On the Horizon…

What is out on the horizon for you in this Season of Light and in the new year?

In quiet moments , as we await the arrival of beloved holiday traditions or anticipate turning the page to the fresh start of a new year, we have the choice to savor the waiting  or to rush towards our celebrations and the next new thing.

I am reminded of Jan Richardson’s wise invitation for the Advent season many are in the midst of honoring (or rushing by) depending on your faith tradition:

“So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder.
There will be time enough for running. For rushing.
For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait.
Something is on the horizon.”
―Jan Richardson, Night Visions

Jan’s Advent wisdom can be applied to any major transition you’re facing personally or the world is facing collectively. The gifts awaiting us on the new horizon can only be enhanced by pausing to wait for the signs, behold them with wonder, and then act on them with hope in our hearts. Look! There! “Something is on the horizon!”

May you be blessed with the patience to savor the dawning of new horizons and moments of quiet to sense with wonder the gifts they bring.

The Joy of Life…

“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

― Christopher McCandless

No One Stands Alone

Let our hearts touch far horizons.
Let our love know no borders,
Draw the circles wide until,
No one stands alone.

—Gordon Lightfoot

Everything is Waiting For You

After Derek Mahon

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

— David Whyte, River Flow: New & Selected Poems