HOW JOY WORKS

You could not stop it
if you tried—
how this blessing
begins to sing
every time it sees
your face,
how it turns itself
in wonder
merely at the mention
of your name.

It is simply
how joy works,
going out to you
when you least expect,
running up to meet you
when you had not thought
to ask.

—Jan Richardson

 
 

. . . our task is both simple and extremely difficult. Our task is to remain patient and vigilant and to not lose heart — for we are the destination. We are the portals from which the idea explodes, forced forth by its yearning to arrive. We are the revelators, the living instruments through which the idea announces itself — the flourishing and the blooming — but we are also the waiting and the wondering and the worrying. We are all of these things . . . —Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files

 

On a whim, I pulled into our local library and parked the car. I’ve been homesick for the library. I walked around back, curious to see the state of the garden, the one that had supplied so many pounds of produce to the Food Bank. Left untended, the once bountiful and beautiful garden has gone wild. I am at once sad and hopeful.

 
“Inside every one of us is a garden, and every practitioner has to go back to their garden and take care of it. Maybe in the past, you left it untended for a long time. You should know exactly what is going on in your own garden, and try to put everything in order. Restore the beauty; restore the harmony in your garden. If it is well tended, many people will enjoy your garden. ”
— Thich Nhat Hanh