A Bird in the Hand

OLD SAYINGS FOR NEW DAYS

Sunday, October 17, 2021

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

            Today, and everyday, I don’t need to go hunting for the beautiful things in life, since I have countless treasures – ‘birds’ – in my hands at all times. Usually, I spend far too much time searching the future – ‘the bush’ – for possible pearls, when I always have an endlessly replenishing supply of wealth right here and now. Hunting is not necessary. All I have to do is open my eyes – my inner spirit – and I will be dumbfounded by the plentiful good fortune that is always with me. Truly, this can be a day of discovering rather than hunting.

SEARCHING FOR HIS SELF

Once upon a time 
a man hoped to find his "self". 
He looked in books, in clouds breaking up
above his house, in deep holes in his life 
where it may have fallen and been lost.  
He found thoughts and words about his 
separate, special self, but never the self,
never the solid something he could call
"me" and "I". What there was 
was something like a sky, something 
continuous and vast, but nothing separate, 
no entity called "him" that he could hold 
and help and care for. Finally, he simply 
studied this endless sky that streamed inside 
and all around him, and soon he found 
he could float in it, and that it was life, 
and that his small, separate self 
was gone for good. 

Our chalkboard poem for today …