LINK LIST

A Sunlit Absence: "Because we so often derive our sense of who we are from our thoughts and feelings, we tend to habitually move through life reacting to them rather than simply experiencing them. The practice of stillness through a simple prayer creates a new habitus, an interior momentum that, in Laird's poetic phrase, gradually excavates the present moment, revealing over time the stillness that is within us all like a buried treasure."

Marriage is for Hopelessly Lonely People: "Marriage is not meant to be the place where our loneliness is taken away. It’s meant to be the place where we reveal our loneliness to another. It’s not the place we eradicate our loneliness; it’s the place we make it available to someone else. Marriage is the place we feel a little less alone in the world because we discover we’re not the only one feeling alone in the crowd. In marriage, we don’t become free from loneliness, we become free for loneliness. And the healing is in this: once you have made your loneliness available to your partner, you will no longer need to fix it. You will be able to touch it without fear and despair. You may feel hopeless to fix it, but filled with the hope that comes from being joined in it. And this is love. Real love is not adolescent romance made eternal. Real love is two souls, lonely by nature and nurture, caring enough for themselves and each other to make their loneliness tangible to the other."

The Best Way to Ruin the Best Moments: "Perhaps, as the world eases into its winter slumber, this season is reminding us to let go first so we can truly lose ourselves in the beauty. And I think there might be grace in the reminder—this season of autumnal color also reminds us the most beautiful things can give way to the most barren things without despair. Because we’re in orbit, and fresh life is only months away and all things will be made new. Perhaps this dying season is meant to ease the letting go, with the reminder that every death is followed by a resurrection. And every loss is pregnant with the seed of redemption."

Learning Beauty: "To see the flat land is partly about time. To see the mountains requires no effort. To see the desert, to see the horizon, and to let our mind wander in the space between, takes work and patience, and sitting still, and taking time. To see the flat land is partly about awareness, too. It is the awareness that to fill a space, we must have created that space. To see something in the near and middle view, we must have cleared the space, gone into the wilderness, spent time in the desert."

Roots & The Golden Mean:

For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
Though its roots grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant.

"It is the same with our souls. We cannot see all that is being worked out below the surface. The strength of what lies beneath is able to sustain, support, and give life to great things. When emotional storms come, deep-down strength is able to hold fast and prevent uprooting and permanent damage. When my relationships seem dry, weak, and lifeless, I hope for refreshment and the 'scent of water' to foster new growth."

Pleasure Dome: Modern Poetry Read by its Creators: T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Ogden Nas, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop.

Nathan Williams: Reading Log

Excerpt from "The Shepherd & The Dollmaker," a film by Beau Bouverat.

Le Voyage Créatif: Corfe castle, England