For Paris

Today, may we let ordinary things show us
How to make room for heartache and hope
Baking bread
Letting soup simmer all day
Paying attention to the taste of hot sweet tea
Letting the scent of cinnamon slow us down

Let’s make love to this day
In the way we linger and listen to each other
Finding a way to be still for three breaths
Letting our hands come to rest on the table
Sitting in the centre of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune”
Softening to the sadness

There is a way to be with anger and fear and grief
A way to hold them with so much tenderness
That terror cannot take root
Let us make a light of that tenderness
Leaning into each other, feeding each other
Creating together a heart that can hold it all

~Oriah House © November 13, 2015

Debussy’s Claire de Lune: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fvo_iOuSck

Finding The Beloved

It’s not about doing anything
Not about earning or accomplishing
Not about trying harder or moving faster
It’s simply a whole-hearted willingness

To walk to the end of the dock
And let the rising sun
Fill me and ignite
The old forgotten hunger

And every time
Every. Single. Time.
When I let the longing guide me
When I turn my face just a little

The Beloved is there

~Oriah House (c) 2015

The spectacular photo (which inspired this writing) is from Karen Davis at Open Door Dreaming. Thank you Karen heart emoticon. For me, "walking to the end of the dock" is about clearing the inner chatter for a moment, breathing in a spaciousness and returning to my willingness and my hunger to meet the Beloved in this moment.

Learning From Yesterday's Story

I’m reading “All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr, the story of two children during the Second World War- a blind girl in France and an orphaned German boy with a passion and talent for building radios. The book opens in 1944 with the Allied forces bombing German-occupied France. 

Immediately I was gripped by the reality of civilians on the ground in any war. For them the bombs that fall threaten death whether they belong to occupying or liberating forces. 

And I think of the Syrian refugees piling their children into inadequate rafts in the hopes of getting their families out of the place where bombs are falling. 

Yesterday, on a CBC radio call-in show, listeners were asked whether or not we could do what our newly elected government has pledged to do and take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year. I held my breath and listened. Over and over men and women called in and said emphatically, “Yes, we can.” There were stories of churches, community organizations, and small collections of friends and acquaintances who are privately sponsoring refugee families or getting ready to support those who are government sponsored.

I was surprised to find my eyes wet with tears. I was moved and lifted up by people's profound willingness to help. 

Each year at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month- the anniversary of the moment when the First World War ended- I stand in silence with others, remembering the cost of war and honouring those, past and present, who risk and often give their lives in our armed forces. 

The slogan most often used today is: Lest We Forget. I am so grateful for the privilege of being able to remember. May we listen to and remember and be guided to offer what we can by the stories of war- past and present. May we honour the sacrifices and the suffering by working for peace in all we do. ~Oriah © 2015

(Photo from Paul L at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ny156uk/ )

Living Together

Yesterday I side-stepped the to-do list and went to the park. There, beneath an almost impossibly blue sky I soaked up the sun and the people around me. They gave me hope. 

Behind the bench where I sat two young men with dreadlocks and tshirts that sported the Jamaican flag spoke softly, their voices flowing in the musical cadence and rhythm that makes my inner dj play a little reggae.

A group of older Asian men and women played croquet, shouting at each other and erupting into shared laughter when a shot went wide.

Next to me on the bench, two women with different European accents talked about their mothers- how they missed them, how they wished they had lived closer in their mothers' last days.

A small circle of teenagers did yoga on mats laid out on the grass.

A young woman with a stroller entered the park. She was wearing traditional Muslim clothing for women- a long-sleeved garment that skimmed the ground, a head scarf without a face veil. As she moved past the place where I sat, one of the men behind me called out to her, and moved quickly in her direction.

Everyone in the vicinity seemed to notice and stop what they were doing to watch. The man who'd called out ran across the grass toward the woman, barely pausing to scoop up a small jacket on the ground. He held it out in front of him.

“You dropped this,” he said. He stood more than a yard away from the woman. She turned toward him and paused looking startled and pale. They both seemed to hesitate, unsure of what to do next.

Then she stepped forward, took the jacket, nodded and smiled broadly.

And the man with the dreadlocks put the palms of his hands together in front of his heart and bowed to the woman whose smiling face was round and shining beneath her headscarf. 

The noise of the croquet game resumed, the budding yogis changed positions, the women on the bench nearby went back to their conversation.

And I thought, “We can do this.”

Oriah House (c) 2015

Another wonderful pic from Karen Davis at https://www.facebook.com/OpenDoorDreaming/?fref=photo​- this is just how the leaves looked against that blue sky yesterday.