Take the used-up heart like a pebble
and throw it far out.

Soon there is nothing left.
Soon the last ripple exhausts itself
in the weeds.

Returning home, slice carrots, onions, celery.
Glaze them in oil before adding
the lentils, water, and herbs.

Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.
Begin again the story of your life.

I’ve told friends that, in a fire, the Moleskins would be the first (and perhaps only) non-living thing I would make sure I had in my arms on the way out the door. I keep them on our bookshelf, in random order, and reachable to the kids so they can pull them down whenever they want. And whenever they do, I think of that little red box of family pictures, and I’m reminded of just how valuable the simple act of putting something down can turn out to be.

—David Neibart, from “Documenting the Over-Documented”

—David Orr, from “What is education for?”

—Reverend James Martin, SJ, from this article

All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one—
not knowing even
that was what he did—
in the blowing
sounds in the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.

—Celia Watson Supel, from this blog entry

This contentment surprises me every time. Maybe I’m relieved that somebody else is in charge for a change; or maybe, between the battling bands of home and work, my bus strikes just the right note of white noise. It’s the only part of my day that’s completely predictable, when I’m one in a million and lost in a crowd, which is a delicious feeling for a mother of three. When the sun finally drops, and the dim overhead lights fail to illuminate my page, I glance out the window into the reflection of my own eyes. There you are, I think. Still chugging along.

—Elisabeth Egan

Quite naturally, we begin to see others more clearly as well. We may become aware of one friend’s creativity in the face of problems or start to turn to another for help with logistics. Instead of assuming a tersely worded email is a personal attack, we seek the meaning behind the note because we have observed that its sender is a man of few words. Instead of getting our knickers in a twist when a fellow committee member starts yet another argument, we can gently step back because we’ve learned she thrives on conflict. As we observe the people who fill our days, they will probably surprise us fairly regularly. After all, if we can surprise ourselves by rising to meet a challenge we would typically shy away from, doesn’t it make sense that an associate could just as easily surprise us? As this happens again and again, we begin to shed assumptions.

For many reasons, our assumptions about our family members are often the last to go. First off, I think these assumptions are the hardest for us to see no matter how aware and “evolved” we are. They are squarely in our blind spot. Secondly, we’re with our family a whole lot more than we’re with anyone else. Assumptions, in this case, are almost a practicality. They serve as a type of relationship short-hand that speeds things along. Thirdly, these assumptions can be a bit circular in nature. Because we know our children, our spouses, our siblings and our parents so intimately, our assumptions about them are often right. Our high rate of accuracy can actually validate our inclination to make more assumptions. And so it goes.

Sometimes it takes something mind-blowing like my son’s dramatic turn on stage this weekend to shake up our assumptions. These moments are gifts of clarity. But, even without a big, public production, if we keep our eyes open and continue to observe people as closely as we observe ourselves on our yoga mats, we can shed the blinders of our assumptions. When we do, quite often the people we love will astonish us.

—Amy Nobles Dolan, from this essay on Elephant Journal

—from the Mary the Queen bulletin on Assumption Sunday, 15 August 2010

—Sister Karol Jackowski, Ph.D., from this blog post on Whole Living