The Unclad Soul

“Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy. Sometimes we don't feel that way because of the wounds and the scars we carry from the past or because of the uncertainty of the future. It is doubtful that we came to feel undeserving on our own. We were helped to feel unworthy. We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.”   ―   Jon Kabat-Zinn, Physician/Author

“What you seek is seeking you.”   ~ Rumi, Persian Poet

"In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again."  ~ Parker Palmer, Author/Educator

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it. ~ Wendell Berry, American Poet ...

What happened to our country? When did we lose our minds? Our souls? Our sense of compassion for all people and a desire to make the world better? There was a time in America when people mattered, when life was sacred, when the old rules of appropriate behavior, of manners and politeness meant something. They kept dissent reasonable. They helped us hold our tongues. There was a time when people worked out their issues with one another in reasonable acts of mutual respect. There was a day when the president of the United States was honored, no matter his party, or his policies. There was a time when the public school was loved in the community, where teachers were well regarded and appreciated for their important work. There was a time when the local church was a place of worship not a political ballyhoo, where hymns were sung and prayers were offered and reverence was felt, a time when the sermons were about loving your neighbor and not about voting against people. What happen...

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yelp over the roofs of the world.”  ~ Walt Whitman, American Poet  

 "It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it." ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Writer/Mystic