Scripps Sunday #101- Sierras Edition

I have three things to share with you today.... 

Some goodness today from Kate Bowler: 

"Consider gratitude not as a solution to pain, but as a way of taking in what’s before us, brightening our days, even when this feels impossible to do. 

So here’s a blessing for when gratitude feels hard to come by: 

God, I am struggling to find my way toward gratitude.

Help my heart find joy, for you know how much I need it.
Come meet us in our needs that weigh so heavily upon us.

Blessed are we who come to you just as we are,
with our loneliness and loss, our scarcity and sorrow,
and say God, there is just not enough.
Though we’re not even supposed to say it today,
there is just not enough to go on:
not enough money to pay bills,
not enough jobs, nor safety for those who have them,
not enough wisdom to find solutions,
not enough strength or comfort or connection. Things are just harder now.

Blessed are we who say, God,
could you come meet us here,
in this place?
This place of need where our feelings don’t match the day?

Blessed are we who hear You saying:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest.”

And we come.
And somehow there is rest,
and gladness for tiny, tiny graces.

Blessed are we, the truly thankful." 

This is from today's word of the day for Grateful Living: "Gratitude practice isn't about pacifying our painful or challenging times--- it's about recognizing them and finding self-compassion as we do the work." -Alex Elle 

And this is a post I heard about from the brilliant poet Andrea Gibson: "I just found this poem I wrote years ago when I was very sick and still undiagnosed with Lyme Disease. It was one of the hardest times of my life, and there were many months I was certain I wouldn’t live through it. On the day I wrote this I was searching for a way to love my body through the pain. Sharing it now for anyone who could use some comfort." 

WHEN YOU BELIEVE YOUR BODY IS YOUR ENEMY

Imagine, when a human dies

the soul misses the body,

actually grieves the loss

of its lost hands, and all

they could hold. Misses

the wanting lips, the searching

tongue, the throat closing

shy reading out loud

on the first day of school.

Imagine the soul

misses the weather

of the chest, the hard weather

when love storms away.

Misses the stubbed toe, the loose tooth,

the funny bone. The soul still asks, "Why

does the funny bone do that?

It’s just weird." Imagine the soul misses the tears

and the thirsty garden cheeks.

Misses how the body could sleep

through a dream. What else can

sleep through a dream?

What else can laugh?

What else can wrinkle

the smile’s autograph?

Imagine the soul misses each falling

eyelash waiting to be wished.

Misses the wrist screaming away the blade.

The soul misses the lisp, the stutter, the limp.

The soul misses how hard

the eyes fought off history to see clearly,

to see the holy bruise blue from that army

of blood rushing to the wound’s side.

When a human dies the soul scours the universe

searching for something blushing, for something

shaking in the cold, for something that can scar,

scours the universe for patience worn thin,

the last nerve fighting for it’s life,

how badly the voice box ached to be heard.

The soul misses the way the body would hold

another body and not be two bodies

but one pleading god doubled in grace.

The soul misses how the mind told the body,

"You have fallen from grace." And the body said,

"Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.

There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince,

that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger."

Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness, rage, the fist

that was never taught to curl — curls,

the teeth that were never taught to clench — clench,

the body that was never taught to make love makes love

like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave.

The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin

that no longer fits. The soul misses every single day

the body was sick, the NOW it forced, the HERE

it built from the fever. Fever is how the body prays,

how it burns and begs for another precious day.

The soul misses the way the body inflamed

to hold its own loneliness. The soul misses the legs

aching up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed

up the vocal chords to curse the wheelchair.

The soul misses what the body could not let go.

What else could hold on that tightly to everything?

What else could see hear the chain of a swing-set

and fall to its knees? What else could touch

a screen door and taste lemonade? What else

could come back from a war and not come back?

But still try to live? Still try to sing a lullaby?

When a human dies the soul moves through the universe

trying to describe how a body trembles

when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how

a wound would heal given nothing but time.

Do you understand? Nothing in space can

imagine it. No comet, no nebula, no ray of light

can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.

The fingertips pulling the first gray hair

and throwing it away. "I can’t imagine it,"

the stars say. "Tell us again about goosebumps.

Tell us again about pain."