Sunday Best – September 21, 2025
David Whyte has observed, “Poetry is a language against which we have no defenses,” and Emily Dickinson defined it so: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” The best poems can reflect both of these qualities, and also make us feel like the whole world is conspiring to deliver comfort and connection.
Dear ones, may we bless our poets.
Bennacht
by John O’Donohue
For Josie, my mother
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
Sunday Best – September 14, 2025
The flight was a little delayed, fine.
The meeting prep was rushed, fine fine.
The news, oh the news. Big global news and small family news, whoo boy. But okay, fine fine fine.
Then I saw a new flower in the park and I had a perfect latte in my hand and I was able to visit with far-flung loved ones and when I scrolled through Netflix and the British Baking theme song started to play, well that was the last straw and I burst into tears, a whoosh of joy and relief flowing through my entire being.
I had not even known that I was holding my breath.
Dear ones,
let’s be gentle when we know deep down that it’s not really fine –
not all of it, anyway.
Let’s be grateful for the moments of ease
that help us catch our breath.
Sunday Best – September 7, 2025
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
– ralph waldo emerson
As we tilt into the fall season, it often seems the clock is ticking faster. There is the daily clock, reminding us of emails un-sent, and there is the monthly clock, reminding us of projects un-finished, and there is the annual clock, reminding us of opportunities un-seized. How can we possibly do all the things that seem to need doing?
The great and gratifying secret is, most of the things only seem to need doing. And the ones that are really important are never finished anyway – labors of ongoing love and commitment, both personal and professional. For these most devoted endeavors, we will never fully see the results of our engagement. It is all a giant leap of faith, knowing that the effort is worthy, even when the results lie way off in the cloudy distance.
Dear ones, may we trust in the acorns we plant,
hoping that unseen forests might follow.
Sunday Best – August 31, 2025
I was out just in time to catch the sunset the other day, the whole sky a big pink meringue that made me laugh out loud. By the time I’d sent a quick exclamatory text to some loved ones, not two minutes later, all was gray.
Dear ones, our days are sometimes filled with grays… the person who cuts us off on the Mass Pike, the grumpy neighbor, the delayed flight, the sore shoulders, the stock that goes down, the rabbit-stolen dahlias. Yet once in a while, the grey holds an unlit glow within.
Sometimes, just one sunbeam can turn the gray to glory.
Sunday Best – August 24, 2025
This season marks twenty years since David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” address was given at Kenyon College.
The talk starts with a parable where an old fish swims by two young fish and greets them by asking, “How’s the water?” One of the young fish turns to the other and says, “What the heck is water?”
In the following essay, Wallace defines the water. He concludes:
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
“This is water.”
“This is water.”
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.
Friends, I re-read this essay each year at about this time, because it is somehow always newly and sharply illuminating – often painfully so.
Dear ones, it is so hard to see the water in which we swim.
May we be aware.
May we be alive.
The terrific Farnam Street site offers links to both the audio and full text of This is Water, and here is the book link to a beautiful small volume of the speech.
Image: detail from Frederic William Burton’s “Hellelil and Hildebrand,” on view just a few hours each week to protect its fragile beauty.