When all around us lives seem to be shrinking from distress, may we work to sustain what is magnanimous—or as the ancient Greeks would say, “great-souled”. As we find our way through all that is unknown, may we resist all that is pusillanimous—“small-souled”—especially within ourselves. May we not cling to the old as we behold its decay. Rather, may we each find and sing forth our own “Magnificat” as did Mary when visited by Gabriel bearing mysterious and confusing news—a magnification of soul that allows each to imaginatively behold the newness, the possibilities, the potential of each refreshed morning of the world and, “Fear not.”
Teri Martin
Edgar Lee Masters born in Garnett, Kans., 1869, died 1950: attorney, poet, biographer, dramatist
Works: Spoon River Anthology, The Sangamon, Toward the Gulf
Quotes: “Beware of the man who rises to power from one suspender.” “How shall the soul of man be greater than the life he has lived?”
One day when I felt about to buckle under the weight of life, I picked up a small book I had not got around to opening. It contained a series of lectures by Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. From him came my help. He did not “give over his life, or engage in sweaty combat.” He said he just ,“took refuge.” Every morning he said, “I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha (his spiritual community)." That’s all. Rather than giving or wrestling his life away, he draws himself a home.
So now, when I awake, I say, “I take refuge in God. I take refuge in Christuman. I take refuge in my spiritual community.” For I have never known anything to be as worthy of my trust as Christuman, as God, as you people here. Together we create the Pure Land, our true home.
Donna Piper Leichtling
On This Day…
Raksha Bandhan: Hindu celebration honoring the bonds between sisters and brothers
Dorothy Parker born in West End, New Jersey, 1893, died 1967: poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, member of the Algonquin Round Table
Works: Not Much Fun, The Ladies of the Corridor, The Portable Dorothy Parker
Quotes: “You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think.” “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” “Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”
Julian of Norwich spoke of joy, of filling her potential in the vernacular of her Christian devotion. “God, of your goodness give me yourself, for you are enough for me, and I can ask for nothing which is less which can pay you full worship. And if I ask for anything which is less, always I am in want, but only in you do I have everything.”
Benjamin H Martin
When I was a home care nurse, I had a patient named Epifania who was more than a hundred years old. Her daughter, Leonardita, who was in her early 70s, took magnificent, never-stinting care of her mother. And when pneumonia finally bore the old lady away, Leonardita wept and cried, “Now I am an orphan. When your mamma dies, you are truly alone.”
Donna Piper Leichtling
On This Day…
St. Bernard (1090-1153), founder of Cistercian Order and Doctor of The Church
The place called the “cloud of unknowing” is just a variation of the altar of Yin. It describes the place of a generative Yin—a place not unlike the womb or the tomb with its dark, formative walls. This place of unknowing is a generative place of Yin where one remains in the darkness as long as must be. For if we are ever to feel the Ineffable or to see the Ineffable, it will necessarily be within this cloud and within this darkness and, I add, upon this Yin. To know the Ineffable, we must first be unknown. This unknowing is to be a recurring visit to the altar, be that altar what we call death or birth or the cloud of unknowing, our longing should bring us to the place where we are unknown and where our essence is given new substance by the flames.
Benjamin Martin
