Meditations:
Find a spiritual practice that works for you
It’s hard to sustain the work of making change without a spiritual practice.
Spiritual practice can be remembering to pray in the morning, or setting aside time for silent meditation, or attending worship with a congregation, or eating mindfully. It can be yoga or tai chi or gardening or walking in the woods.
But to be a spiritual practice (as opposed to an occasional pastime) it must be regular and intentional.
It can save your life.
It’s in that convergence
of spiritual people becoming active
and active people becoming spiritual
that the hope of humanity now rests.
—Van Jones
Not all of us pray. But we can all, in Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman’s words, “center down” — connecting with the stillness deep within and the peace that passes understanding.
We hope the following poems and meditations will be the beginning of your spiritual practice.
A Small Needful Fact
by Ross Gay
Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.
May all places be held sacred.
May all beings be cherished.
May all injustices of oppression and devaluation
be fully righted, remedied, and healed.
May all who are captured by hatred
be freed to the love that is our birthright.
May all who are captured by fear
discover the safety of understanding.
May all who are weighed down by grief
be given over to the joy of being.
May all who are lost in delusion
find a home on the path of wisdom.
May all wounds to forests, rivers, deserts, oceans,
all wounds to Mother Earth
be lovingly restored to bountiful health.
May all beings everywhere delight in whale song,
birdsong, and blue sky.
May all beings abide in peace and wellbeing,
awaken, and be free.
Praying
By Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Breathe.
Let it all in.
Take in the beauty. Take in the heroism. Take in the tragedy.
Don’t sugarcoat it. Don’t catastrophize it.
Buddhists like to say “Right now it’s like this.” (Coach Belichick likes to say, “It is what it is.”)
That doesn’t mean we can’t change it. But to change it, we have to see it clearly.
And keep breathing.
There is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf,
in a mountain trail,
in a dewdrop,
in a poor person’s face.
--Pope Francis, Laudato Si’
But we have only begun
to love the earth.
We have only begun
to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?
—so much is in bud.
How can desire fail?
—we have only begun
to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision
how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.
Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?
Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?
Not yet, not yet—
there is too much broken
that must be mended,
too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.
--Denise Levertov