Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 They lie under stars in a field.  They lie under rain in a field. Under sun. Some people are like this as well- like a painting  hidden beneath another painting. An unexpected weight the sign of their ripeness.

 Tenderness does not choose its own uses. It goes out to everything equally, circling rabbit and hawk. Look: in the iron bucket a single nail, a single ruby- all the heavens and hells. They rattle in the heart and make one sound.

It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime you will have to choose. That great calm being this clutter of soaps and books- Already that first branch-- tips brush at the windows- Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

On a branch floating downriver, a cricket singing.

"Where is your home?", the interviewer asked him.                 Here. "No,no," the interviewer said, thinking it a problem of translation, "when you are  where you actually live." Now it was his turn to think, perhaps the translation?

A day comes    when the mouth grows tired       of saying "I". Yet it is occupied    still by a self which must speak,       which still desires,       is curious, which believes it has a right. What to do?    The tongue consults with the teeth.       It knows it will survive       both mouth and self,    which grin- it is their natural pose-    and say nothing.