Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 Some ask the world and are diminished  in the receiving of it. You gave me only this small pool that the more I drink  from, the more overflows me with sourceless light.

 Whatever it is, I cannot understand it, although gratitude stubbornly overcomes me until I am redicred to tears.

 All is grace. Light and water, shelter and food, work and free time, children, parents and grandparents, birth and death- it is all given to us. Our very first vocation is to receive these gifts and say thanks-

 Whatever it is, I cannot understand it,  although gratitude stubbornly overcomes me until I am reduced to tears.

 An awe so quiet     I don't know when it began.   A gratitude had begun to sing in me. Was there  some moment dividing song from no song? When does dewfall begin? When does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them?  When is daybreak?  

 We now turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greeting and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one.

 We give thanks for another day on this earth. We give thanks for this day to enjoy the compassionate goodness  of You, our Creator. We acknowledge with one mind our respect and gratefulness to all the sacred circles of life. Bind us together in the circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and one another.

 Above, above all birds in air Below, below all earth's flowers     Inland, inland all forest trees Seaward, seaward all ocean fish Sing out and say again the refrain: Behold this lovely world

 As the plump squirrel scampers Across the roof of the corncrib, The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness, And I see that it is impossible to die. Each moment of time is a mountain. An eagle rejoices in the oak trees of heaven Crying THIS IS WHAT I WANTED

 Whatever it is, I cannot understand it, although gratitude stubbornly overcomes me until I am reduced to tears.

 It's not magic;it isn't a trick. Every breath is a resurrection. And when we hear the poem  Which is the world, when our eyes Gaze at the beloved's body, We're reborn in all the sacred parts Of our own bodies: The heart Contracts, the brain Releases its shower  Of sparks, And the tear Embarks on its pilgrimage Down the cheek to meet The smiling mouth,

 Our mother who art underfoot, hallowed be thy names,  thy seasons come, thy will be done, within us as around us. Thank you for our daily bread, our water, our air, and our lives and so much beauty; lead us not into selfish craving and the destructions that are the hunger of the glutted, but deliver us from wanton consumption of thy vast but finite bounty, for thine is the only sphere of life we know, and the power and glory, forever and ever, amen.

 Gratitude Is a language. Even this barren maple Outside my window Knows it, Her whispering musical And exquisite. Slowly I learn Her song.

 Thanks and blessing be to the Sun & the Earth for this bread & this wine,          this fruit, this meat, this salt, this food; thanks be and blessing to them who prepare it, who serve it; thanks and blessing to them who share it (& also the absent & the dead). Thanks and blessing be to them who bring it (may they not want), to them who plant and tend it, harvest and gather it (may they not want), thanks and blessing to them who work & blessing to them who cannot; may they not want - for their hunger sours the wine & robs the salt of its taste. Thanks be for the sustenance & strength for our dance & the work of justice, of peace.

 Fortunate is the hour when you stumbled and fell down into this. Never stand again. On your knees remain where the earth is, where the fire is ever-ready and the air ever-clear, water, and the stones of God. For the Woods Of Error are the wood of the real, chosen for us as the color of your soul. Lie where forgiveness lies, make love to that. For there is nothing else but gratitude-which is what all your longing was for.