0/XOs20s9hn2I/AAAAAAAABv0/yZngU96VNpYcpNtlfNhnZxCUqi5SPf5YQCLcBGAs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_6de.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="1215" height="198" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y2Jv3sT9wF0/XOs20s9hn2I/AAAAAAAABv0/yZngU96VNpYcpNtlfNhnZxCUqi5SPf5YQCLcBGAs/s320/fullsizeoutput_6de.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I was thinking of Sophie as I wandered the different stalls and also as I looked out over the waters...watching the tugs and the container ship, marveling at the illumination of the water—its ‘lightness,’ even with such lumbering transportation asking permission to cleave a way forward. She was a woman of commerce and prayer, nature and business, communication and contemplation. I believe she understood practical realities and also the grace of beauty. These things, all alive within her, had me thinking about the both/and of the Sacred Heart itself. Not human OR divine; instead, the twining of the two. Both and each, wholly and completely. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Creating space for drawing near to that heart is something each community is called to do...that is done in many ways...including how we treat one another and in tending to our surroundings themselves. Sometimes creating that space calls us away from where we live most of the time and invites us to relax in a different setting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">The province has a vacation house about an hour from here. It is new to us as of last September. On Saturday afternoon, thirteen RSCJ, Associates, family members, and friends, gathered to enjoy the space and relax together on Sophie’s Feast. We also used that time to bless the house, as it was the largest gathering to date and included so many circles of relationship. The prayer, in essence, was that the house be a place Sophie would recognize as a house of the Society, a place for discovery and revelation, prayer, conversation, transformation, and love...</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Saint Madeleine Sophie,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You asked us to be humble and simple and reminded us to bring joy to others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">May this place provide a welcome of simple beauty, humble heart, and may it bring joy to all who cross its threshold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">When you sat with your sisters, a pin went into the candle and each one spoke until the flame burned down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">May this home be home to conversations and prayer among sisters and friends about things great and small, about the future, the past, and the now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">To our list of behaviors as people of faith, you stressed, <i>Above all, get in the habit of thinking about God.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">May this house at Martins River inspire those who visit to do just that and may those thoughts of God add layers to the warmth, to the good, to the grace, that is felt within these walls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">You wondered —<i>And what is God?</i> And you answered: <i>Supreme happiness, that is all.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">May the waters of the cove, the quiet of the nights, the company of the animals, and all that happens here help lead each one who comes here to that contentment and knowledge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">And when the time comes for us to leave this space for a while and return to the paths that led us here, may we too always remember to <i>repay our God, love for love, heart for heart.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"><i>AMEN</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">May this be so for us all, wherever we may live and work...discovering and revealing...making Love manifest in a world that is in such desperate need. Happy Continuing Feast, all<i>...</i></span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-21059800583188634342019-05-20T21:27:00.002-04:002019-05-27T06:20:03.754-04:00Three in One...Emily, Thomas, and Teilhard<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Avenir; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-BookOblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">There is a within of things...</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-BookOblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">We are a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">—Thomas Berry</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-BookOblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">She was not daily bread. She was stardust.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">—Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1914) speaking of her aunt, poet Emily Dickinson</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Three quotations I thought to record in the midst of different sets of notes over the last week. They met each other off-page in my mind and imagination and that encounter led to this bit of musing...</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Emily Dickinson was not a friend to my youth. I knew of her and seem to have a vague memory of needing to memorize Because I could not stop for death... for Mrs. Herndon in 6th grade reading class. Mr. Heaps in 10th grade told the class that any of her works could be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” She did not rise in my estimation. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">It feels now, decades hence, that she has been waiting for me. Walking the halls of her house in Amherst, perhaps...scribbling on the scraps of paper and envelope backs that received her verse...wondering when I would feel like I could again knock at her door. Or maybe more likely, not knock at all. Simply walk in and have a seat, quietly, not wanting to disturb.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Not wanting to disturb...instead desiring to experience or come to know something of her own Teilhard-ian ‘within’ that made it into her verse. The aspects that led her to seeming reclusiveness as well as the aspects that had her love deeply and with great feeling; the ‘within’ that afforded her such insightful connections with nature as to recognize hope as a thing with feathers and knowledge of its intimate spark that would flame into verse: </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-BookOblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Beauty crowds me till I die/Beauty, mercy have on me!/But if I expire today,/let it be in sight of thee.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">It seems as though she intuitively recognized/experienced what eco-theologian Thomas Berry later frequently repeated: </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-BookOblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">We are a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> Hope, beauty, death, nature, all manner of creation, all of this has Beingness and Voice in Emily Dickinson’s lines. These are not objects to subdue but rather subjects to observe, to listen to, from which one might learn of the universe both mystical and </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-BookOblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">upon enchanted ground</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Avenir-Book; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">Mrs. Herndon, Mr. Heaps, understandably introduced Emily to my classmates and me as daily bread. Woman, dressed in white, recluse, dates, facts, more well-known verse. We were young and not yet ready for the complex wonder of stardust. I am so glad to now be able to experience that cosmic aspect of her...the freedom, the grandeur, the elemental and organic. It feels like that arena was home for her much more truly than her house in Amherst, MA. And that is something time has taught me to appreciate both in myself and in others. </span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-54197139655007656602019-05-10T19:06:00.002-04:002019-05-10T19:21:26.019-04:00This Side of Eternity <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Avenir Next"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-indent: 21.6px;">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 21.6px;">A beautiful bit of interior space recently opened for me when I read a friend’s reaction to the death of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche community. She posted the announcement and commented—</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; text-indent: 21.6px;">A great loss for this side of eternity</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 21.6px;">. That way of putting it washed over me with an exquisite tenderness. Ever so true and ever such an invitation, really. An invitation to considering that if there can be loss to this side of eternity, and surely Jean Vanier’s death is a keen example of it, then there can be gain as well. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">During these recent weeks, I have been able to see some of that gain in my ambling about on errands and taking advantage of the Public Gardens being an optional way to get from here to lots of theres. The azalea on the corner that will eventually offer a brilliance of electric salmon colored flowers is beginning to green. Magnolias are peeling free of winter layers and drinking deeply of spring air. The forsythia has come dancing with skirts hoisted for a raucous showing of yellow, much to the delight of birds newly alive with hope for the future and busy about finding mates. The mother walking her well swaddled two week old son, showing him the beauty of his city, holding him to the sun. New scientific discoveries and young children learning to read. Gain for this side of eternity...</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">And yes, there is loss yet beyond that felt at the death of a man many have already been proclaiming a saint. There is unbridled violence all around our world. There are tensions, abuses, deprivations, deaths of many kinds, loss of justice, loss of dignity, loss of safety, respect, hope, place, potential...</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: AvenirNext-Regular; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">There is gain and there is loss on this side of eternity. And I’m not sure I can say it balances out...at least not in a timeframe I have yet lived...nor am I always sure which way it tips. What I know and believe is that both are present. And that God is present. And that the veil between this side and that of eternity is extraordinarily thin. Things change and they can change slowly or quickly, sometimes drastically, sometimes for loss and sometimes for gain. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 21.6px;">Somehow, it feels like being sensitive to that, to the gains and losses and the reality of God and a wavering veil, is a good thing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 21.6px;">The poet Mary Oliver wrote, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; text-indent: 21.6px;">Attention is the beginning of devotion.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 21.6px;"> We are called to be devoted to the grace and the challenge on this side, while we are here. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 21.6px;">We are called to pay attention, to be open, to offer, to try and heal, to understand, walk humbly, act justly, to love, to be the face and the hands, the heart, mind, and actions, that speak of that Love, within the reality of our world, until the end when the thin veil shifts aside and we are welcomed home and all...all...is gain. </span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-37856311025650346942019-04-26T11:45:00.000-04:002019-04-26T15:43:35.048-04:00Perchance to Swoon Now that Springtime is Here<div class="page" title="Page 1">
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Today is very beautiful—just as bright, just as blue, just as green and as white, and as crimson, as the cherry trees full in bloom, and the half opening peach blossoms, and the grass just waving, and sky and hill and cloud, can make it, if they try...You thought last Saturday beautiful—yet to this golden day, ’twas but one single gem, to whole handfuls of jewels.</span><span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">Emily Dickinson in a letter to her brother Austin, when she was 23</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m not much given to swooning; however, a well placed ’twas in the midst of such delicious writing as this might have me loose my grip on my metaphoric parasol and sink into the grasses below a tree in order to recoup my faculties.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">The long stretch of fall and winter are not without a richness of sensory delights... the earthy elemental palettes of grey tones and browns, the subtle shadings and the shadows on snowfall. The cold-blue clarity of sky and air that pricks at my cheeks and spirit...Lentil-thick vegetable soups and dunk-sustaining bread...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">Right now, though...right now I’m longing for spring. For bud and colour burst, for the </span><span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">leaping greenly spirit of trees </span><span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">(Oh, there I go weak-kneed again...ee cummings, you master of abstract linguistic sculpture...). My legs long for ambling and my hand reaches for a pen to write the photographs before me... Oil and vinegar, mustard and lemon, seem to scoot closer together in the kitchen, asking to dance into a dressing for fresh greens and roasted vegetables. I put a large cloth napkin back into my satchel...on the off-chance hope I might find myself with a portion of park bench and the makings of a personal picnic...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">Spring is Whitman and wandering; it is road-tripping and new nest building; it is knapsack and ink pen, watching, noticing, sighing, and yes... upon exquisite occasion, Spring is swooning...with poetic appreciation for the heart’s own capacity to be moved, to marvel, to create, to dream.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">And glory...there’s still summer to come... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">and zinnias stand as firm and quiet as old valorous deeds... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">--E.B. White, from the piece ‘Late August’ written for </span><span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The New Yorker</span><span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "avenirnext"; font-size: 12pt;">(I’m looking for a tree already...)</span></div>
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-77634632330651170082019-04-14T20:06:00.000-04:002019-04-14T20:06:49.830-04:00Entering into Holy Week<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n-bUhg_V6hc/XLPKJvvw1fI/AAAAAAAABtg/GTCc1g_q5zMofzdNokEHXsXLEJKJ83avQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0753.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n-bUhg_V6hc/XLPKJvvw1fI/AAAAAAAABtg/GTCc1g_q5zMofzdNokEHXsXLEJKJ83avQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0753.JPG" width="240" /></a>This morning before Mass, I stopped for a moment while walking along College Street, enroute to Victoria Park. In and among cars, ambulances, and other urban groanings, the distinctly percussive <i>Rubbee-dedubbeedee-dub….rubbee-dedubbeedee-dub. </i> There was a woodpecker somewhere nearby. After winter’s dormancy, crocuses are stretching their blooms over by the cemetery and I understood why when I looked up into the softest stretch of sky…a gentle blue with a gauzy shawl of clouds tossed across her shoulders. Who or what would not want to be a part of that? Coming home by the near edge of the park, I crossed in front of the Anglican cathedral just as the choir was leading the congregation in their outdoor Palm Sunday procession…it was an absolute delight, a rising swell of music and worship that touched me deeply to behold.<br />
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This was my entry into the week that is ahead… a week lived in the shadow of the Cross and in the certainty of faith in Resurrection. In some respects, a week not unlike other weeks, as the Cross is always present where True Good abides and the roiling waters of evil, injustice, cynicism, and doom do all that they can to saturate and render useless the wick of hope. And, faith in the Resurrection gives me freedom to say Yes, each morning, every week. The liturgies and prayers of this week, though…they tell the Story in an intensified way, calling us together anew, re-membering the table of friends who gather to remind each other what this symbol of suffering has become… a call to Love. Love, with all of its implications and intricacies. Love, wholly, completely, without reservation. Love. Inclusive, expansive, challenging, costly, and to the end.<br />
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A call to love as Jesus loved.Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-30440194737393801562019-04-06T17:50:00.000-04:002019-04-06T17:50:14.816-04:00A Vision of Heaven; Help with the DishesSomeone asked me recently about my vision of heaven,,,and then I made soup...<br />
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<b>A Vision of Heaven or, Help with the Dishes</b><br />
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A jukebox stretching<br />
from Handel to hip-hop<br />
in the corner of a kitchen;<br />
A dutch oven, a sharp chef blade;<br />
a cast iron skillet and a heavy bottom<br />
two quart pot with a lid.<br />
Counters for working:<br />
chopping, writing, thinking.<br />
A stool or three and sturdy<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6-qiI-x5dKs/XKkdB19j_HI/AAAAAAAABtA/gSx9OdwpiIQ24LcthqAI1s7kcQ5z4fiWACLcBGAs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_6a0.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1525" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6-qiI-x5dKs/XKkdB19j_HI/AAAAAAAABtA/gSx9OdwpiIQ24LcthqAI1s7kcQ5z4fiWACLcBGAs/s320/fullsizeoutput_6a0.jpeg" width="304" /></a>mismatched colourful plates.<br />
A kettle on the stove and pleasing<br />
mugs for the prayer that is the first sip<br />
of morning glory and afternoon restoration.<br />
There’s a table with room for friends and<br />
not too big for one; a tapestry woven<br />
of sunlight and birdsong, seasonal blues,<br />
and threads the silver consistency of moon.<br />
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Here, love is love is love is love;<br />
Here, peace is abundant and the quiet<br />
is comfortable; here is welcome<br />
and home and our<br />
conversation that takes up<br />
where we left off, conversation<br />
about the ways of things and the wonder;<br />
about mystery and glory and sensuality;<br />
about mercy, forgiveness, compassion, and grace;<br />
about my humanity and your divinity;<br />
Here is about you and me and the world.<br />
Here is where I can let go and listen<br />
to your open, freely offered,<br />
no fixed recipe, except bring what you’ve got,<br />
and who you are and your musings and curiosities,<br />
let me help with the dishes,<br />
Heart of All-in Love.<br />
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Kimberly M. King, RSCJ<br />
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-8190458798164731802019-04-03T09:09:00.000-04:002019-04-03T09:09:09.761-04:00National Poetry Month<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Avenir; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">2 April, 2019</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Dear Poet, Writer, Versifier,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It can be slam, or a sonnet, or sometimes a hip-hop finesse, that is a quicksilver key slid into the slot and turned around the axis of a pen, freeing the pins and swinging the hasp so that the voice may breathe the life-verse that moves the universe within each being: the near ones and far ones, any sort of sized ones, rainbow coloured ones, those low to the ground and nearer to clouds and those needing a stick to steady their groove. Each being.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1COKI3UMh90/XKSv9YEjKxI/AAAAAAAABso/Twv3BQtPA2EcomOatntrFoShu8AmaxKGgCLcBGAs/s1600/1ShFD428Tkiwpn3VXFiRnA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1COKI3UMh90/XKSv9YEjKxI/AAAAAAAABso/Twv3BQtPA2EcomOatntrFoShu8AmaxKGgCLcBGAs/s320/1ShFD428Tkiwpn3VXFiRnA.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">We are each and we are all, poetry on the move. We are heartbeat and eye blink, we are finger snap and love. We are footfall and arm swing, breath and the flow of blood; we are language and life and senses and silly; we are, and yes I am repeating myself, Love. And by that I mean we have joy and sorrow and wound and hope; we have potential and promise and the need for others so write and open the door. So read the work of your neighbours who opened their doors to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Who we are, all that we are, shapes the language we use and how we combine it. What your words become, the possible permutation, is for you to encounter—is an act of elation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Using the palette within the ink, poet...begin your creation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The world is waiting, the world is in need; You are a poem...let your art feed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Happy National Poetry Month!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kimberly M. King, RSCJ</span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-66243265220048794462019-03-24T16:13:00.002-04:002019-03-24T18:35:17.434-04:00Simply SpringtimeAhhh spring...fertile time for observers of creation.<br />
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Among other dogs I’ve encountered over these last several days of longer walks under skies of broad blue, I have met Lupin, the greyhound, who loved being loved on and leaned right in for as much as she could get. I also met a dog that absolutely galumphed across a park and away from her owner, looking at me the whole while....and, believe me or not, the dog was smiling. She threw on the brakes in front of me and the woman following her huffed up behind her. <i>Does</i> <i>wonders</i> <i>for</i> <i>the</i> <i>self</i>-<i>esteem</i>, I said. The other human laughed knowingly and caught her breath while Lolly and I became enthusiastically acquainted. She held a dance-party for one; I was able to reach in and offer scratchy-ruffles that delighted and brought her four-paw boogie to a momentary simmer.<br />
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Two crows were building a nest together high up in an old tree on a corner near where a friend lives. Each one was breaking off twigs and winging around to add them to the foundation already in place a bit further up the tree. Their harmony together and the mutuality of the act both touched me. <i>Build it strong,</i> I prayed...<i>Keep your family safe...</i><br />
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Doors along the streets were propped open to catch a still-cool breeze as I went walking today. Doors that included one storefront with a sign advertising its offerings: Waxing! Piercing! Tattoos and Massage! I laughed at myself because my first thought was...<i>I'm not sure all of that should happen at the same place</i>. Yet, clearly they have enough business to sustain themselves.<br />
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Some of that business, I am sure, comes from the students who are back from break in gaggles, clutches, and droves. The buzz they bring with them is sometimes part of the background noise that helps me concentrate in the public places where I sometimes choose to write. Rather than edgeless quiet, it provides a boundary against which I can settle my mind, much like a wing-back chair for the body as opposed to a stool. <br />
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The students were not to be found in Victoria park on my way home, however. What was there instead...<br />
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was a wakeful peace that hummed just below the snow-melt soaked earth. Ahh...Spring.<br />
<br />Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-82813052062483646222019-03-21T15:19:00.000-04:002019-03-21T15:19:03.217-04:00World Poetry Day, 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mXA_K7pvafU/XJPjUPa1kXI/AAAAAAAABrg/yeFNdmKS6esnPez4TwmbVEpKIRJ1DiBPACLcBGAs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_697.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mXA_K7pvafU/XJPjUPa1kXI/AAAAAAAABrg/yeFNdmKS6esnPez4TwmbVEpKIRJ1DiBPACLcBGAs/s320/fullsizeoutput_697.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>World Poetry Day, 2019</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A poem is outline and indication,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">possibility and shadow;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Companion to the eye, the ear, and soul;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">enamoured of </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">the comma and ellipsis…because,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">within a reflective breath</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">there is acreage enough</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">for the loom </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">that weaves language</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">into the whole cloth</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">upon which this,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">the banquet of being laid out,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">becomes a universal meal</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">that sustains us.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Kimberly M. King, RSCJ</span></div>
Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-858934955331306998.post-32890157086607061102019-03-19T14:56:00.000-04:002019-03-19T17:21:47.166-04:00Sometimes a warning, mostly a graceI was reading through tweets this morning and stopped for a longer while at the feed of a favourite: @BrainPicker. She, Maria Popova, had posted this <a href="https://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/1107816213613297667">delight</a>:<br />
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I shook my head knowingly. Indeed, in so many ways, that level of clarity would be helpful—especially to someone who has regularly bumbled her way through social interactions for decades.<br />
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This was followed immediately by two companion thoughts—<br />
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One. Life is absolutely <b>not</b> that clear the vast majority of the time. And by and large, that is a good thing. It leaves room for art, adaptation, creativity, perspective, difference, growth, learning, dialogue…and a host of other valuable insights/experiences. Perceived clarity also leaves room for other possibilities—some bring hurt or danger, some illuminate truth: Signs can be ignored. Signs can be wrong.<br />
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Two. If everything <b>did</b> have a sign, what would the single word clear label be for me?<br />
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After a day like I’ve had today, it seems fitting that what comes to me with all implications is simply:<br />
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“Human.”<br />
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A good reminder…and an exercise in honest self-knowledge. <br />
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<b>Human.</b> Sometimes a warning, mostly a grace.<br />
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Kimberlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00456447717263874983noreply@blogger.com0