Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation. It could you know. That's why we wake and look out - no guarantees in this life. But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening.

 Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important calls for my attention---the drugstore, beauty products, the luggage I need to buy for the trip. Even now I can hardly sit here among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside already screeching and banging. The mystics say you are as close as my own breath. Why do I flee from you? Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

   In the sitting, a slow settling gathers up my far-flung thoughts, like the potter's hands pressing pieces of clay back into center. The deepening holds me new. No longer matters the shape or design -                                                    only the constant press of the potter's hands.

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing. For no reason, you accept the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and electing a world where you go where you want to. Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder that a steady center is holding all else. If you listen, that sound will tell you where it is and you can slide your way past trouble. Certain twisted monsters always bar the path - but that's when you get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is here on earth, again and again.  

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.

The breezes at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep! You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep! People are moving back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep!

"Hope" is the thing with feathers- That perches in the soul- And sings the tune without the words- And never stops- -at all- And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard- And sore must be the storm- That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm- I've heard it in the chillest land- And on the strangest Sea- Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

We travellers, walking toward the sun can't see Ahead, but looking back the very light That blinded us shows us the way we came, Along which blessings now appear, risen As if from sightlessness to sight, and we, By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

In the dark pre-dawn mornings, I listen to the trees. Sometimes I hear nothing. Sometimes words sail into my head, like the goldfinches landing on my birdfeeder. Today they told me: Ground! Ground deeply. You will know people who get ill. You may know some who will die. You could even be one of them. Your task today is to ground and be a solid presence on this patch of earth. Watch us and follow suit.

How heroic are the grocery clerks And the fast-fry cooks And the priests wandering through empty churches How courageous are the UPS drivers who risk their lives How stoic are the cashiers and bus drivers And there is no way to thank them all All will be well once we unbend the horizon I weep when I see a happy baby Blissful and unaware that the Angel of Death Is trying to erase the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel How tender are the smiles of life How wonderful the professional calm of nurses How sublime the persistence of doctors How moving the faces of anxious waiting How close we are in our distance I want to use big words for such big feelings But the words keep getting smaller and smaller Flatten the curve and rise up

How surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean's current, takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it towards the heart of the world. Each thing - each stone, blossom, child - is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we belong to for some empty freedom. If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. Instead we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused. So, like children, we begin again to learn from the things, because they are in God's heart; they have never left him. This is what things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.

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.

I didn't stay for the closing hymns and prayers. I felt out of sorts, so I left. Someone was before me at the door: a child, gazing at a spot on her wrist. She said, "Can you help me?" "What is it?" "A lady bug," she said. So I opened the door, and she said "It jumped off." We stood looking around. "It'll be alright," I said. She went back in, and I left taking care where I stepped.

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.

I have a small grain of hope- one small crystal that gleams clear colors out of transparency. I need more. I break off a fragment to send you. Please take this grain of a grain of hope so that mine won't shrink. Please share your fragment so that grass will grow. Only so, by division, will hope increase, like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower unless you distribute the clustered roots, unlikely source - clumsy and earth - covered - of grace.

Remind me again - together we trace our strange journey, find each other, come on laughing. Some time we'll cross where life ends. We'll both look back as far as forever, that first day. I'll touch you - a new world then. Stars will move a different way. We'll both end. We'll both begin. Remind me again.

I was still standing on a northern corner. Moonlit winter clouds the color of the desperation of wolves. Proof of your Existence? There is nothing but.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the road pregnant with the holy, and say, "I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart, my time is so close." Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine, the Christ taking birth forever, as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us. Yes there, under the dome of your being does Creation come into existence eternally, through your womb dear pilgrim- the sacred womb in your soul, as God grasps our arm for help; for each of us is His beloved servant never far. If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street pregnant with Light and singing.

I felt a need for a great pilgrimage so I sat still for three days

I go to the mountain side of the house to cut saplings, a clear view to snow on the mountains. But when I look up, saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in the uppermost branches. I don't cut that one. I don't cut the others either. Suddenly, in every tree, an unseen nest where a mountain would be.