Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

 Help me to journey beyond the familiar and the unknown. Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You.

 In a time of hate, Love is an act of resistance. In a time of fear, Faith is an act of resistance.  In a time of misinformation,  Education is an act of resistance. In a time of poor leadership, Community is an act of resistance. In a time like this, Joy is an act of resistance. Resist. Resist. Resist.

 All tempest has, like a naval, a hole in its middle though which a gull can fly in silence.

 Hope has holes in its pockets. It leaves little crumb trails so that we, when anxious, can follow it. Hope's secret: it doesn't know the destination- it knows only  that all roads begin with one foot in front of the other.

It was a time like this, war and tumult of war, a horror in the air, Hungry yawned the abyss- and yet there came the star and the child most wonderfully there. It was a time like this of fear and lust for power, license and greed and blight- and yet the Prince of Bliss came into the darkest hour in quiet and silent light. And in a time like this how celebrate his birth when all things fall apart? Ah! wonderful it is with no room on the earth the stable is our heart.

 Faith is the firm foundation of my house, Diligence forms the high walls, Meditation makes the huge bricks, And Wisdom is the great corner-stone, With these four things I build my castle, And it will last as long as truth eternal!

  This is the time to be slow,   Lie low to the wall   Until the bitter weather passes.    Try, as best you can, not to let   The wire brush of doubt   Scrape from your heart   All sense of yourself   And your hesitant light.   If you remain generous,   Time will come good;   And you will find your feet   Again on fresh pastures of promise,   Where the air will be kind,   And blushed with beginning.        

 In times of doubt I forget That You are not a God Of thoughts, to be found In concepts or theories But are the source of My life and radiance That shines forth in all That is, and then I remember: Mine is the work of learning To see You as the radiance That shines forth in all that is, Even in the dark. Even in me.

  Ah, not to be cut off, not through the slightest partition shut out from the law of the stars. The inner - what is it? if not intensified sky, hurled through with birds and deep with the winds of homecoming.

"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.

One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily, And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight, And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted, Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers, And work will be simple and swift as a seagull flying, And play will be casual and quiet as a seagull settling, And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder or care or take notice, And people will smile without reason, even in winter, even in the rain.