Monthly Archives: October 2014

Oct 31 – Blessing of hands

Friday, October 31 –  “Trust that your hands will know the right thing to do even when you do not.” End of the work week,  end of October,  still autumn but heading in winter’s direction.   Today’s post comes  from … Continue reading

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Oct 29 – Ancient Airs and Dances

Wednesday – October 28  –  Denise Levertov  “Greyhaired, I have not grown wiser, unless to perceive absurdity is wisdom.”  Work week’s middle;  Autumn’s about 1/3 finished (if you count from the equinox in September to the winter solstice in December);  lots of … Continue reading

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Oct 27 – Art McGovern’s tree

Monday  October 27 After  yesterday’s Sunday noon mass in the Ignatius/McAuley C&F chapel, walking home past the energy of parking lots packed in for the Detroit high school cheerleading competitions,  I stopped in my tracks in front of the tree we … Continue reading

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Carl Sandberg – “no beautiful thing lasts”

Wednesday,  October 22  “Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity” Carl Sandburg paints autumn’s stunning, passing beauty in a few blunt words.  To which I am inclined to add, “Nothing wrong with grief over the passing of exquisite beauty.”   Further … Continue reading

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Oct 21 near the end of this retreat

Tuesday October 21, This is cheating a bit.  No poem today, just a personal thanksgiving for sheer beauty with some stillness. john sj p.s.       from the last days of my retreat  at the home of a life long soul friend, … Continue reading

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Oct 15 quiet time Tagore

Wednesday Oct 15  –  “The works I have in hand I will finish afterwards.” I’m in the Philly airport, which was very new when I lived here as a grad student in the 1970s.  They’ve kept up with its aging … Continue reading

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Oct 10 – dance around the world

Friday,  October 10  –  time for dancing I’m at a board meeting (Regis University) in Denver.  And I’ve been posting a fair bit about grief and fatigue.  Here’s a change of pace that you may have seen before on youtube. … Continue reading

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Oct 8 – “groaning in one great act of giving birth”

Wednesday, October 8  “about being pregnant” The guiding assertion of these work day posts is that words matter.  Our fatigues, when they get hard enough, suggest gloomy word choices;  the beauty we encounter, if we pay attention, opens the fatigue … Continue reading

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Oct 6 – Nancy Toth + 1958

Monday,  October 6  —  “How I was glad he’d stopped me there” Making oatmeal and tea this morning I felt sad.    Several good friends have lost someone too young to lose;  others have been orphaned while keeping watch with … Continue reading

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Oct 3 – Wild Geese, Mary Oliver

Friday October 3 — “the world offers itself to your imagination” I missed Wednesday’s list-post. Some good, strong listening Tuesday in the Santa Clara Valley among Advisory Board members for the Center for Science, Technology and Society. Then a Red … Continue reading

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