Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
Excerpt from his books, To Bless the Space Between Us (US) /
Benedictus (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store
Co. Clare / Ireland - 2020
Photo: © Ann Cahill
Photo: © Ann Cahill
I saw this poem on Facebook earlier
this week.
It seemed appropriate for today and on
every day for who knows how long.
I woke up an hour late this
morning.
Even the extra hour of sleep could not erase the now-too-common early-morning shock that we are NOT living in a bad dream.
Even the extra hour of sleep could not erase the now-too-common early-morning shock that we are NOT living in a bad dream.
Seems like each morning, for a second
or two after waking, life seems normal.
Then, the brain kicks in with the
ominous reminder that this is all more real than any of us would ever choose it
to be.
And, so reminders like the poem above
can serve as a daily mantra, a hopeful one.
As far as Lovestead news today, Bill
can still say that it has snowed all through April----five days now.
Today my phone is reminding me that
we have a flight leaving Dublin in approximately an hour.
That flight takes us to Seattle,
where we’ll pick up our luggage and recheck it at the Alaska ticket desk.
Then, we’ll head to our gate and wait
to board. We’ll arrive in Spokane about
9:30 and drive home to Sandpoint, arriving before midnight---if we don’t stop
off at DICKS for hamburgers, shakes, fish and chips.
If we do that, we will surely arrive home
after midnight.
But wait----that’s the last remnant
of the big dream we had as a family.
A wake-up call says, we are living in
another bad dream, and today there’ll be no flights, no DICKS, no dropping into
bed, exhausted.
Yup, the last remnant of that family
dream will disappear from the phone probably within the next hour, as will the
reminder of the Alaska flight by day’s end.
With luck and hope, a dream deferred and even better when it comes true.
With luck and hope, a dream deferred and even better when it comes true.
We have even remarked in the last
week that we would have missed all this snow had we been in Ireland.
That thought reminds me that our
winter of 2019-20 has lasted a full six months.
Bill and I were in Ireland when it started back in late September and
October.
While enjoying dessert in the cafeteria
of the Irish National Stud on Oct. 10, we couldn’t believe our phones when
Facebook postings were noting that schools were closed because of snow.
Yup, the winter has been a long one. At least, it’s tolerable now, knowing that by
week’s end, we’ll be in the 60s.
Thoughts like that give us
reasons to be excited.
Plus, I have to admit that bright white snow blended with ever-greening grass creates some spectacular scenes.
About the only sight prettier in my mind are those black and white Collies and that little Aussie cavorting or standing proud against the green.
As it continues to grow and green up, they'll be create more stunning scenes, and we LOVE those moments.
The funniest moment yesterday: seeing my daughter-in-law Debbie's "story" on Facebook.
Twas her namesake dessert treat logo where during 14 days of quarantine "Little Debbie" morphs into "Big Debbie."
If you have a chance to find it somewhere on the Internet, you should enjoy a chuckle.
While I did some yard work and watched yet another news conference spewing out mixed and some very irresponsible messages about how we are supposed to keep flattening the curve with the virus, Bill was off on a drive to places he plans to feature in an upcoming Daily Bee article.
This article focuses on places with space where folks can still go to get outside, to exercise, to breathe fresh air and to enjoy the spring beauty of North Idaho.
Stay tuned.
And, so we soldier on, day by day, doing our best to avoid thinking about living in a bad dream.
It's tough, but if we can remember and practice Donohue's words about generosity,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
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