WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Monday, August 16, 2021

SOFTEN

            If I am open to it its gift, life has a wonderful way of softening the seemingly ‘solid’ things I come into contact with. When my world seems rock-hard and hostile, just a few moments of quiet contemplation can reveal a universe of endless ease and peace, a cosmos that cushions rather than frightens. I so often fall into hours and days of struggling with supposedly solid enemies like privation and pain and uncertainty, but just a glimpse of the  boundless vastness of life – which includes ‘my’ part of it – can immediately alleviate the stiffness of everything, and then I feel again the softening that the truth does so well and so beautifully. Hardness then subsides into universal ease and rest, and the solidity of my so-called ‘problems’ dwindles down to the smoothness of clouds and sunlight. Today I hope to feel the cushions that life creates, moment by moment, as its wonderful way of allowing peacefulness to always prepare the way. 

SOFTENING
(Braelynn J., 52, Blessings, CT)

She’s sometimes softened 
just by being around roses, 
or by rising up in the morning 
under a merciful and trustworthy sky. 
She gets soft by giving showers 
of herself to friends and strangers,
as if she sprays you with kindness 
when she’s with you, 
as if something silky has been suspended around you
and promises to protect you forever. 
Braelynn’s softened by finding, 
over and over again, 
the lightness and buoyancy of life, 
even when hardness happens,
which only makes her tenderness 
softer and stronger than ever.