Making a way out of no way

Difficult and painful as it is, 

we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. 

When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, 

and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, 

let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, 

working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, 

a power that is able to make a way out of no way 

and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. 

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, 

but it bends toward justice.

     The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 1967

Freefall

We're in a freefall into the future. 

We don't know where we're going. 

Things are changing so fast, 

and always when you're going through a long tunnel, 

anxiety comes along. 

And all you have to do to transform your hell 

into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. 

It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... 

joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.

People who think they can control their negative emotions 

and manifest them when they want to, simply deceive themselves. 

Negative emotions depend on identification; 

if identification is destroyed in some particular case, they disappear. 

The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions 

is that people actually worship them.

        P. D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution



 

Being alive

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. 

I don't think that's what we're really seeking. 

I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, 

so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane 

will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, 

so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. 

That's what it's all finally about.

        Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

                                William Butler Yeats

Out of Nothing

To be nothing                                                                                                             

Is to consent to being a simple creature.                                                                 

This is the place of encounter with                                                                               

“I AM that I Am.”                                                       

When there is no more “me, myself or mine,”                                                    

Only “I AM” remains.

Then the “I” may fall away,                                                                                           

Leaving just the AM.

God empowers our powerlessness                                                                           

So that we never despair                                                                                           

Of unconditional forgiveness and infinite mercy.

Such is the grace of inner resurrection,                                                                      

And the reward of seeking no reward.

            Thomas Keating