Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 The world is now too dangerous and beautiful for anything but love. May your eyes be so blessed you see God in everyone. Your ears, so you hear the cries of the poor. May your hands be so blessed  that everything you touch is a sacrament. Your lips, so you speak nothing but the truth with love. May your feet be so blessed that you run to those who need you. And may your heart be so opened, so set on fire,  that your love, your love changes everything.

  I have a religion; It's called Love. I have a church; It's called Earth. I have a scripture; It's called Heart. I have a prayer; it's called Compassion.

 It is as if what is unbreakable - The very pulse of life- waits for everything else to be torn away, and then in that bareness that only silence and suffering and  great love can expose, it dares  to speak through us and to us. It seems to say, if you want to last, hold on to nothing. If you want to love, let in everything. If you want to feel the presence of everything, stop counting the things that break along the way.

 If you are one who has practice meeting the pain of the world, we need you. Right now we need you to teach us it is possible to swallow what is weighty and still be able to rise. We need you to remind us we can be furious and scared and near feral over injustice and still thrill at the taste of a strawberry, ripe and sweet, can still meet a stranger and shake their hand, believing in their humanness. We need you to show us how we, too, can fall into the darkest, unplumbed pit and learn there a courage and beauty we could never learn from the light. If you have drowned in sorrow and still have somehow found a way to breathe, please, lead us. You are the one with the crumbs we need, the ones we will use to find our way back to the home of our hearts.

 Whether this is the first day of the Apocalypse, or the first day of the Golden Age, the work remains the same: to love each other and ease as much suffering as possible.

 Have compassion for everyone you meet,  even if they don't want it, What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

 I used to pray that God would feed the hungry,  or do this, or that. But now I pray that God will guide me to do whatever I am supposed to do. I used to pray for answers, but now I pray  for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we  change things,

 Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it

 Have compassion for everyone you meet even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

There are two wolves in the heart; love and hate. Which do I feed?      Like your Sister, These eyes are yellow,  rich ruff grey and white. The belly though- a demanding emptiness. I will not starve you, ignore you, drive you away, pretend your breath  is not in my own nostrils. But feed you with the red ripeness of this love She places  in my shaking hand. May you know what it is  to be full. Come. Lie down here. We have living water too.

May beauty break open my heart with Light. May tenderness gather those pieces And compassion place them upon the altar that is this world May wisdom place a cup upon that altar May Spirit pour that gathered light back into our even-now brokenness So we know each fragment  As infinitely precious Whole  Inescapably One

 Mother of Mercy, the cries of the world keep me up at night. I rise from my bed, but I cannot locate the source of the wailing. It is everywhere, Mother, coming from all directions, and my heart is shattered by the sheer intensity of suffering. You of boundless compassion, expand my heart so that I can contain the pain. Focus my mind so that I can arrive at viable solutions, and energize my body so I can engage in effective action. Give me courage to follow the crumbs of heartbreak all the way home to the place where I can be of real service. Let me dip my fingers into the dew of your compassion and scatter it now over the fevered brow of this world.

  The mystics warn that you are bound to be nicked by the barbs of existence.  The soul's well-being is not dependent on safety, but meaning... Hold the mystical crumbs in your mouth. Taste Beauty in every step. Stay awake... Sing songs of mercy along the way... The pangs of loneliness will be piercing... With practice a fierce compassion Swells from this barefoot vulnerability. Embrace each kindred traveler you meet, for only the walking and wordling souls abide and enlarge in the midst of such relentless change.

Ask about your enemy's wounds and scars. Feed your enemy's children.Seek his hidden cause of trouble. Learn their word for  home. Repair their well. Learn their sorrow's history. Trace their lineage of the good. Ask them for a song. Make tea. Bake bread.

A man crosses the street in the rain, stepping gently, looking two times north and south, because his son is asleep on his shoulder. No car must splash him. No car drive too near to his shadow. This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo but he's not marked. Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE. His ear fills with breathing. he hears the hum of a boy's dream deep inside him. We're not going to be able to live in this world if we're not willing to do what he's doing with one another. The road will only be wide. The rain will never stop falling.

Thank You for letting me live for a little while as one of the sane; thank You for letting me know what this is  like. Thank You for letting me look at your frightening blue sky without fear and your terrible world without  terror, and Your loveless psychotic and hopelessly lost with this love.

May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunshine shine on you and warm your heart til it glows like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may come and warm himself at it, and also a friend.

Have compassion on everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.