Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

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

 We travelers, walking to 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 blessing light that yet to us is dark.

 We travelers 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.

 Everyone assumes That the perfumes of August Are the work of springtime's buds Ageing into blooms. But the fading rose, In her dying, knows, It is the joy of ceasing That distills perfume.

 Just as the hare is zipping across the finish line, the tortoise has stopped once again by the roadside, this time to stick out his neck and nibble a bit of sweet grass, unlike the previous time when he was distracted by a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower.

 We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die

 We don't receive wisdom; We must discover it for ourselves After a journey  No one can take for us Or spare us.

 In the beginning Love satisfies us. When Love first spoke to me of love- How I laughed at her in return! But then she made me like the hazel trees- Which blossom early in the season of darkness, And bear fruit slowly.

 That each step may be a shedding. That you will  let yourself become lost, That when it looks like you are going backwards, you may be making progress. That progress is not the goal anyway, but presence to the feel of the path on your skin, the way it reshapes you in each place it makes contact, to the way you cannot see it until the moment you have stepped out.

 Let the vision of the vastness you are leave you in glorious ruins. Pilgrims will come to imagine the grand temple that once stood, not realizing the wreck  made this empty plain holy ground.

 How many nights must it take one such as me to learn that we aren't, after all, made from that bird that flies out of its ashes, that for us as we go up in flames, our one work is to open ourselves, to be the flame?

 I took a long time getting here, much of it wasted on wrong turns, back roads riddled by ruts. I had adventures I never would have known if I proceeded as the crow flies. Super highways are so sure  of where they are going: they arrive too soon. A straight line isn't always  the shortest distance  between two people. Sometimes I act as though I'm heading somewhere else while, imperceptibly, I narrow the gate between you and me. I'm not sure I'll ever know the right way, but I don't mind getting lost now and then. Maps don't know everything.

 Let my edges that cut be stroked by sand and salt let my slick surface coarsen til it's crushed to bits let my colors soften as they scrape the bottom let the waves love me in their rough way let me be changed by that love let me not forget I held another yet fully inhabit my particularity let me be smooth enough to be rubbed by small fingers and slipped inside a pocket or bowl let me prove that beauty is born when something breaks.

  Day ends, and before sleep when the sky dies down, consider your altered state: has this day changed you? Are the corners sharper or rounded off? Did you live with death? Make decisions that quieted? Find one clear word that fit? At the sun's midpoint did you notice a pitch of absence, bewilderment that invites the possible? What did you learn from things you dropped and picked up and dropped again? Did you set a straw parallel to the river, let the flow carry you downstream?

  Transcending down into the ground of things is akin to sweeping the leaves that cover a path. There will always be more leaves. And the  heart of the journey, the heart of our own awakening, is to discover for  ourselves that the leaves are not the ground, and that sweeping them aside will reveal a path, and finally, that to fully live, we must take the path and keep sweeping it.

  What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from Ourselves?

  But tired of land, we open ourselves to oceans, tired of time we give back all that we've taken, tired of ourselves we open ourselves to ourselves at last, sensing the waves and great abyss of the sea beyond,the ocean stretching on sand and the long view on the still sea that leads to another life.

 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.

  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.

  As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain free fall, and float into Creator Spirit's deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.