Poem: Dog Training

Sometimes I think
the only lessons I ever learned
were from my dogs.
So here is the accumulated wisdom
of Sancho, Max, and Zorba,
three sage Airedales:

First, yelp when you're in pain
but let it go when it's gone.

Second, travel the earth
with a quivering nose.

Third, answer the needs of your body
with shameless relish
but then go right on
to the real purpose of the day: play.

And finally, whenever possible
leap right
into the arms of someone
who loves you.

             Bonnie Lyons 

Quiet minds

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened
    but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace,
        like a clock during a thunderstorm.

            Robert Louis Stevenson, Collected Memoirs, Travel Sketches and Island Literature

 

 

 

 

 

Imagination

All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically.
        Imagination is a force of nature.
Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy?
        Imagination, imagination, imagination.
It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!

                        Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

                        W. B. Yeats 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retirement

And he said, life is about, you know,
    being connected to something,
        being connected to a loving God,
            feeling as though you're relevant,
                as though you have a purpose.
And he said that in his case,
    he'd never considered retiring.
        And he said to me, I'm a Jesuit.
            Jesuits retire in the graveyard.

Steve Lopez, quoting Father Greg Boyle on Fresh Air 11/22/22

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out on the edge

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over.
Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

                                Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is

Contemplation is a gift we have already received.
    Waking up to it is a good metaphor
        because one wakes up from sleep
            to whatever one’s level of consciousness normally is.

The highest experience of God is no experience.
            It just is.

Fr. Thomas Keating, Reflections on the Unknowable