Humanly made beauty

From Jean Vanier:

How easy it is to fall into the illusion of a beautiful world when we have lost trust in our capacity to make of our broken world a place that can become more beautiful.

This beautiful park is humanly made and it gives joy to all who visit it

 Jean Vanier: Becoming Human, Paulist Press, NY, 1998

The preciousness of life

My nephew-in-law used this poem recently to remember the life of a friend who had recently died. It is called The Summer Day by Mary Oliver* and I think it is a  poem about our choice to live life or to let it slip through our fingers. Here is an excerpt:


        I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
        I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
        into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
        how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
        which is what I have been doing all day.
        Tell me, what else should I have done?
        Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
        Tell me, what is it you plan to do
        with your one wild and precious life?

* Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, Boston Mass. 1992

The right place...or not?

Henri Nouwen has some very wise and real things in his books. Here is something that makes a lot of sense to me:

There is not such a thing as the right place or the right job. I can be happy and unhappy in all situations. I am sure of it, because I have been. I have felt distraught and joyful in situations of abundance as well as poverty, in situations of popularity and anonymity, in situations of success and failure. The difference was never based on the situation itself, but always on my state of mind and heart. When I knew that I was walking with the Lord, I always felt happy and at peace. When I was entangled in my own complaints and emotional needs, I always felt restless and divided.*

*Henri Nouwen: Gracias; A Latin American Journal, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y., 1993