Tonight we gather
round a lamp-lit table
laying out words and hearts,
words and hearts that tell
a particular story about
our lives together and,
how tomorrow morning,
that story continues as it has
every other day this summer:
from dawn through dusk,
putting on our kitchen robes,
stirring awake the pulse of practice.
to do such work, the cooking of life,
of our lives and all life so that both
the difficult and delightful
become digestible?
Mmmmm...delicious.
I'm holding my finger
against my lips and there's
no one around but us now and
I want to tell you a secret that everybody knows:
how the complications of the human heart are unknotted by
kneading bread, frying onions, cleaning sinks;
how our lives unfold into endless offering
and the wide world over cared for by
scrubbing carrots, paying attention,
by saying "yes."
Chris Lance, Austin Zen Center
I LOVE that poem so much.
ReplyDeleteIt's about being present in the moment, it's about cooking, it's about unwinding the labyrinthine mess of our own mental states. The phrase, "our lives unfold into endless offering," is so beautifully stated - our days and our worries being offered up as a kind of gift or sacrifice to the wide world... it makes everything you seem or have or do or are much more precious.