Healing

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

This is how the heart makes a duet of

wonder and grief. The light spraying

through the lace of the fern is as delicate

as the fibers of memory forming their web

around the knot in my throat. The breeze

makes the birds move from branch to branch

as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost

in the next room, in the... See more

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Freedom for both Jesus and Francis was purely and simply freedom from the self , which is precisely freedom for the world . In order to be free for a full and authentic life, we must quite simply be free from our smaller selves.

Francis and Clare were not so much prophets by what they said as in the radical, system-critiquing way that they lived their lives.

We can neutralize the challenge and promise of Jesus and Francis by elevating them into the realm of sainthood and perfection. Or we can ponder their way of living in the world and attempt to follow them, fools though we would be.

Francis didn’t want his friars to preach salvation as much as he wanted them to be salvation. He wanted them to model and mirror the life of Jesus in the world, with all of the vulnerability that would entail.

“Do not ask your children

to strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable,

but it is the way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder

and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting

tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry

when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure

in the touch of a hand.... See more