Curations: For a New Beginning
It may not be spring, but it is a season of new beginnings. On Monday, three of the four people in my house began a new school year - in third grade, in fifth grade, and in her ninth year of teaching at her school.
But it's not just a new school year for them. It's a new routine in our household (to bed earlier, and out of bed much earlier!). And many of us have our own new beginnings - new jobs or new positions, a new season of life with kids out of the house, a new life that is coming into our family, or a new way of life without a family member or loved one.
For all of these new beginnings, I pray priest and poet John O'Donohue's words will be a blessing for you.
- GJD
"For a New Beginning" by John O'Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
